Speaking
Kathy Arney speaks about money, mission, and the courage to fund the work.
Kathy Arney is a CPA who came into fundraising by accident, and agreed to it on one condition: she would have nothing to do with the actual fundraising.
She stayed because of what she found: extraordinary leaders doing essential work, without ever being shown how to fund it. And because fundraising turned out to be nothing like she expected. It was never really about money. It was about connecting people to work that matters to them.
Two decades later, she has helped deliver a $262 million university campaign, built development offices from scratch, walked beside hundreds of nonprofit leaders, and co-written The Deep End with Gordon Holley.
Audiences describe her sessions as practical, fun, and quietly transformative. People leave with tools they use the next morning, and a different way of thinking about what their work is worth.
Formats
- Keynotes (45 to 60 minutes)
- Workshops, half or full day
- Board sessions
- Webinars & virtual training
- Copies of The Deep End book for every participant (bulk pricing for 10 or more books).
In person or virtual, every session is tailored to the audience.
Kathy will want to know who’s in the room and what’s keeping them up at night.
What organizers say
Your obvious passion for the work you do, combined with your experience and incredibly affable and down-to-earth delivery, combine to make a session with you a really affirming experience. Your sense of humour and bouts of laughter were hugely contagious.
Suzanne Riverin PhD, board member, Enliven Cancer Care Muskoka
You have such an amazing gift for taking big topics like fund development and nonprofit finance and creating trainings that are informative, practical, and rooted in the day-to-day lived experience of nonprofit leaders.
Find the right talk:
Sector conferences and member events
What’s keeping them up at night: Doing more with less and wondering how long they can keep it up
Start with: Into the Deep End · Stop Apologizing for the Rent · The Painting Behind You
Boards
Start with: You Don’t Have to Ask for Money · Designed, Not Chased
Executive directors and new leaders
Start with: Room to Breathe · Into the Deep End · What Does Your Mission Actually Cost?
Fundraising professionals
Start with: Invitations, Not Asks · Stop Apologizing for the Rent
Funders and foundations
Start with: Stop Apologizing for the Rent · Room to Breathe
CPAs, treasurers, and finance teams
Start with: What Does Your Mission Actually Cost? · Into the Deep End
Arts and culture organizations
Start with: Invitations, Not Asks · The Painting Behind You
Keynotes
For conferences, sector gatherings, and member events. 45 to 60 minutes, in person or virtual.
Now Available - Into The Deep End
From financial chaos to clarity
Nobody steps into nonprofit leadership to manage cash flow. And then one day, they’re in the deep end.
Based on the new book by Kathy Arney and Gordon Holley, this keynote follows Alex, a program leader turned executive director, through a funding shortfall, a tough board meeting, and a budget that no longer works. The story is fictional. Every situation in it is real. Along the way, audiences pick up the tools that carried Alex through, and the reassurance that financial leadership can be learned.
You’ll leave with: plain-language tools for reading the numbers and funding the mission, and the confidence to step into money conversations instead of around them.
Best for: sector conferences, executive director networks, new and emerging leaders, CPA and finance audiences.
Add the book: a copy of The Deep End for every attendee, at bulk pricing.
New! The Painting Behind You
Finding the opportunities hiding in plain sight
At the Louvre, Kathy stood in a crowd of a hundred people, all facing the Mona Lisa. Then she turned around.
Behind the crowd hung one of the largest paintings in the museum, and almost no one was looking at it. Nonprofits do the same thing: the same funders, the same programs, the same measures of success, because that’s where everyone else is looking. This keynote helps leaders name what they’re flocking toward out of habit, and give themselves the time and permission to turn around.
You’ll leave with: your own “painting behind you,” and one practical way to protect the time to pursue it.
Best for: conference openers and closers, leadership retreats, philanthropy and women’s leadership gatherings, arts audiences.
Stop Apologizing for the Rent
Raising money for what your mission really costs
Donors love programs. But someone has to fund the heat, the software, and the people who keep it all running.
It starts with a story about a lawyer and his office, and a question nonprofits rarely ask themselves: why do we apologize for what it takes to do good work? From there, Kathy shows leaders how to name the full cost of their programs and invite donors and funders to support it, especially the unrestricted dollars that hold everything up.
You’ll leave with: the full-cost story for your own programs, and the confidence to ask for it without apology.
Best for: sector conferences, fundraising professionals, boards, funders and foundations.
New! Room to Breathe
Shrinking the “somehow” in your revenue plan
Ask an executive director how next year’s budget gets funded, and there’s often a slice that reads: we’ll find it somehow. That slice is what wakes them at 2 a.m.
This keynote names the weight leaders carry, then gives them a way to set it down. Kathy shows how to sort revenue into what’s known, what’s likely, and what’s still “somehow,” and how to move money steadily toward the known through renewals, multi-year commitments, and deeper donor relationships. The goal is a revenue plan you can sleep on.
You’ll leave with: a known, likely, and somehow picture of your own revenue, and first moves to shrink the somehow.
Best for: executive director networks, leadership retreats, sector conferences, boards who want to support their executive director.
Pairs with: Designed, Not Chased, the hands-on working-session version of the same idea.
Working Sessions
For boards, leadership teams, and staff. Half day, full day, or a single focused session, in person or virtual.
Designed, Not Chased
Building revenue that fully funds your mission
Grant after grant, event after event, appeal after appeal. It keeps the lights on. It isn’t a plan.
This hands-on session introduces the GROW Model, KEA Canada’s framework for designing revenue instead of chasing it. Boards and staff map where their revenue comes from now, see where it’s concentrated, and agree on the first moves toward a stronger mix.
You’ll leave with: a shared map of your current revenue, and first moves to close the gaps.
Best for: boards and staff together, executive directors, development teams, funder-hosted cohorts.
Invitations, Not Asks
Taking the dread out of donor conversations
Fundraising isn’t asking for money. It’s offering someone the chance to support something they already care about.
Built for the people who do the talking: executive directors, development staff, and board members who meet donors. Kathy replaces the dread of “the ask” with the confidence of an invitation, then gives everyone room to practise.
You’ll leave with: a simple framework for donor conversations, real practice using it, and the courage to have them.
Best for: development teams, executive directors, board members who meet donors, arts and community organizations.
You Don't Have to Ask for Money
What boards can do for fundraising instead
“Our board doesn’t fundraise.” Most boards would, if someone showed them how.
A working session that turns a reluctant board into one that knows its role and wants to play it. Nobody is cold-calling anyone. Each member finds the part of fundraising that fits them, from opening doors to saying thank you. Practical, participatory, and kind.
You’ll leave with: a board role map, and at least one thing every member can do this quarter.
Best for: board retreats, governance committees, new board orientation.
What Does Your Mission Actually Cost?
Getting finance and fundraising into the same conversation
In most organizations, the people who manage the money and the people who raise it barely share a plan.
Drawing on Kathy’s background as both a CPA and a fundraiser, this session builds the shared language that lets boards, finance, and fundraising answer two questions together: what does the mission actually cost, and how will we fund it?
You’ll leave with: a shared planning frame your leadership team can use right away.
Best for: leadership teams, board treasurers and finance committees, CPA and finance audiences.
Honoured to Present to…
Kathy Arney Speaker Bio
Kathy Arney, CPA, CA, MFA-P, is the Founder and CEO (Chief Encouragement Officer) of KEA Canada, creator of the GROW Model, and co-author with Gordon Holley of The Deep End: A Nonprofit Leader’s Journey from Financial Chaos to Clarity.
A rare blend of accountant and fundraiser, she has spent more than two decades walking beside nonprofit leaders as they build the revenue to fund their work. Her experience includes helping deliver a $262 million campaign at Queen’s University, fund development leadership at The Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity, and hundreds of engagements across Canada and beyond. She serves as Board Chair of the Canadian Association of Gift Planners (CAGP/ACPDP).
She lives in the mountains of Canmore, Alberta, in Treaty 7 Territory.
Photo by Banff Centre
Tell us about your event: date, audience, format, and what you’d like people to leave with, and we’ll be in touch within two business days.
Land Acknowledgement
The KEA Canada team is thankful for the opportunity to create, collaborate, play and work on the lands known today as Canada. We recognize that these lands are home to the enduring presence of all First Nations and Métis people, and the Inuit.
We acknowledge that KEA Canada's home office in Canmore is in the area traditionally known as “Chuwapchipchiyan Kudi Bi” (translated in Stoney Nakoda as “shooting at the willows”) and the traditional Treaty 7 territory of the Îyârhe Nakoda (Stoney Nakoda) – comprised of the Bearspaw First Nation, Chiniki First Nation, and Goodstoney First Nation – as well as the Tsuut’ina First Nation and the Blackfoot Confederacy comprised of the Siksika, Piikani, Kainai. We acknowledge that this territory is also home to the Rocky View Métis District within the Battle River Territory (District 4).
We are grateful for the meaningful relationships that we are forging with Indigenous communities across this land that we know today as Canada as we work towards truth and reconciliation in all that we do today and every day.
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New book available now! The Deep End: A Nonprofit Leader's Journey from Financial Chaos to Clarity