Before helping to found Achieve, CEO Derrick Feldmann assembled a list of accomplishments that reads like a survey course in nonprofit management.
He helped to raise millions of dollars and ran point on sponsorships that netted more in in-kind and cash support. He attracted major grants, established an endowment, formed key partnerships and used his expertise to aid nonprofit organizations around the world in their fundraising and management. He led nonprofits into online development and giving, and participated in the successful merger of two organizations.
Perhaps most important, as a nonprofit veteran who began his career on the front lines, he learned firsthand how organizational excellence leads to increased front-line impact.
The front lines that first drew Derrick into philanthropy were at Southeast Missouri State, where he participated in programs combating huger and homelessness. He quickly discovered a passion for service, and his charitable efforts helped him earn Southeast Missouri State’s “Man of the Year” title. It also attracted the attention of the university’s president, who encouraged the criminal justice major to consider a career in philanthropy.
Derrick followed that advice, beginning his career in the sector while also pursuing his Master’s Degree in Philanthropic Studies from Indiana University’s Center on Philanthropy, where he was a Hearst Fellow. In 2001, he joined Learning to Give, an organization focused on K-12 philanthropy education and service learning, leading the organization’s external and fundraising operations and helping to guide its merger with THE LEAGUE in 2005. Immediately before joining Achieve, Derrick was responsible for all major development programs at THE LEAGUE, including fundraising, consulting and program oversight.
Among his top achievements are working with senior leadership to secure a $6 million gift to Learning to Give, negotiating an in-kind TV ad campaign valued at $1 million, developing sponsorships with organizations such as Cartoon Network and JetBlue, managing affiliates in five markets and arranging for the Secretary of Education to attend a program launch. He is also proud to note that he oversaw a 200 percent increase in fundraising and was a member of a team that succeeded in generating a 10-fold increase in the number of people downloading content from Learning to Give’s Web site. When he left THE LEAGUE, some 70 percent of its giving was online, and the budget for the Learning to Give component had quadrupled since his first days there.
