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September 2008

Volume 6, Number 3

STELLAR Fundraising, the leading economic and community development fundraising firm in the country, announced today that Mike Seabolt has been promoted to the position of president.

STELLAR Founder and CEO, Terry J. Cusack said that Seabolt’s duties and authority will expand beyond his former responsibilities for client relations and strategic planning to now also include the management and oversight of STELLAR’s Business Development Team and its External (Study/Campaign) Operations units.

“Since Mike joined STELLAR earlier this year, he has brought an extraordinary combination of corporate savvy and hands-on nonprofit consulting experience to STELLAR, with a deep understanding and broad experience across all types of development fundraising,” said Cusack. “Under his leadership, STELLAR will continue to grow and deliver outstanding results for our clients. Since its founding eight years ago, STELLAR has, on average, exceeded the fundraising campaign goal on all completed campaigns of their clients by seventeen (17%) percent.

Under the new Executive Management Team organization, Cusack will continue to direct the firm’s growth and internal operations. A major goal of the restructuring is to allow Cusack to double the amount of time he can spend “giving back” through teaching, speaking, and facilitating at meetings and special events. Cusack will be available to serve in these roles at no charge or expense to the chamber and economic development communities that have so warmly embraced STELLAR and made the firm the fastest growing and most successful campaign management firm in its niche’.

To schedule STELLAR Founder and CEO, Terry J. Cusack to speak at your next conference, contactSTELLAR was recently retained for second time by the Greater Rome Chamber of Commerce (GA) and our long-time dear friend, Chamber President and CEO, Al Hodge.

STELLAR ran a highly successful campaign for the Greater Rome Chamber in 2004 that concluded on-time, under-budget and well over goal, thanks to the collective efforts of the Rome Chamber volunteers; Al Hodge and his superb chamber staff; and the STELLAR Team of experts assigned to the campaign, who all worked seamlessly and diligently on the ambitious campaign.

The campaign results have brought great success to Rome. Most recently, STELLAR Founder and CEO Terry Cusack was interviewed by Forbes magazine about "Hot Communities” who were “doing creative things”, or who were simply “doing all the right things” in economic development.

Cusack walked Forbes through a summary of all STELLAR-client communities, and according to him, what Forbes loved about Rome was “that they already had a very successful track record of recruiting major, well known international manufacturing firms to the community and had developed customized work training programs that supply a highly skilled and qualified workforce to those manufacturers upon their arrival.” The result was an amazing article in Forbes entitled, HAIL ROME!, that provided free exposure and promotion for the area, valued by some estimates at more than one million dollars in media purchases.” To view the article, visit the Forbes website The new Greater Rome Campaign, Partners in Prosperity II, identifies seven critical areas of economic and community development focus that the Greater Rome Chamber will address over the next five-years through an ambitious budget of $2.5 million.

Also included as part of STELLAR’s recommended overall strategy is an ROI economic analysis to show investors just exactly how well the Chamber performed with their previous five-year investment campaign, Partners in Prosperity I. This valuable research helps to “set the stage” for the new Partners in Prosperity II, demonstrating the value of the program and the Chambers wise stewardship of the dollars being raised. The customized ROI Look Back Report Card© is being prepared by STELLAR Strategic Partner, Tom Ralser, president of According to STELLAR COO, Brian Smith, “The Fall is the ideal time to do a Fundraising Feasibility Study, since local corporations are finalizing next year's giving budgets at about this time of year. A Fall Study allows STELLAR clients to get on the “radar screen” for next year's budgets, preventing the common objection we often hear at STELLAR;

“I’m sorry, but our budget is set for this (2009) year, perhaps we can give next year (2010).”

Savvy clients are launching Campaign Feasibility Studies now so they can begin to receive Campaign cash