For this month’s Board Member Spotlight, we spoke with Natalie Dunn-Billings, Senior Consultant, Philanthropy Engagement at OhioHealth Foundation. Natalie is serving as the Treasurer/ VP of Finance of our chapter this year. During her interview, she told us a bit about herself and her experience with AFP.
Q: How did you find your way into the world of fundraising? Was it the plan, or did you stumble into it along the way?
I originally went to school for radio broadcast, but decided just as I was graduating that I didn’t actually want to pursue a career in radio, so I shifted my focus to events. After a little while in the event world, I started volunteering with a few different organizations’ fundraising event committees. I had no idea that fundraising was a career, but through my event work, I started to get interested in development. After a string of pretty disastrous events jobs, I finally made my way into a fundraising role, joined AFP, and have been in love with philanthropy ever since.
Q: Tell us a little about the organization you work with—its mission, who it serves, and what excites you most about the work.
Most folks in central Ohio are familiar with OhioHealth, as we now have 16 member hospitals and over 200 individual care locations throughout the region. Working for such a large hospital system is a unique and challenging experience, because we have the resources of a big organization which allow me to focus on professional development and learning from my senior colleagues, and we also have the complexity of a system that serves both rural and urban communities, treats everything from a skinned knee to terminal illnesses and traumatic injuries, and has philanthropic needs ranging from multi-million dollar medical equipment upgrades to gas gift cards that help patients get to and from their medical appointments. It’s exciting to be a part of something big, and to be surrounded by people who are a lot smarter than me.
Q: How long have you been part of AFP, and what do you value most about your membership?
I joined AFP approximately two weeks after I started my first development job over six years ago, and it was, by far, the best decision I could have made. Of all of the benefits of membership, the thing I value the most is the incredible generosity of this community. I have met so many people who I can ask for help when I have a problem I can’t solve, who are willing to get coffee and talk through a challenge or share their experience. I can’t place a value on the professionals and personal friendships I’ve made.
Q: What inspired you to serve on the AFP board, and what do you enjoy most about your role?
I tend to be someone who jumps in with both feet right away. I like to get my hands dirty and be fully “in” when I find something that I care about. Why just be a member of this awesome organization when I can help to lead it and make sure other members love it as much as I do? I joined AFP in 2020, became a volunteer on the Global Education Committee in 2021, and joined the board as chair of the Global Education Committee in 2023. I’ve now served in four different roles on the board (in four years) and have the privilege of leading as a part of the Executive Committee. In my current role as VP of Finance / Treasurer, I have had to learn SO many new things (my college accounting classes are finally coming in handy, I suppose). But all joking aside, I work for OhioHealth; I don’t touch anything to do with accounting or taxes or finances. I would never have the opportunity to have this kind of hands-on experience in my current job, but now I can say that I have been personally responsible for filing a Form 990 and leading an organization through a tough budgeting process, thanks to AFP. It makes me a better professional, a better fundraiser, and a better leader.
Q: What’s a moment in your career that made you think, “This is why I do this work”?
This isn’t so much a single moment, but more of a realization over time. When I first started in development work, I worked for an organization that was responsible for facilitating organ and tissue donation. The people we worked with on a daily basis were either recipients of life-saving and life-enhancing transplants, or they were the loved ones of people who had become organ and tissue donors after death. I was a first-hand witness to the way that philanthropy serves an important purpose for donors, beyond the altruistic desire to be generous. I met families who were deeply grieving tragic deaths, and the only way that they felt they could honor that grief was through fundraising for our work, because organ donation had given their loved one an opportunity to give the gift of life in their last moments. I also met transplant recipients who didn’t know how to express their overwhelming gratitude for the life-saving gift they had received, while also honoring the complicated feelings that come from knowing another life had ended first, and they turned to fundraising as a way to process and honor that gift. For everyone that I met while I worked there, giving was an opportunity that they were grateful for, not a burden. I can’t imagine a better education in the philosophy and values of philanthropy than getting to know those people, and I will carry those lessons with me for the rest of my life. It makes me feel like it is an honor and privilege to get to connect people to causes that they care about – because it’s not a one-sided benefit, and if I approach fundraising this way, I get to serve powerful missions AND the people that care about them.
Q: What’s one lesson fundraising has taught you about people?
Having primarily worked in the healthcare sector as a fundraiser, and tangentially working with a lot of communities of people experiencing some kind of grief, I have come to know a lot about the resiliency of love and generosity even in the worst of times. I am always so extremely humbled by the way that someone in the depths of unimaginable loss can possibly think of anything but getting out of bed in the morning, and yet they are calling me to talk about philanthropy.
Q: What’s a piece of fundraising advice you’ve heard that has always stuck with you?
My favorite phrase has always been “People don’t give to you, they give through you.” It reminds me that a gift should stay in motion, and that we as fundraisers should do everything we can to remove the barriers between donors and their impact through stewardship.
Q: Do you have a favorite book, blog, podcast, or resource that has been helpful in your career that you’d recommend?
My favorite fundraising book is Beyond Fundraising, by Kay Sprinkel Grace. She changed the way that I think about asking; framing philanthropy as an opportunity and thinking of donors as partners, instead of focusing on the transaction and the “tin cup” ask.
Q: What do you enjoy most about living or working in Central Ohio? Any favorite spots?
Living in Columbus is great, because it just feels like a bunch of small towns all smooshed together, with the amenities of a big city. The combination of green space, GOOD FOOD, and suburban living is pretty perfect for my husband and I’s tastes.
Q: Outside of work, what’s something you enjoy doing in your free time?
I am a collector of hobbies, and my friends always joke that I’m annoyingly good at most of them (what they don’t realize is that ‘annoyingly good for a beginning’ is usually where my skill caps out as well). I love to sew costumes and everyday clothes, crochet blankets and wearables, paint miniatures for tabletop games, draw fantasy maps, and a lot of other things I’ve only picked up a few times. I hike as often as I can, and am currently training for a Mammoth March later this year (a 20-mile hike in 8 hours). I also love to read, play video games with my husband, and play Dungeons & Dragons with my friends.
Q: If someone handed you a ticket for your dream vacation tomorrow, where would you go?
I could be convinced to go anywhere with tall, snowy mountains, but I’ve always dreamed of going to the Canadian Rockies in winter.
Q: If fundraising had a mascot animal, what would it be and why?
Maybe a bumblebee or a butterfly? I think fundraisers are a lot like pollinators, spreading goodness from flower to flower!