We’re looking forward to introducing you to Samantha Swaim. Check out our conversation below.
Samantha, really appreciate you sharing your stories and insights with us. The world would have so much more understanding and empathy if we all were a bit more open about our stories and how they have helped shaped our journey and worldview. Let’s jump in with a fun one: What is something outside of work that is bringing you joy lately?
I’ve been learning to garden, and it’s become this unexpected source of connection and purpose in my life. It started when SNAP benefits were removed during the government shutdown, and I watched so many people in our community struggle. I wanted to do something tangible, so I got involved in gleaning—going to local farms to harvest fresh food that would otherwise go to waste.
Once I started, I couldn’t unsee it. Food resources were everywhere—in neighbors’ fruit trees, in end-of-season harvests that needed hands. Each became an opportunity to create a web of care together.
That experience sparked something in me. I wanted to understand more about sustainable food sources and how we could build these systems of mutual support in our own neighborhoods. Now I’m on a community garden committee, and I’m discovering this beautiful intersection of being outdoors, learning to work with the earth, and creating real resources for neighbors who need them.
There’s something grounding about getting your hands in the soil while building community at the same time. It reminds me that joy and service don’t have to be separate things.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m Samantha Swaim, founder of Swaim Strategies, and I help nonprofits transform their fundraising events from transactions into movements.
My journey into this work started in theatre and television production, where I learned that magic happens when an audience moves from passive observers to active participants in something bigger than themselves.
After founding Swaim Strategies in 2004, I spent years working with organizations internationally, and I kept seeing the same pattern: nonprofits would copy successful fundraising events but miss the heart of what made them work. They were replicating mechanics without understanding the human connection beneath them. They had the template, but not the story.
That realization shaped everything we do. We’ve produced hundreds of events and raised millions of dollars, but what I’m most proud of is helping organizations understand that their hard work can build communities where people don’t just give, they truly belong.
The pandemic clarified our mission even further. Our virtual and hybrid expertise suddenly had global reach, but we had limited hands and hours. We faced a choice: say no, or find a new way to say yes. We chose education. If we couldn’t be in every ballroom, we could share everything we’d learned with the people who were.
Today, that looks like the annual Elevate Conference, The Fundraising Elevator podcast, educational resources, and my book “Planning a Successful Major Donor Event.” Our production work continues through our subsidiary, The Fundraising Event Co., where our team still stands beside organizations in ballrooms across the country.
At the core of it all is this belief: every successful fundraising event has a story worth telling and a community worth building. That’s what drives me, helping organizations create those moments where authentic connection becomes the catalyst for extraordinary change.
Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. What did you believe about yourself as a child that you no longer believe?
I always knew that I was a helper. But as a child I had a vision of myself in medicine. I thought that medical research would be my calling and that I would find solutions to big problems that cured diseases. Then I took my first chemistry class and realized I might have a different calling.
Now I help those big solutions come to life in my work as a fundraiser. I am able fund impact for many missions and organizations I care about while utilizing my planning, fundraising and storytelling skills. And I get to have a lot of fun at great parties while making a difference. Currently our team is working on rare diseases among many other important causes. It feels a world a part and yet very full circle.
Do you remember a time someone truly listened to you?
Listening, truly listening, learning to understand and hearing a person is one of the greatest gifts we can receive. And the two people who have done that most consistently in my life are my two business partners Kristin Steele and Mary Elizabeth.
Our company actually started by accident. I was producing fundraising events as a side gig when I noticed a need and realized I had a talent for filling it. But as I dove deeper into the neuroscience behind giving and the models that drive fundraising behavior, I was bursting with ideas and connections I could barely articulate.
That’s when my business partners showed me what real listening looks like. They didn’t just hear my words, they learned alongside me, asked questions that helped me clarify my own thinking, and then worked with me to shape those half-formed ideas into actual systems and tools we could share with others.
What makes our partnership special is that it’s reciprocal. We’ve built this shared responsibility where we help each other dream. When one of us is struggling, the other two don’t just offer surface-level support, we take it on. We dig in to truly understand what’s happening and what’s needed.
That foundation of really hearing each other has shaped not just our business, but how we approach our work with clients. We know firsthand that when someone feels genuinely heard, it unlocks something powerful. It’s why we’re so committed to helping nonprofits create events where donors and community members experience that same feeling, where they know their story, their “why,” truly matters.
Being heard like that changes you. It’s changed how I show up in the world, and it’s at the heart of everything we do. Because of listening we have two thriving businesses making an impact.
Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. Whose ideas do you rely on most that aren’t your own?
I’m a voracious learner, and my work sits at this intersection of so many disciplines: social science, neuroscience, fundraising strategy, and storytelling. So I lean heavily on thinkers who help me understand different pieces of the puzzle.
Paul Zak’s research on immersive experiences and what neurologically moves people to take action has been foundational for how I design event moments. Understanding that oxytocin release, that chemical response to connection and story—it’s not abstract theory. It’s the science behind why certain paddle raises move people from “I guess I’ll participate” to “How high can we go?”
Priya Parker taught me that gatherings designed with purpose are fundamentally different from gatherings that just happen. Her work on intentional design helped me articulate what I’d intuited through years of theatre production—that every choice matters, every moment is either building toward something or it’s not.
Robert Putnam’s work on social capital and the decline of community gatherings gave me language for why this work matters beyond the dollars raised. We’re not just fundraising, we’re creating the spaces where civic life happens, where people remember what it feels like to be part of something bigger.
For fundraising models specifically, I turn to Tammy Zonker, Penelope Burk, and the Community-Centric Fundraising movement. They keep me grounded in what actually works and who we’re really serving in this work.
And for storytelling: Simon Sinek’s work on starting with why, Emile Durkheim’s understanding of collective consciousness, and Jonathan Gottschall’s research on how stories shape human behavior—these help me understand why narrative isn’t decoration in our events. It’s the architecture.
The beautiful thing is that none of these thinkers work in isolation. They all reinforce this central truth: human beings are wired for connection, story, and collective action. My job is just helping nonprofits activate that wiring.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. When have you had to bet the company?
COVID-19 should have ended us. We were an events-based business built entirely on gathering people in rooms, and suddenly rooms were the one place people couldn’t be.
But we saw it coming. Before lockdowns were even announced, we were already partnering with tech and production companies to figure out how virtual events could work. Not just as a backup plan—as a real solution. By the time gathering restrictions were officially in place, we had already developed tools and best practices for taking events virtual.
We took everything we knew—the neuroscience of connection, the fundraising models, our television production history, and applied it to a completely different medium. We had to trust that the principles of human connection would translate, even through a screen.
It was a bet, and not a small one. We were investing resources and energy into something unproven while our core business evaporated overnight. We had to believe that organizations would still need us, that donors would still show up, that you could create those transformative moments without being in the same physical space.
And we found incredible partners who were willing to take that leap with us. Some who even encouraged us to go further faster. Together, we learned what worked and what didn’t, often in real-time during live events.
The gamble paid off. Not just in survival, but in evolution. That pivot expanded our reach globally and ultimately led us to education and the work we do now. But in those early months, we were absolutely betting everything on our belief that connection could transcend the medium.
Sometimes betting the company means believing in your core principles even when the entire landscape shifts beneath you.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://swaimstrategies.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swaimstrategies/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/swaim-strategies/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/swaimstrategies
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheFundraisingElevator
- Other: https://swaimstrategies.substack.com/
Image Credits
Photos by Andie Petkus Photography
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