Brent Swinton is rare among advancement professionals with successes as a frontline fundraiser matched by deep expertise in fundraising technology, analytics, and business operations. His versatility has been utilized in increasingly senior roles in the higher education and nonprofit sectors.
Swinton began his fundraising career at the Georgia Affiliate of the American Heart Association and was soon promoted to Executive Director of Youth Markets in Orlando where he supervised a team of fundraisers deployed across Florida. His service on the committee that selected the AHA’s first nationwide donor database heavily influenced the arc of his subsequent career.
Datatel (now known as Ellucian), recruited Swinton as an Institutional Advancement Consultant to train client institutions nationwide to use the Colleague Advance fundraising software and campaign planning.
Swinton next served as the Training and Technical Assistance Manager at Dare Mighty Things, the management-consulting firm responsible for implementing the highly visible Compassion Capital Fund demonstration grant program. As a key player in this cornerstone of the George W. Bush administration’s White House Faith-Based and Community Initiative, Swinton honed his ability to convey dense technical and regulatory information to diverse audiences. He trained and empowered hundreds of grassroots organizations to sustain themselves financially by attracting support from private funders.
As the Compassion Capital Fund wound down, various grantees approached Swinton to join their organizations. One such conversation led to Swinton accepting the role of Senior Director for Advancement Services at Howard University. There, he oversaw the complete overhaul of the university’s gift acceptance, processing and reporting functions, and led a donor database conversion. He quickly assumed fundraising responsibility for academic units and university programs lacking a dedicated gift officer. His efforts directly improved policy, procedures and revenue generation needed to close out the $272 million Campaign for Howard, the largest fundraising effort of any HBCU at that time.
Notre Dame of Maryland University in Baltimore tapped Swinton to serve as Assistant Vice President for Institutional Advancement, providing leadership for all frontline fundraising, back-office functions, community outreach, donor cultivation and alumni relations activities. While managing his own personal portfolio of prospects and key contacts, Swinton led a $1 million-dollar, multichannel Annual Fund program while managing the major gifts pipeline for the president and university cabinet. His accomplishments at NDMU include the relaunch of a planned giving society, which secured $13 million in deferred and planned gifts in two years.
A string of tragedies revealing the enduring racial disparities in our nation motivated Swinton to redirect his talents to inspire financial support in the fight for racial equity and social justice. He joined the national headquarters of Advancement Project as Managing Director of Development. In addition to implementing a new donor database and increasing the donor pool, Swinton secured a five-year $8 million grant to build the organization’s infrastructure.
Swinton returned to higher education in July 2018 as Vice President for Institutional Advancement at Bowie State University where he conceived and currently directs “BSU BOLD: The Campaign for Excellence”, the most ambitious fundraising effort in the institution’s history. Brent continuously refines innovations in donor cultivation, digital communications and grantsmanship, resulting in a sevenfold increase in the university endowment to date. Swinton re-branded his division as Philanthropic Engagement in 2023, reflecting the explosive gift revenue and evolution of the campaign which reached its initial $50M goal two and a half years ahead of schedule.
Swinton earned a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia, a Master of Public Administration degree from the University of Central Florida and is a Certified Fund-Raising Executive (CFRE).
