OUR MISSION
At D.D. Sage Advisors, our mission is to empower nonprofits, big or small, with the customized fundraising strategies, tools, and expertise they need to achieve lasting financial sustainability. We partner with each organization to build tailored approaches that honor their mission, culture, and community — strengthening internal capacity and donor relationships that endure long after our work together is done.
OUR VALUES
We believe fundraising is a means to justice, not just revenue. We believe communities know their own needs best, and that our role is to help resource their vision, not shape it to fit a funder's preference. We believe strong nonprofits are built on trust, not transactions, and that the people doing this work deserve support that sustains them for the long haul. And we believe that how you raise money matters as much as how much you raise.
Our Six Core Value Pillars
Partnership Over Transaction: We show up as a true partner, not a vendor. Every engagement is built on trust, open communication, and a genuine investment in your organization's success, because your mission matters to us as much as it does to you.
Proven Expertise, Tailored Always: We reject cookie-cutter solutions. With nearly 30 years of nonprofit experience, we bring deep knowledge and hard-won insight to every relationship; designing strategies that fit your specific mission, culture, community, and capacity. No two nonprofits are the same, and our work reflects that.
Lasting Capacity Building: Our goal is never dependency. We work alongside your team to strengthen skills, systems, and donor relationships that will carry your nonprofit forward long after our engagement ends.
Redefining What Success Looks Like: The nonprofit industrial complex has long measured organizational health in dollars raised, but we know that numbers rarely tell the whole story. We also know that development professionals turn over every 16 months on average, taking institutional knowledge, donor relationships, and momentum with them. We help nonprofits break that cycle by building internal cultures, systems, and definitions of success that go beyond the bottom line; measuring impact, community trust, staff sustainability, and long-term mission alignment as markers of a truly healthy organization.
And in the midst of the hard work, we believe in pausing to celebrate wins at every scale: the grant that came through, yes — but also the donor who finally picked up the phone, the volunteer celebrating one year of continued service, the community member whose life changed because your organization exists. Those moments matter. They deserve to be named and honored.
Mission-Centered Sustainability: Financial health is never the end goal, it is the foundation that allows your mission to thrive. We keep your 'why' at the center of every strategy we build, ensuring that growth serves your community, not just your bottom line.
Championing Those Who Face the Steepest Climb: The nonprofit funding landscape has never been a level playing field. Organizations led by and serving BIPOC and LGBTQIA2S+ communities consistently face systemic barriers to funding access, donor networks, and capacity support. We are intentional about partnering with these organizations, bringing our full expertise to those who need it most.
OUR APPROACH
Community Centric Fundraising
We are proud practitioners of Community Centric Fundraising (CCF) — a values-driven movement that challenges traditional fundraising norms and centers equity, relationships, and the well-being of the communities nonprofits exist to serve, rather than the preferences of individual donors.
CCF didn't emerge from a boardroom. It grew from conversations that writer and nonprofit leader Vu Le began publicly in 2015, building on years of dialogue with leaders of color — especially women of color — and white allies who felt deep dissonance with the way the sector had long practiced fundraising. Those conversations sparked a gathering of Seattle-area executive directors and fundraisers of color, who came together to explore how fundraising could be reimagined to align with equity and social justice.
The movement stands on the shoulders of organizations and thinkers who paved the way long before CCF had a name — among them the Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training, The People's Institute for Survival and Beyond, INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, and the foundational work of Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, Grace Lee Boggs, James Baldwin, and many others.
In the summer of 2020, the CCF Founding Council — Andrea Arenas, Erika Chen, James Hong, Rehana Lanewala, Vu Le, Anna Rebecca Lopez, Michelle Shireen Muri, Christina Shimizu, and Dr. Sean M. Watts — officially launched the movement with its 10 Principles. The movement has since grown into a global effort, with regional councils now forming across multiple continents.
We are grateful to carry this work forward. Our practice is guided by CCF's core pillars, and we encourage you to learn more about the full movement at communitycentricfundraising.org.
Our work is guided by its 8 core pillars:
COMMUNITY FIRST: The community’s needs and voice shape every strategy, not donor preferences
REDISTRIBUTE POWER: We actively work to shift power toward those most affected by your mission
RACIAL EQUITY & SOCIAL JUSTICE: Fundraising practices must reflect and advance equity at every level
COLLECTIVE OVER TRANSACTIONS: Building authentic relationships, not extractive donor transactions
MUTUAL BENEFIT: Donors and communities thrive together, generosity flows both ways
TRANSPARENCY & ACCOUNTABILITY: Honest communication with donors, staff, and the communities you serve
WELLBEING OF FUNDRAISERS: Sustainable fundraising means caring for the people who do it, too.
CULTURE OF PHILANTHROPY: Embedding generosity into your organization’s DNA, not just your development staff