Mary Petersen spent 25 years as a working major gift officer before she ever started teaching. She's not a consultant who studied fundraising from the outside. She did it, in real organizations, with real donors, for real missions that depended on the outcome.

She closed a $100 million gift in 7 months using the same methodology she teaches inside Major Gift Momentum. Not by following the industry playbook. Not by spending 18 months in slow cultivation. By building a smaller, focused portfolio and going deeper with the right people, faster than anyone told her was possible.

Mary is the author of What to Say: 12 Major Gift Asks to Get a YES — the book that hands fundraisers the exact words for the conversation they've been putting off — and Small Table Big Philanthropy, her newest work on why depth beats volume every time in major gift fundraising.

She speaks at conferences and nonprofit gatherings nationwide, and coaches Executive Directors and development professionals who are doing this work largely without a team, a playbook, or anyone who truly gets what they're up against.

If you've ever sat across from a donor who could change your organization's future and not known what to say, Mary wrote the book on that moment. Literally.