Boundaries and Bridges:

Working with Complex Donor Relationships

Premier Sponsor

Join us for Boundaries and Bridges: Working with Complex Donor Relationships, a virtual panel featuring speakers from the frontline fundraising, third-party fundraising, and prospect research sides of philanthropy. Together, they’ll share real-world strategies for navigating complex donor situations. Learn how to set and maintain healthy boundaries while still building trust, preserving relationships, and protecting your mission. This candid conversation will equip you with practical tools you can apply immediately in your donor work.

Anticipated Takeaways

• How to thoughtfully communicate delicate donor interactions in a database setting
• Managing volunteers and donors whose best intentions do not always advance the organization’s mission
• Building strong relationships with donors while maintaining strong personal boundaries
• Tools to use in real life experiences when donors and volunteers are emotional, inappropriate, or have expectations which the organization cannot meet. 

Audience/ Target Market:
This program has been thoughtfully designed to engage and benefit anyone who interacts with donors directly, supports the donor experience, or manages donor data. Looking at donor relationships from every angle of a development shop, we hope this multi-perspective discussion will inform participants how to effectively manage challenging situations both directly and for tracking purposes.

Panelists:
Victoria Fox, Senior Officer of Community Events and Partnerships, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute & The Jimmy Fund
Alicia Nichols, Senior Director of Development, Boston Center for the Arts; WID Board member
Kristen Watson, Associate Executive Director, Prospect Development & Advancement Operations, Tufts University

 Thursday, January 22, 2026

12-1:00 PM (Virtual Program)

Registration: $30 for WID members (through Monday 1/19/26)
$45 for non-members (and members who register late, after Monday, 1/19/26)
Registration will close on Wednesday, January 21.

Login information will be sent one day prior to the program.

No refunds within 7 days of the program

REGISTRATION

Victoria Fox
Victoria is the Senior Program Officer on the Community Events & Partnerships team at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. With over a decade of non-profit event experience, she manages a portfolio of volunteer-led community events that raise $1 million annually, and oversees all marketing and communications initiatives for the Jimmy Fund Golf program – a brand within the Community Events & Partnerships program and one of the nation’s oldest and largest charity golf programs. A proud graduate of the College of the Holy Cross, Victoria brings deep expertise in donor relationship management, event fundraising, and marketing.

 Alicia Nichols
Alicia Nichols most recently served as Senior Director of Development at Boston Center for the Arts, where she lead fundraising and communications in support of artists and cultural equity. She worked closely with donors, funders, board members, and senior leadership, aligning philanthropy with mission and long-term sustainability. With 20+ years of nonprofit admin experience, Alicia approaches fundraising as relationship-building and advocacy, grounded in honesty, trust, and shared purpose. Alicia is a recent graduate of the Institute for Nonprofit Practice CORE program for Social Impact Management & Leadership.

Kristen Watson
Kristen Watson joined Tufts University in March 2013 and has served as Associate Executive Director of Prospect Development and Advancement Operations since 2024. In this role, she leads the Prospect Development team, which includes prospect research, prospect management, due diligence, and analytics. She also oversees University Advancement Operations, with responsibility for budget management, human resources, space planning and facilities management, and professional development. Kristen began her career in prospect research in 2003 at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and later held roles at Northeastern University and Boston College before joining Tufts. She is an active member of the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement (APRA) and the New England Development Research Association (NEDRA). Kristen graduated magna cum laude from Northeastern University with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism, concentrating in public relations, and earned a master’s degree in Leadership with a concentration in nonprofit management from Northeastern University in 2007.