In this episode of “RKD Group: Thinkers,” we sit down with Mike Esposito—fundraiser, consultant, coach, CFRE, and deeply engaged advocate for nonprofit professionals. Mike shares how a mix of chance encounters, community involvement, thoughtful mentors, and one pivotal leap of faith shaped both his career and his philosophy of service.
Mike’s journey into the sector didn’t begin with a master plan. It began with a spontaneous fundraising challenge in college that sparked something deeper: a curiosity for the science behind human generosity and the systems that drive people to give. Over the next decade, that curiosity evolved into a career rooted in relationships, leadership, and empowerment.
Today, he's the founder and lead fundraising strategist of Mike Esposito Fundraising, a consultancy that helps social service and community-focused nonprofits grow individual giving and build sustainable donor revenue. A CFRE-certified strategist and coach, Mike partners with executive directors and fundraising leads to strengthen stewardship, clarify donor strategy, and create systems that make donor engagement consistent and manageable. His work includes individual giving strategy, donor communications, stewardship, portfolio development, and board coaching, helping nonprofits build practical fundraising programs that last. He also gives back to the sector through AFP New York, Nonprofit Hive, and his mentorship of emerging leaders.
What stands out most about Mike is his willingness to map his course, surround himself with community, trust his instincts, and push others to grow.
In this conversation, Mike reflects on how early experiences shaped him, why he took the leap into consulting, and how fundraisers can navigate the uncertainty of the philanthropic landscape ahead.
He shares:
Justin McCord (00:04.899)
Welcome to the RKD Group Thinkers podcast. I'm your host Justin McCord. With me is Ronnie Richard. Ronnie taunted me. I did. You did. You taunted me. You taunted me before we hit record with this guest and kind of, you know, I'm okay with it. I'm okay. But you kind of took a shot at, you know, my cold opens and I ran with it and we received
Maybe the one of the biggest blessings out of a cold open that I can remember. Tell us about our guest and a little bit of what folks should expect from this combo. Yeah, so yeah, I was trying to throw you a cold open before the cold open to keep you on your toes. So very inception of you. Yeah, yeah, getting deep into the layers. So our guest today is Mike Esposito. Mike is he's the.
founder of his own fundraising firm in New York. It's an independent consultancy. work, works with nonprofits, but he's got a long background working at nonprofits, working at other firms with nonprofits. he's CFRE certified. He's an also an active member of the nonprofit sector. So he's, he gets heavily involved, working with AFP and with nonprofit hive. So, not only is
is Mike giving back to his clients, but giving back to the whole nonprofit sector. And I think as we started talking to him, what stood out to me is that he's, Mike's a very, very deliberate person, it seems like, and I just meeting him, but he really kind of sets a course and plots, you know, the directions of exactly how he's going to get there to a point. And, and, and then really draws out a map. Yeah.
He does. Yeah. Let's see. Not quite in the Goonies realm, but maybe. Maybe. There could be treasure as a part of this conversation. So this is a beautiful tee up as to what folks can expect. And here's the thing that I'll say is that, Ronnie, we have had the opportunity to talk to many leaders over the years now that we've been doing this thing.
Justin McCord (02:27.435)
I really love that a part of this conversation that it's with someone that has been tied in explicitly to the work of like emerging leaders and someone that is that is growing their presence and their thought leadership influence and doing it in a way that is exceptionally thoughtful for for so much of the nonprofit space in the New York community and
and elsewhere. So here to captain the ship and read the stars. Set the course. Yeah, here to set the course. Is Captain Mike.
keeping that in the captain part really made me get gold. Captain Mike Esposito, I'm calling that now Captain Mike Esposito Mike Esposito on the Arcade Group Thinkers podcast. you go. Mike Ronnie warned you that I typically open with, as he said, an off the wall question. Like that's that's the way they phrased it. And I don't know. I don't know if I should be offended.
by the idea that my questions are off the wall or not? I think you should be. Let's start off spicy here. OK. Mike, here's where I want to start. I don't know. Maybe it's not as spicy as Ronnie was anticipating. Talk to me about maps. Like speaking of things off the wall, you got a big honking map there behind you. Tell us what that tells us about Mike. Yeah, so that's.
It's actually funny, my brother-in-law who lives in Syracuse was visiting my apartment in Brooklyn and found this map on the side of the road and was like, this will look great in your living room. And it's like 150 year old map of New York City. And it's like a national geographic map from, it's got to be like 1850 or 1860 and framed and all in perfect condition.
Mike Esposito (04:46.81)
And he's like, this is going to be in your living room now. I was like, OK, just hung it the next day. And that's that's the map behind me. What was that doing on the side of the road? So I live in a neighborhood in Brooklyn where if people don't want something, they just put it like outside of their their house and you just come take it if you want it, leave it if you don't. And so it's kind of a cool thing that people do. They it's like a form of recycling, I guess. Yeah. Right.
It's in community and like sharing and. That's fascinating though. Well, there's a couple of things like. First of all, the the goal of your brother to just proclaim this is what you will have on your wall. I yeah, yeah, it's like it's like you're having this is yours now. You know you have to hang this up. That's incredible. That's so cool. So alright, so let's let's go back to the beginning.
and the launch of your career because there are so many early roles that you had, you know, a decade plus ago that were directly into the nonprofit space. What brought you into this sector? What was it that was the magnetism or pull? Yeah, that's a great question. I think for me, it was, you know, the first fundraiser that I was involved in, and this is probably going back around 13 years ago.
And it's actually a funny story because I was fundraising for an organization called the Be Positive Foundation. are you familiar with them? Not, I'm not. They're a pediatric cancer research foundation. so they had come to my school at the time, Fordham, and they were getting students involved in fundraising. And a friend of mine and I, we were
trying to get our fellow students involved in the fundraiser. And we weren't really raising that much money, $10 here, $15 there. Kind of hard to get college students to donate. They don't really have the great budgets for these types of things. But we decided to create an initiative where if we were able to raise $6,000, the two of us would shave our heads.
Mike Esposito (07:13.025)
And we were amazed at how quickly people were calling up their parents, their friends. And I think we got over 150 donations in like two days and easily surpassed 6,000. And then that turned into an event where our heads were shaved publicly. And it was great for the cause, but that was probably the first fundraising initiative that I got involved in.
And it was the first and the last that I where I volunteered to shave my head, but mainly because of my wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, was like, yeah, you don't really look great. Well, if you need to stand in in future circumstances, you you line it up on a Sunday, Tuesday or Thursday, and I can be your guy for sure. You're in for it. I'm in for it. Yeah. So what was it about that?
Seeing that shift of apathy towards your offer to excitement and rally around the offer, what was it about that that did something for you? Yeah, so I think for me, a lot of what attracted me to the fundraising of it was actually more about how it organized and systematized the
the efforts were for the peer-to-peer element of the fundraising. And almost like the... Everyone always talks about the art and the science of fundraising. It was like the science part of it that was fascinating to me in that moment and what drew me to my first full-time fundraising role later on. But it was definitely great to see...
people go from not really caring about something to, want to be involved in this and I want to get people that can donate, even if it's not from my bank account or my wallet, make this happen. So that was pretty cool.
Ronnie richard (09:23.116)
At what point in your career, Mike, did you start getting involved with the, I guess call it the larger nonprofit community? Cause you're, heavily involved in AFP. Um, you're involved in the nonprofit hive as well. At what point did you feel like you needed to pour back into the sector at large? Yeah, I would say I started to get really involved about four or five years ago. And it was at a point where.
I was working for an organization called Echoing Green. And we were working with a consulting agency at the time. And I think I said something to one of the consultants like, how do I get more involved? I want to learn more. I want to grow more. he said, oh, you got to check out AFP, this New York City chapter. And I got really involved with the emerging leaders group.
And then from there, I started getting involved with sponsorships for fundraising day. And then I got into their mentorship group and I started to mentor fundraisers and really just kind of poured myself into that volunteer led organization. The Hive too has been really great being able to connect with, you know, nonprofit leaders across the globe virtually. It's just such a great community.
And I feel like I'm always talking about the hive. But they're both wonderful communities. look at AFP as more in-person and the hive as more virtual, but also love seeing some of those virtual hive connections turn into in-person connections as well, in-person networking. Yeah, we love Tasha and what she's built and think it fills a, let's say a B-shaped hole that
exists in the sector. need those side to side connections and those sorts of things. I want to peel back on the idea of your time in the Emerging Leaders Group with AFP New York and
Justin McCord (11:35.423)
Who were some of the folks that poured into you during that time and that helped stoke some of that fire that then translated into you going deeper with Fundraising Day, working on the sponsorship team, et cetera?
Mike Esposito (11:53.927)
Yeah, I'd say there were a couple of people. know, one in particular was another person that works in emerging leaders and is on the board of AFPs New York City chapter now, Brentley Winstead. He's definitely been a great support system for me over the years. And we were actually co-chairs of the emerging leaders committee a few years back. You know, he's someone who is an incredible fundraiser. He's so dedicated to the AFP chapter.
and he's, you know, always looking out for others and trying to provide support with them and their careers. And then I'd say another person is, Adrian Ogle. He's, you know, someone that I met through Echoing Green. when I started there, he was the deputy director of events and now he's at the Ford foundation. He's the global head of events there. And he is someone who really encouraged me to.
and coached me to eventually start my consulting agency where I'm at today. And was one of the people that was saying to me, you you should really, you should really go through with this. You should follow through and you know, you, and I'm super grateful for both of them. So, so you started your consulting practice about a year ago, right? And it was about towards the end of 2024. You'd spent time at nonprofits. You'd spent time at, you know,
firms that work with nonprofits, what was it exactly that made you take that leap and say, think I can do this on my own and I think I want to do this on my own? Yeah, spill the tea on that conversation with Adrian. Yeah, I mean, for me, that conversation with Adrian, I felt like had everything lined up. I knew that I wanted to do it. I knew how I wanted to do it.
It was just that little piece of confidence of actually going through with it and knocking the dominoes over, I guess, where I was like, is this too risky? Is this going to work? What if this doesn't work? And he said something to me like, well, what if it doesn't work? What's the worst thing that can happen? And that made me think about it a lot differently. Like, OK, I guess it's not the end of the world if this doesn't work out. Do something else.
Mike Esposito (14:21.564)
Yeah, that's kind of how that happened. think why I wanted to try it out on my own, I felt like I had a lot of ideas from how I want to work with organizations, how I wanted to market myself, how I wanted to do things a little bit differently that when I worked for a consulting firm,
I could do those things, but it was always, okay, you put in an idea and then there's this approval process and then maybe three weeks go by and then it goes through. I just wanted to try things out on my own. that's kind of why I wanted to do it. wanted to work with a smaller number of organizations on a deeper level. And I really wanted to try out coaching because I had done some coaching on the side through Common Future. And I wanted to try that out in a bigger way with...
organizations of all different sizes. I think the one of the biggest challenges that leaders within our sector face, regardless of if you're on the nonprofit side, if you're on the part of the for-profit ecosystem that supports nonprofits, taking a leap is really hard for leaders and
somewhere in there with your conversation with Adrian and or, you know, your, your own gumption, there was a leap that you had to take now a year after taking that leap. How do you reflect back on that leap itself? And what are some of the things that you've learned, about the idea of taking a leap in that year's time?
Yeah, in reflecting on it, I feel like it was such an important point. I didn't realize at the time, when we were at a restaurant, I didn't realize how important that moment was. It just kind of felt like another conversation because I had been having a lot of conversations with people, but none that I felt like was that much of a, I guess, deciding point for me.
Mike Esposito (16:50.122)
I think that in reflecting on it, it was important for me to have a lot of conversations with my family members, with my friends, coaches and mentors like Adrian and Brentley. I think I must have had at least between like eight and probably 12 different conversations like that where I was kind of bouncing ideas, do you think I should do this? And with him, that one was just such a pivotal point for me because it was when I was like, okay.
I'm going through with this. And I guess in the lessons learned since then, think it's, know, trusting your instincts, because I knew all along that I wanted to do this. I felt like I just needed that sense of validation, you know, from people that had been in the fields longer than me and had, you know, just
more experience from the for-profit and the nonprofit side of things. But I guess the lesson is to trust your instincts and to trust your gut when you feel like you know what the next step is.
Ronnie Richard (18:02.218)
Did anybody say no? You shouldn't do it. Yeah. Yeah, there were definitely a few people that said no. And there were people that said no to me after I already started it. And that was kind of like, ooh, that kind of hurts. But you shouldn't have done that. Like, oh, I already invested a ton of money into this thing. But I think what was interesting for me is
talking to my dad about it because for the longest time he would say to me, you really got to think about this. You got to make sure you're ready. And then one day I was talking to him and he was like, I think you're ready. And I was like, whoa, who am I talking to here? You know? So that was kind of interesting to kind of see the evolution of having some of these conversations for a while with people. And then eventually they're like, yeah, like, you know what you're talking about. You should do this. You should try this. I believe in you. Yeah.
Boy, and that goes a long way, right? Just whenever you have someone communicate that they believe in you and that they see that in you, that can help you reaffirm a decision. So I'm curious now, do you think about your role within the sector, and what way do you think about it differently now as both a consultant and a coach?
versus when we met when you were at the Waterkeeper Alliance. How do you think about the part that you play in this broader story that we get to be a part of?
Mike Esposito (19:45.072)
Yeah, I think about...
I feel like my role is definitely a lot larger. I think that...
I have had just a lot of great conversations, even if they're not tied to coaching engagements or consulting engagements, but just conversations with nonprofit leaders, fundraisers, executive directors, CEOs about the troubles that they're dealing with right now in light of federal cuts to funding and increased competition for institutional dollars.
and everything that's going on in the philanthropic world. And I just feel a lot more confident in myself and the advice that I can share with them from working with close to probably close to 80 or 100 organizations over the last however many years, being able to speak to different challenges that these organizations have faced and different strategies that I've helped them with.
so I definitely feel like I play a much bigger role in the space and hope that, you know, every conversation from, you know, a 30 minute chat through the hive to, you know, a six or 12 month engagement with an organization is, is helpful for them in the big scheme of things.
Ronnie Richard (21:19.795)
You mentioned sort of this changing face of fundraising and the role you're playing in it. I want to call out a couple of weeks ago, maybe three, four, I'm not quite sure. You posted on LinkedIn about Billie Eilish. And you knew that you were going to bring this up. Like you weren't going to get out of this conversation without talking about Billie Eilish. So your point was that Billie Eilish
the musician for those who may not be familiar. I mean, she's pretty well known, but you know, maybe some pockets who don't. She made a donation, but also made a call for accountability among billionaires. And in the same week, you noted that Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan talked about shifting their philanthropy towards AI driven health innovation and share with us a little bit of your perspective on, on what you were talking about in that.
context? Yeah, so I think, you know, sometimes with, with LinkedIn, I guess to, I guess to rewind a bit with LinkedIn, with LinkedIn posting, you know, I kind of felt like when I started my fundraising career, whenever I'd go on to LinkedIn, or whenever I try to find, you know, thought leadership pieces on fundraising, it was always the same, you know, the same thing.
It was a lot of major gifts best practices and how to set how to send an end of year appeal. I just wanted to try to find ways to make fundraising and philanthropy a little bit more interesting by trying to tie it to pop culture, tie it to sports, tie it to things that people want to talk about. for me with LinkedIn, I try to post regularly and try to tie fundraising and philanthropy topics to
things that are going on in the world. And so a few weeks ago, was Billie Eilish's donation that she made to make, I think it was $11 million to a number of causes and calling out billionaires to open their wallets and
Mike Esposito (23:35.803)
What I was really looking for in that post was just to get people talking and thinking about philanthropy and thinking about how they speak about their work and how they speak, how they use their call, you know, how they, you know, make a call to action. and people went in all different directions with it. I didn't expect the post to kind of blow up like that.
But there were some people who said harsh things like, jeez, I don't even know who you are and you're kind of like coming at me. But yeah, I mean, the point that I was trying to make was more around, let's talk about these things. What are your thoughts on how this relates to fundraising, how this relates to philanthropy, how this relates to ultra high net worth individuals that do have the capacity to make a big change in the world?
people started pulling in different insights and different articles and dissecting it in different ways. I thought it was a great conversation for both of those posts, but I actually didn't expect you to bring up that post, but that's funny. Well, think one of the things that endeared us towards the idea and not knowing exactly your intent, your strategy and thought behind it, you know,
So much of our work at RKD is with individual giving. And the everyday donor that is, maybe they're making gifts of $25 or $125 or $1,500, right? Which still makes up a large volume of individuals as a part of the philanthropic percent of the GDP.
And I think one of the things that we lose often is that all of us are impacted by everything that's happening in one way, or form. And so whether or not it's a news story about something here locally that may prompt me to support the North Texas Food Bank this week, or it may be something that's more national or global, like what Billie Eilish is doing, like
Justin McCord (25:53.894)
We're all as individuals impacted by those things. So why wouldn't our donors also be? Right? And so that's what I appreciate about the post and the idea is it's kind of a, hey, get out of your shoes of the strategy that you're trying to run for a moment as a fundraiser or as a marketer and think about the broader context of where your audience find themselves at this moment and how that context might change the way that you approach.
them for a gift or even just to engage with them. And so, you know, to frame it under like leveraging pop culture, I think almost dismisses, it really is like it's contextual, right? It's contextualizing the environment that our donors are living in. So.
Ronnie Richard (26:45.192)
So I was just gonna say you could even tie it back to Mike, were talking about shaving your head to try and get attention for some donation. I mean, it's about being relevant and knowing where your donors are, right? Yeah, no, exactly. mean, I think that what stood out to me with that moment was the call to action.
was around getting billionaires in the room to really open up their wallets. And regardless of if Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, they were responding to that in some way, or if it was coincidental, I think that
that speech moved tons of people. The fact that it blew up online, people were talking about from the lower level donors to the high net worth individuals. think that it made ripples in philanthropy and that's kind what I was getting at too. This is someone who is a young person, 23, 24 years old, I think she is.
Mike Esposito (28:11.717)
doesn't necessarily have, you know, as a millionaire, but doesn't necessarily have a ton of money in terms of billions. And so anyway, I thought it was an interesting story to comment on from both the fundraising and the philanthropy side of things. It's, and you know, I think that there are some other individuals in our space that do a fantastic job of drawing
those pieces together, know, Katrina and Huss does a great job of drawing some of those pieces together. Clay Buck does a great job of drawing some of those pieces together. And I know I appreciate that perspective because even in our own work, we can get head down sometimes. so seeing like someone saying, hey, did you notice this impacts what we do. now as you think about going into, you know,
2026 and, we have lived in looming uncertainty now as, as just kind of the shape of things. And, we're, we're headed into, you know, a giving season, where there is uncertainty around what things are going to look like from a performance standpoint. We're headed into, a year with,
who knows what in front of us? Like what's your counsel to your clients about their mindset as we shift or turn the page from 2025 to 2026? Yeah, I like to encourage clients to focus on relationships as much as possible, whether their focus is individual giving, corporations, foundations.
Really, I feel like lot of what we're seeing, kind of mentioned it earlier, this increased competition amongst institutional dollars. think that that's true. And there's also this increased use of AI tools to write grant proposals. So there are more grant proposals out there. And that leads to foundations spending fewer time meeting with prospective nonprofits that are looking for funding.
Mike Esposito (30:36.808)
So I tried to encourage clients to focus as much as possible on their relationships and not doing as much cold proposals from the institutional grant side, trying to think about how to creatively and innovatively connect with individual donors and what's going to resonate the most with them. sometimes that is
using AI in specific ways to stand out, using video testimonials to inspire donors and to inspire prospective donors, and really leaning into what's working instead of trying to do everything. So those are a handful of things that I'd say.
Well said, man. That's well said. Just the idea that don't lose the forest. you've got these individual splashes in trees of technology and shiny new strategy. And don't lose the bigger picture of what philanthropy actually literally means, the etymology of it, right? About the love of humanity and the human connection that helps continue to drive this thing forward.
So, yeah. And I think too, like I actually mentioned this earlier today in a post on LinkedIn, like this idea of like trying to not get too overwhelmed by everything that's going on and all the responsibilities that you have as a nonprofit, because you're always going to be, you're likely always going to be like understaffed and wearing a lot of hats, you know?
That's just kind of the reality of it. But how do you ensure that you don't burn out and you don't get too overwhelmed so that you can't accomplish anything? And so what I recommend is just being able to step away from your work, take a breather, do some exercise, get your head out of it for a little, get away from the screens and give yourself a break because you don't want to get to a point where you're...
Mike Esposito (33:03.225)
unable to do any work. You you're totally burnt out. And I see that happening with non nonprofit leaders that I speak with. So I always I try to incorporate that into my advice nowadays too, because I think that's just as important to be able to focus on your well being and your health. It's you know, you can't do the work if you're not if you're not well. It's very well said.
It's such a reminder. It's such a good reminder and it's one that we always need, right? And it's one that I think that we try to talk about internally as well of, you know, making sure to take care of yourself and that's going to help take care of a part of the work as well. So, well, Mike, we appreciate you hanging out with us for a little bit today, telling us a little bit about your backstory and your outlook and
You know, I think we appreciate knowing that there's someone who can see the full map. See how it's... Wow, that was good. I'm no cartographer, but that is a... That's how we're gonna stick it.
Love it. Great way to end it. End it at the beginning. End it at the beginning. There you go. Group Thinkers is a production of RKD Group. For more information, including how you can partner with RKD to accelerate growth for your fundraising and nonprofit marketing needs, visit RKDGroup.com.