Raise more money. Build stronger relationships with your donors. Use your time more effectively.

These are the promises of your donor database. But too often, the reality is more frustrating: messy data, confusing systems, inconsistent processes, and fundraising software that feels harder to manage than it should.

Fundraising Nerd can help.

Hi, I’m Amanda Jarman. I founded Fundraising Nerd in 2013 to help nonprofit fundraisers make smarter, more strategic use of their donor data and systems. I’m an expert in fundraising data management, with more than 25 years of experience in the nonprofit sector. I’ve worked with more than 100 nonprofit organizations and taught thousands of professionals across the United States.

My specialty is helping fundraising teams use their data ecosystems with more clarity, confidence, and purpose. That means looking not only at what lives in your donor database, but at what the data can help you understand, and how information flows into, around, and through your organization’s systems.

When information is well organized, thoughtfully connected, and analyzed with the right questions in mind, teams can better understand their donor and constituent communities, identify strong opportunities, make better decisions, focus their energy where it counts, reduce unnecessary manual work, and spend more time building meaningful relationships with donors and constituents.

I bring the tools and techniques of sophisticated advancement operations into practical, accessible form for organizations of all sizes — from large institutions to small grassroots teams. My goal is to help teams build systems that support stronger fundraising decisions without pulling fundraisers away from the relationship-building work they are there to do.

My fundraising career began at Safeplace, a domestic violence shelter, where we were small, scrappy, and deeply committed to a cause close to my heart. We raised a lot of money with limited resources. Looking back, I can see how much more capacity we might have had if we had access to better tools, clearer information, and stronger systems.

Later, in advancement services and data leadership roles at Lewis & Clark College and Portland State University, I saw the power of well-managed donor data. That experience led me to focus my practice on adapting sophisticated tools and techniques for fundraising teams of many different sizes and structures.

Today, Fundraising Nerd helps nonprofit organizations connect their fundraising software, donor data, and internal processes in ways that support clearer priorities, stronger donor relationships, and better decision-making.

Our work is grounded in a simple belief: every fundraising team deserves smart systems, clear processes, and practical tools that support stronger donor relationships and better fundraising results.

I’m honored to be a Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Laureate and a recipient of CASE’s Crystal Apple Award for Teaching Excellence. In 2014, I also received the Emerging Leader Award from the Association of Advancement Services Professionals.

Whether your organization is building its first reliable data practices, strengthening a small but mighty fundraising operation, or managing complex advancement systems, Fundraising Nerd is here to help.

Welcome. I’m glad you’re here.

Amanda Jarman
President