Developing Story Lawyer aims to help program flourish in region

By Kurt Anthony Krug Legal News Paige Dotson Peabody is a firm believer in the philosophy of character education and service learning. That belief -- along with a background in real estate, nonprofit leadership, fund-raising, and law -- makes her the right person to serve in the newly created position of chief development officer for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metropolitan Detroit, which is the definitive youth mentoring program in the nation. For more than 100 years, Big Brothers Big Sisters has operated under the belief that each child is instilled with the ability to succeed and thrive in life. Donations have allowed Big Brothers Big Sisters to carefully pair each young person -- who are mainly impoverished, single-parent households, and/or come from broken homes (this includes having a parent incarcerated) -- with the right mentor in order to provide ongoing positive support that is needed to be successful. The Big Brothers Big Sisters model has been proven to improve the odds for youngsters (who are referred in the organization's jargon as "littles") to succeed in school and in life. It has operated locally in the Metro Detroit area for 37 years. "I love to be out of the office meeting with people and showing them the success in our organization so that they are proud to be with us," said Peabody, 43, who is a mentor herself. "The overall vision is to really solidify our development and communication departments so that we are really utilizing efficient and effective communication techniques to not only increase our major donor base but create a true cultivation process with our current donors as well in order to better serve our youth." Peabody, who lives in Grosse Pointe with her husband and three children, is no stranger to working in a nonprofit organization. An alumna of the University of Michigan, where she has an undergraduate degree in sociology and psychology, and the University of Arizona, where she earned her juris doctorate in law, she previously served as the CEO of Campfire USA in Southfield. "Long story short: They were in financial disarray and had many offices in southeast Michigan, so I closed them all down and moved everything up to their 250-acre camp in Holly, put a strategic plan together to bring in more revenue, increased their programming -- they didn't really have anything at the time -- and got them back on track, which I did in a year and two months. After that year and two months, I could no longer travel to Holly, which is an hour and a half each way every day," she said. Prior to Campfire USA, she owned her own real estate firm, Esquire Properties, from 1998 to 2009, which developed and sold condominiums in downtown Detroit. What made her brokerage unique was her background in real estate law. "If you can sell Detroit condominiums to anyone, you can sell ice to Eskimos -- it's not easy," recalled Peabody. She has been in her current position with Big Brothers Big Sisters for nearly four months. "The nonprofits are looking for ways to diversity their revenue. One of the ways they're diversifying it is by looking at individual donors and really concentrating on their top donors. Most of the nonprofits you will see in their fund development plan, they're creating a top donor development plan and concentrating on their top donors to bring in more money," explained Peabody. She continued: "Nonprofits are paying more attention to individual donors, where most organizations have not. You really can't cultivate all of your donors because many organizations have thousands of donors. They need to concentrate on their top-giving donors because those are the people usually with the biggest capacity and that requires putting together a plan, whether it's the Top 50, Top 100 - generally it's the Top 50, depending upon how much they're giving - and creating a plan for each individual donor, then having an expectation at the end of it. It creates a lot more revenue." What makes her job challenging is this current economic climate, which has impacted everyone in the nation and Michigan has been one of the hardest hit states. People are overextended and worried about providing for their families and their retirement funds. "There's so many nonprofits vying for the same dollars," she said. "There's a lot more vying for people's money - it's not easy for them to give it away." Additionally, Peabody will focus on planned giving, where individuals are leaving money to Big Brothers Big Sisters in their wills. "Given my background in law, that'll also be a good fit." For more information on Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metropolitan Detroit, visit www.bbbsdetroit.org. Published: Mon, Sep 26, 2011

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