From behind the scenes to center stage: Donna's Tschiffely's journey

On this episode of RKD Group: Thinkers podcast, we welcome Donna Tschiffely, Executive Director of the Direct Marketing Association of Washington (DMAW). Donna has spent decades shaping the nonprofit space, guiding some of the most influential fundraising and marketing initiatives through her leadership at the Bridge Conference, DMAW and beyond.

While often working behind the scenes, her impact on the nonprofit sector is undeniable. In this episode, Donna steps into the spotlight to share her journey, the evolution of industry collaboration, and why nonprofits must embrace community, innovation and an abundance mindset to thrive.  

She shares: 

• The Evolution of the Bridge Conference – How a small gathering of 600 people grew into one of the nonprofit sector’s most influential events, now aiming for 3,000 attendees. 

• Why Nonprofits Must Lean In, Not Pull Back – Lessons from a classic business story about why cutting back in uncertain times can do more harm than good. 

• The Power of Taking Risks – Why some of the biggest successes in the industry—Bridge, Giving Tuesday, and others—came from bold decisions and a willingness to try new things. 

• Behind the Scenes of Event Planning – From celebrity encounters to unexpected fires, Donna shares the moments that tested her resilience and how preparation is key to overcoming challenges. 

• A Culture of Collaboration – How the nonprofit sector’s willingness to share knowledge and resources makes it unique and why that spirit of abundance is critical for the future. 

Show chapters

• 00:00 Introduction: Stepping into the Spotlight 
• 01:22 The Evolution of the Bridge Conference 
• 05:10 The Importance of Collaboration in Nonprofits 
• 09:41 Memorable Moments from Bridge Conference 
• 12:48 Community and Collaboration in the Nonprofit Sector 
• 14:00 Lessons from Industry Icons 
• 16:25 Behind the Scenes: Event Planning Challenges 
• 20:54 The Role of DMAW in Nonprofit Education 
• 23:39 Personal Insights and Hobbies 

Meet our guest

Transcript

Justin McCord 

So, Donna, I think of you so often as being at the back of the room or at the side of the room, headphones, headset on, helping navigate the production of an event and not being front and center. How do you feel about today, in this conversation, where you are the front and center. 

Donna  

A nervous wreck. Are you kidding? 

Ronnie Richard  

You? 

Donna 

I'm supposed to be at the tech table, headset on, saying, “Get ready, cue video, go video, cue speaker, go speaker.” This is not my natural habitat. 

Justin McCord 

Yeah. Yeah. Well, hopefully we do justice by your time in service to the nonprofit space as a part of the conversation. That's our goal for this. So, I want to start with the Bridge Conference. So, Bridge Conference is now in its 20th year. Take us back to your start with Bridge and, like, how it came about, and when did you feel like it could be, it could be something? 

Donna  

It's actually kind of an interesting story. And it goes back … the first Bridge Conference, which I was not involved in, was in 2006. But at the time, the Association of Fundraising Professionals, Washington, DC chapter, and the Direct Marketing Association of Washington, their executive committees and their boards had come together and said, look, both of our events are kind of annual events and are kind of declining. We know we want to serve this market. We know that we've got to break down silos between marketing and fundraisers, the traditional fundraisers. So why don't we put our heads together, put our events together, and have what they ultimately called the Bridge to Integrated Marketing and Fundraising.  

In 2007, I came on board, and it was still a raw conference. There was still some things that we had to work out, and we were still banging through it, but the potential was so huge that everybody was really willing to dig in and make it happen. I mean, they could, everybody could see the potential of this.  

And I say everybody. If I fast forward to the five-year anniversary, I was talking to a leader in the industry at the time, and Bridge had grown. We moved out of the Washington Hilton. We were at the Gaylord Hotel. Every year we were growing. The word was catching on. And I was told, Donna, we didn't think you would last two years. We didn't think you'd be able to make the Bridge Conference go. And this was on our fifth year, and now we're celebrating 20 years.  

So, you know, it takes a team, it takes a huge commitment of volunteers, but I'm gonna kind of fast forward to today with it a little bit because now more than ever the Bridge Conference is needed. With everything that is happening out there, it's … nonprofits more than ever need to be collaborating, coming together, finding out what each other is doing, seeing what are some best practices, seeing what are some practices that we've got to abandon and start over, seeing what new messaging can be put out there, not only to the donors, but to the public at large about how important nonprofits are.  

And so, while last year we hit a record number of 2,700, we're shooting for 3,000 this year for the Bridge Conference. And the first Bridge Conference was 600 people. So we've grown from 600 to having a very big, audacious goal of hitting 3,000 this year. But again, now more than ever, we need to provide this education for nonprofits to help them be able to further their mission.  

So that's the Bridge Conference. And I'd love to talk to those people that didn't think I'd make it two years because here I am sitting. 

Justin McCord 

Yeah. We actually have them. Ronnie, why don't you let them in? Let's be the Maury Povich version of … you know, it's so interesting, like, for such a time as this, yes. I was at a different event recently, and I heard an extremely well-respected leader in the space was asked by a nonprofit leader … 

Ronnie Richard 

But we got a surprise. 

Donna 

This is your life! Exactly! 

Justin McCord  

 … What are you going to do to help us unlock this tremendous potential around X, Y and Z? And that leader respectfully and artfully said, that's up to you. The mindset of abundance, not scarcity, and so many of the good things that this sector has done bubble up from community not from one person or one voice, right? So, Bridge Conference being a great example, TNPA being a great example of something that came from community. Giving Tuesday, as both an entity and a day, being something that came from community. When you have that abundance mindset, you can come up with those things. You can launch those things, and you know, the Bridge Conference, for me, represents a space that is all about abundance and opportunity. 

Donna 

And it really is. There's an old story in advertising about a hot dog salesman. An economist, a big authority or whatever, told this hot dog salesman―he had a hot dog stand on the side of the road―that, hey, it's a recession. You've got to cut your costs and change how you do this. It's a recession. 

And so this poor hot dog salesman, who had provided quality hot dogs, bought cheaper buns, cheaper hot dogs, pulled back on signage, and then all of a sudden he's out of business. Why did that happen? It wasn't because of the recession. He took, made, all the wrong decisions about it. He lowered his quantity. He lowered his quality. He pulled back his marketing. He pulled back his advertising. He imploded.  

And sometimes with nonprofits, when exterior things, outside factors, happen, they suck in. And it's the absolute opposite of what they should be doing. They should be going out with that branding, even if they're not making the ask; getting the word out about the good they do because without nonprofits, Justin, and I know you've heard me say this and I apologize for you having to hear it again, but our country would come to its knees. There is no other service, no other organization that can serve what nonprofits do, and we've got to protect them. But we can only do so much. Each individual nonprofit has to step up and do it as well. 

Ronnie Richard 

I love that story, Donna, for two reasons. One, I just had a hot dog for lunch right before this. And it was out of abundance, I'll say that. But secondly, yeah, the message is so true. In times of uncertainty, there's a hesitation. It's how do we push past that hesitation and how do we continue … 

Donna 

I hope it was a good one, Ronnie, I really do. 

Ronnie Richard 

… to do what we were doing, but also, sometimes, like you said, do more, get that word out there. And that's another important thing about Bridge, that it's there for everyone to share these ideas. As you think back across these 20 years, or maybe 19 because you said you weren't there for the first one, what are some memories that pop up or some of your favorite memories about Bridge? 

Donna 

My god, to tell you, the first one was when we hit a thousand people in 2010, and that was just like, yowl, that was fantastic, and then some of our keynotes have just been amazing, from those in the industry like, my god, I can see him, Tony Elischer, who has keynoted for us a couple of times. What an icon. Obviously, he's no longer with us, but just a tremendous person. Jeff Peters, Bernie Ross, Alan Clayton, some of the people in the industry that have just been icons and have done amazing work and have led so much. 

So it's been a real treasure for me to get to be able to work and get to know these people and these professionals and just kind of walk alongside them and hear some of their thoughts. Sometimes they can be scary, but you know, but it's still … so that's been exciting. Having an exhibit hall that we sell out―and we've sold out the last 10 years or so, pre-COVID, I'm gonna ... that COVID timeframe just kind of gets thrown out the window―that's exciting.  

So I guess, seeing―one of the fun things for me, and it kind of talks to what we've just been saying, is the community. Man, when you get together, and you haven't seen anybody, or seen somebody, I should say, a person for a year or the year before, and seeing them at Bridge, and the excitement is so high, that just generates more excitement and more energy. And you kind of ride that high for several days. That's the fun part for me, Ronnie, I have to tell you, just the community of it all. Like Justin said, getting together and seeing these people. 

Justin McCord 

It is a bit of a reunion, right? The ... Just the ... And the return post-pandemic, you know, in ‘22, like, being together in person. The energy that year was just ... It was thick. 

Donna  

My god, it was thick. It really was sick. People could not wait to get together. And I have to tell you, in my career, I wish I could say it was only 19, 20 years, but I started in the nonprofit association sector in 1973. And I was with a medical organization at the time. And I've worked medical, I've worked the computer side, I've worked the publishing side. I've had an incredibly blessed career. The nonprofit sector is one of the rare industries that is willing to share and give anything away. I mean, the community and the collaboration that happens in this industry, you don't find in the other businesses; you just don't. 

And so, that gives it an extra edge, if you will, an extra wow, if you will, that people just kind of are attracted to and they just love to be a part of. 

Justin McCord  

Yeah. I want to transition to build off of what you just shared and think about both your time broadly in the association management space and specifically with DMAW, TNPA and Bridge. Like the … you have had a unique opportunity that I would say maybe no one else in the history of this sector has had to fly so close to so many leaders for as long as you have. And when you think about your proximity to and working alongside and working with so many industry icons, like, what, what lessons have you taken away from that and/or how has that shaped how you approach your work with DMAW etc.? 

Donna 

I know this might sound funny, but the biggest thing, and we don't always have the opportunity to do it or the resources, but if I learned anything from all of these people, it's you've got to take risks. You've got to take risks. You've got to try things. You've got to do different things. And that's hard for people to do. It's hard because they'll, you know, do we have the money? Do we have the human resources? Do we have the bandwidth? How do we take the risks? And it's so easy for all of us, and I'm guilty of it as well, you get in the pattern, and you just keep doing what you do because you know it, and it gets you through it. But it's the risk, it's the trial and error, that makes us grow.  

Bridge was a risk when people took it, when the two organizations did it. And even when they hired me, it was a risk. I was unknown to them. So it's, it's, you've got to take the risk. You've got to. 

Justin McCord  

Lesson. 

Ronnie Richard  

Definitely. Donna, I want to ask about, you've planned I don't know how many events over the years and been involved in them. And we know, certainly, as well that when you're planning an event, it may look wonderful and smooth on the surface, but there's always stuff happening behind the scenes. Like that analogy of the duck, you know, the duck on the surface and paddling furiously. What … do you have any stories of … 

Donna  

Good luck. 

Ronnie Richard  

… scary moments or the thing almost went completely wrong, and just in time we got it in there. 

Donna  

My god, I've probably forgotten more scary moments than I can remember. Again, I've had a blessed career, Ronnie, and I've been able to work with some amazing celebrities, and entertainers and politicians, from Tony Bennett, and Wayne Newton, and Randy Owen and Keith Urban, and I mean, just more celebrities, and … 

Ronnie Richard  

Hahaha 

Donna 

… the politicians, from Ted Kennedy, and the King of Jordan, and congressmen, and senators and just blessed. But the scary moments come, my gosh. Let's see, we've had moments with presidents and having lockdowns. We've had moments with a keynote saying the day before he's supposed to appear, he’d decided not to fly out. We've had fires―I've been in seven hotel fires. 

Justin McCord  

That's not a figurative comment, by the way. That's not a figurative stat. 

Donna  

So, that is not. That is ... 

Justin McCord  

It's far more when we think figuratively. 

Donna 

Yes, exactly. It is, is evacuate now. Yeah. So, Ronnie, there, it's one of the things that I tell my staff is that we always have to plan for what we can so that when we walk into that venue, if something hits us, we know what our baseline is. If we're trying to still do things that we should have done before we walked in the door, then that's gonna make resolution that much more difficult. So, walking in the door, we plan and do everything we possibly can because, again, we never know what the potential is, and we never know what's gonna hit us.  

So yeah, there have been scary moments, scary. Some of them I do intentionally try to forget. 

Justin McCord 

I mean, even the minor ones, Donna, in 2023, as one of your two co-chairs, there were a couple of times during the event where there was something that was happening, and I tried to just check in and stay connected to you throughout the days there. And you would turn to me and say, this and this and this are happening. And I tend to roll with the punches pretty well, but I was caught off guard at some of the things that happened behind the scenes that are little, you know, figurative fires then, but your response was always, and we’ve got it. Like, it's all good, we’ve got it. And so, it's remarkable how you and the incredible team around you have persistently navigated those things. 

Donna 

Thank you. One of the things we try to do is not panic. I mean, even with hotel fires, one fire―I won't name the hotel, in the DC area, as a matter of fact―had just seated 1,100 people for a dinner. Wait staff was coming out with the salads, and the fire alarms go off. The only way I could get everybody's attention was to stand in the middle of a table and say, please stay calm, and this is what you do. It's the staying calm is very, very, very important. And always focus on not to blame, but resolution, resolution first; then we'll figure out what we need to do so that it doesn't happen again later, but resolution always first. 

Justin McCord 

So your Bridge hat is just one of the hats that you wear in the sector. And you've also, for a number of years, served as the executive director of DMAW. And just reflect for us a little bit about like, wearing that hat and, certainly, the seasons of DMAW that have the chapters that have been written and how you're thinking about this next chapter of DMAW. 

Donna 

I have to tell you, I love DMAW. First, I think they have a great mission in educating nonprofits, and fundraisers and direct-response marketers. And when I first started with them, they were still kind of straddling that world between the for-profit world and the nonprofit world.  

You know, businesses have changed. The internet changed everything, and so DMAW, as it continued to evolve, it changed a lot. It used to be all about the for-profit sector, and we had banks, and credit cards and car dealers as our members, and you know, they were big mailers at the time, but once the internet started to change the way people were doing business, it changed the way marketing was happening. 

So by the time I came on the scene, ironically, the same year that I started working on Bridge, in 2007, DMAW was again straddling those two fields, and we couldn't seem to get that grounding, if you will, back in that for-profit world. And we were attracting more and more of the nonprofit sector. So we went that direction. It's one of those things where the market's never wrong. That's the way the market was taking us, and so that's the way we went.  

And it's been a bit of an evolution because it was, you know, when I first started with them, we didn't have monthly lunches, we didn't have regular programming, there was a lot of change, if you will. We were trying to figure it all out with them. I was trying to figure it all out with them. But we finally got on a good track, and every year we've made changes; every year it's evolved a little bit differently. We put that stake a little deeper into the ground of what we want to do, and the mission and this sector we want to serve.  

And of course, as you know, we’re now a 100% nonprofit sector. It's been an interesting evolution and an interesting ride. Watching it, watching DMAW grow as the, our, market has changed has been really fun and exciting because there's, I think, there's so much more for us to do out there. I think we have got more opportunity than we possibly can even imagine right now. So it's been great. It's been great. 

Ronnie Richard  

It's been great for the sector too. I mean, the work DMAW does is just fantastic, yeah. When you're not busy with DMAW, planning Bridge, other events, you keep yourself pretty busy, but what do you do during your downtime? Do you have hobbies? you have what? 

Donna  

Thank you, Ron. Ha. I have a husband and a dog. And the thing that I like to do most, and I'm afraid Justin can even testify a little bit to this, is I love to bake. So when I get an opportunity to bake, I'm in the kitchen baking cakes, and pies and whatever I can get my hands on to throw some eggs in and flour and let's see what comes out. 

Justin McCord 

I was curious if Cheesecake was gonna make an appearance as a part of our conversation, you know, or some butternut squash soup, right? 

Donna 

Yes. Butternut squash soup or cheesecake. Yes. Yes, we can take this on the road. Yes, I love my butternut squash soup. Love to make my soups. My tomato basil soup. Yeah. Yeah. And … go ahead. 

Ronnie Richard  

We need a follow-up roadshow, I believe. 

Justin McCord  

Ronnie, there's an annual DMAW board retreat that has historically been held at Donna's house. And so, she has an incredible space that can accommodate the full board in terms of planning, and stretching out and whiteboards, et cetera, et cetera. She also helps provide food for a good portion of the time together, and this year, I came upstairs from the meeting space, and I came around the corner, and Donna was in like the full chef's coat. Not just apron, like, just like, it was the most official looking … I was like, it like had the pin in the pocket, and yeah, she wore it well. 

Ronnie Richard  

Wow. 

Donna  

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I have, I get a lot of fun out of that. I love to entertain. 

Justin McCord 

Yeah, well, Donna, we really appreciate you making time to peel back a little bit of your story for us and for the ongoing work that you do with all the various hats and aprons that you wear on behalf of the sector. That abundance mindset is important for us to keep fostering, and we love the way that you do it through the work that you do. 

Donna  

Well, thank you, thank you. I say that language shapes our reality, which it does, but our actions tell people who we are. And so I always want to be able, when I do something, that it's meaningful to me and it's my authentic self. So thank you, Justin. 

Justin McCord  

I don't know if there's anywhere to go from that. Like, that was such a perfect run. You're gonna have to cut it after that, after she finished there. Yeah, that's the perfect landing spot. Awesome. Okay, cool. We did it. 

Donna 

Yeah? You okay with that? 

Justin McCord 

Yeah, are you okay with it? It's your story. Okay, good. 

Donna 

I'm okay. Nope, if I'm okay.