Dionne is absolutely fabulous when it comes to fundraising for the arts! She leveraged Reichhold Center for the Arts as a cultivation tool for university donors and helped secure new grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, and the Brabson Library & Educational Foundation. She grew donations to the Reichhold circle by 50% (within her first year) and re-wrote the Board’s Bi-laws to create a stronger, goal-oriented fundraising group. She also led the revival of our nationally recognized Youth Moviemaking Workshop for the young people in our community. Brava!

Dionne has the ability to easily inspire and offer positive recognition, while holding her teams accountable at all times. She is a wonderful mentor who “invites stakeholders to the conversation.” She is an ambitious leader who created a team infrastructure and had the vision and initiative to create a strategic plan that will take our team from $22M to $50M annually. Dionne even helped me create thoughtful, detailed, and effective strategies about some of my more challenging programs and donors.

While colleagues at a state university, I witnessed Dionne’s commitment to her profession. Her tireless work ethic, subject matter expertise, and determination allow her to successfully forge relationships with donors while strengthening the bonds between an institution and its community. Dionne’s got spunk and is a joy to be around. She may have raised more than $100 million in her career, but really, she is one in a million.

In addition to being extremely bright and hard-working, Dionne is an absolute delight to work with: polite, good humored, utterly reliable, articulate, and kind. We collaborated closely on an effort to secure Vassar’s first corporate sponsor for a dance residency, and Dionne’s presentation to the Bank of America representatives was one of the most professional and compelling I have ever seen—a model of clarity and liveliness.

Dionne is an agent of positive change. I had the privilege of working on her team at Lehigh University. She came in and energized a downtrodden team by creating a culture of success, confidence, and support. She produced an exemplary strategic plan (a first for our team) and empowered us to understand the importance of developing meaningful relationships with donors instead of simply focusing on getting the gift. The morale of the team increased immensely during her tenure. She encouraged us to pause and celebrate each other’s successes by ringing the ship bell when a gift was received and sharing the story behind each gift.

Dionne is the hardest working, purpose driven executive I’ve ever seen in action. She has elevated fundraising at the University of the Virgin Islands to a level never seen in its history. I have a deep admiration of her work ethic and determination to achieve and surpass, what I consider to be, nearly insurmountable goals.

Dionne Jackson is a creative, visionary fundraising professional. Her work ethic is strong, as is her desire for success. While at Lehigh she was pro-active in reaching goals. Her team was one of the top producers within our Development office. She coached the Leadership Gifts team to raise its highest fundraising numbers to date and brought new ideas to the table for consideration. She implemented several organizational policies, invested in the professional development of her team, and added structure to the organization. She also oversaw the creation of a six-year strategic plan to double the team’s output from $22M to $50M each year.

I work(ed) with Ms. Jackson in my role as Capital Projects Manager for the University of the Virgin Islands. We partnered on several projects related to major gifts that she has closed and I’ve been impressed with her commitment to her work and her ability to build substantive relationships with donors of all backgrounds.

Dionne was a tremendous in helping me craft a donation plan to support the University of Pennsylvania. She provided excellent information and creative ideas that lead to a successful donation. Her personal attention to detail, follow up and engagement made my giving decision that more fruitful. Her commitment to the University and her contributors/donors is beyond reproach.