Mary Petersen is a nationally recognized fundraising strategist, award-winning author, speaker, and coach, trusted by nonprofits of every size to unlock transformational 5-, 6-, and 7-figure gifts.

For more than 25 years, Mary has done the actual work of major gifts. She is not a theorist who studied fundraising from the outside. She is a practitioner who has sat across the table from donors, made the ask, and closed the gift. Her results-driven approach has helped organizations raise hundreds of millions of dollars, launch record-breaking campaigns, and build donor relationships that last a lifetime, including a 9-figure gift she closed in just seven months that transformed an institution forever.

Mary is the host of the weekly Hey Fundraiser podcast, where she shares the practical scripts, strategies, and tactics that help fundraisers and executive directors close major gifts with confidence. She is the author of the award-winning What to Say: 12 Major Gift Scripts to Get a YES and Small Table Big Philanthropy, books that hand readers the exact language and philosophy behind her work.

A member of the Forbes Nonprofit Council and a frequent contributor to it, Mary is a sought-after speaker for the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) and the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP). She has taught at Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania and Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, speaks to Women in Development chapters across the country, leads fundraising book clubs through AFP, and mentors rising fundraisers through AFP’s Emerging Leaders program. Her work has appeared in The Major Gifts Report. From her home in Bend, Oregon, she also leads half-day intensives and immersive retreats where small groups of fundraisers go deep on real strategy.

What sets Mary apart is that her methods are not theoretical. They are built on closing real gifts, and they are designed so any fundraiser can step into their next donor conversation feeling ready.

Today, Mary is the founder of Major Gift Momentum, the premier mentorship and peer advisory mastermind for fundraisers who want to scale their impact, deepen donor relationships, and become the confident major gift closers they were always meant to be.