About seven years ago, Anna Barber was given a big task: raise millions of dollars for the forthcoming National Museum of African American History and Culture from California donors.
The problem? She lives in Washington, D.C., and had no connections to West Coast donors.
The Smithsonian Institution, which oversees the museum, didn’t have any leads, either. “I asked initially: ‘Do you guys have any names or phone numbers of people who would be interested in supporting this particular project?’ " she says. “And they didn’t.”
So Ms. Barber, 40, started from scratch, exhaustively researching the biggest philanthropists in California. She asked donors and friends who in the Golden State might support the museum, which was several years from completion and still needed tens of millions of dollars. Then she started asking for money.
Ms. Barber was extraordinarily successful. She raised roughly $40 million for the museum, most of it from California donors, although some came from supporters in other parts of the country. That amount far surpassed the $10 million her supervisors expected her to raise but fell short of the ambitious goal of $50 million she had set for herself.
That $40 million figure doesn’t include the millions she brought in through events that persuaded high-profile people to contribute. One such soiree was held at the actor Denzel Washington’s Beverly Hills home.
Ms. Barber’s success made her one of the top individual fundraisers for the museum, though she’s quick to note that some of her colleagues also raised tens of millions of dollars for the project. Ms. Barber attracted a slew of big names to support the museum, including basketball stars Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson, and Michael Jordan, as well as major institutions like the Kaiser Permanente health system.
She kept calling till she got a meeting — two years later.
How did she pull it off? People who work with her and the donors she courted say it was her tireless work ethic and passion for the project. She was also confident and composed when meeting with famous people and their assistants, they say.
“She was, frankly, the smoothest operator I had run across in a long time,” says Willie Brown, the former mayor of San Francisco, whom Ms. Barber persuaded to join an elite volunteer council that raised money for the museum.
In the glow of her success in California, the “smooth operator” is now moving on to a new challenge. In July, she left the museum and launched a fundraising consultancy, Barber & Associates, and is using some of her ties to big philanthropy to lure clients. To be successful, she’ll have to be tenacious and willing to tirelessly track down clients — not unlike her California fundraising campaign.
Single-Minded Pursuit
Ms. Barber’s approach in California wasn’t all that complicated. Her success was the result of shoe-leather salesmanship and doggedly following leads.
When she came to the Smithsonian in 2009, she was a veteran fundraiser, having worked with big donors at Michigan State University and Miami University of Ohio. She drew on her experience to tackle the Golden State.
First, she drafted a list of people to target — built from her personal research and recommendations from friends, donors, and the museum’s prospect researchers. She then reached out to as many people on the list as possible to set up meetings, flying in from Washington for several days at a time for appointments.
She kept calling and emailing if she didn’t get a response from a prospect and didn’t stop until the potential donor explicitly declined or accepted.
During her early meetings in California, she asked prospective donors for suggestions on other people to contact. She’d return to Washington with a folder of names that she’d pass on to the museum’s prospect researchers. The researchers would compile reports about the donors, their interests, and other salient information — which Ms. Barber used to shape her discussions with potential donors and determine how much she might ask them to give. After a year, her list of people to contact in California grew to more than 100. She tried to identify at least four potential donors for each gift amount she wanted to raise. For example, for each donation of $1 million she wanted to close, she’d look for four people to ask.
In a break with convention, she often asked for gifts in her first meetings with donors. Many development offices preach building relationships over time, but Ms. Barber says she saw no reason to wait if she sensed that the donor was ready. “My philosophy is that I don’t want to hide what I do,” Ms. Barber says. “If you’re taking a meeting with me, you should have the understanding that my objective is to get you to give.”
Tapping Networks
Ms. Barber also sought out people in California who were connectors to major philanthropists.
For instance, Mr. Brown, the former San Francisco mayor, did not donate to the project but introduced Ms. Barber to many potential big-time supporters. Sometimes he accompanied her on donor visits.
Mr. Brown, who also served for 15 years as speaker of the California Assembly, is connected to many power brokers in the Golden State. “It’s a big deal” when he makes an introduction, Ms. Barber says.
In their most significant collaboration, Mr. Brown accompanied Ms. Barber on a 2011 meeting with the Kaiser Permanente health system, which later pledged $5 million.
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Mr. Brown says he got involved in part because he was impressed with Ms. Barber’s fundraising plan and her knowledge of the project. He added that it was a tough sell to get people from California excited about a museum that would be built in Washington, D.C. But Ms. Barber was a strong champion for the project, who made sure donors understood its historical significance. “She was so persuasive, so well informed about the product,” Mr. Brown says.
Capitalizing on Events
Another part of Ms. Barber’s strategy in California was to throw events where she could mingle with big donors. There were two kinds of events: One was for younger donors who could give around $5,000. The other was for donors with the potential to make six- or seven-figure gifts.
In one of her early coups, Ms. Barber was able to persuade Gordon Getty, an heir to a massive oil fortune, and his wife, Ann, to host a dinner at their San Francisco estate. The event, held in 2011, featured 55 prominent Californians, including the Kaiser Permanente chief executive Bernard Tyson.
Ms. Barber didn’t ask for gifts outright at the event; the purpose was cultivation. And it worked, she says, as many people at the dinner eventually made big gifts — including some in the seven figures — in the years following.
Glittering Gala
The biggest event Ms. Barber coordinated was held in April 2016, when Denzel and Pauletta Washington hosted a lavish, star-studded dinner and reception at their home. Invitations went only to donors who would give $1 million or more to the project or who had done so already.
Attendees included actor Samuel L. Jackson, NBA Hall-of-Famer Magic Johnson, and Shonda Rhimes, the creator of ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, who pledged $10 million just ahead of the gathering.
The event would not have happened had it not been for Ms. Barber’s pursuit of Mattie McFadden-Lawson and her husband, Michael Lawson, two big boosters of President Obama’s presidential runs who are highly involved in charity work in Southern California.
Ms. Barber started calling Ms. McFadden-Lawson in 2012 when she was volunteering for Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign. Ms. Barber had a hard time reaching her.
But, as she did with many supporters, she kept calling until she got a meeting — two years later. “She was extremely tenacious,” Ms. McFadden-Lawson says.
They hit it off quickly, discussing many ways that Ms. McFadden-Lawson could help raise money. “The stars aligned,” says Ms. Barber.
Sometime later, Ms. McFadden-Lawson asked Pauletta Washington if she might host the fundraiser, which she agreed to do.
On top of helping with the event at the Washingtons’ home, Ms. McFadden-Lawson and her husband, who is a former partner at a prominent international law firm, Skadden, Arps, gave $1 million to the museum, too, and made introductions to other donors.
Next Endeavor
Now that Ms. Barber has left the museum, she says she’s already finding clients for her new firm — primarily because donors she’s worked with are recommending her to charities that need help with fundraising.
True to form, she is setting her sights high for the business, hoping to build it into a firm with lots of employees serving hundreds of clients.
Those goals are lofty — but having lofty goals has worked for her in the past.
“She has a lot of energy,” says Margaret Turner, a senior major-gifts fundraiser for the African-American museum, who worked closely with Ms. Barber on the project.
“I expect her to be successful, because she is a go-getter, and she is fearless.”
