Fundraising and Communications Experts

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Michael Montgomery pursued parallel careers in Fundraising and Economic Development for many years until bringing these two streams together in the present form of Montgomery Consulting. As a fundraising consultant, he has advised on more than $1 billion in fundraising and project activity including on some of this region’s most challenging efforts.  Earlier in his career, he headed private sector fundraising for Focus: HOPE, was on staff at Wayne State University and was a program consultant for the Hudson-Webber Foundation.  He is an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Health and Human Service at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and previously taught nonprofit management courses to MBA students at Lawrence Tech and MPA students at Oakland University.  At the start of his career, he was a Foreign Service Officer for the U.S. Department of State.  In 2002, Mike won the Michigan Economic Developers Association’s Mike Conboy Award for his contributions to economic development education and is a three-time winner of MEDA’s President’s Award. He is a former member of MEDA’s Board of Directors and of the Board of Governors of the Cranbrook Schools.  In fall 2009, Crain’s Detroit Business selected him as a leading local adjunct professor for bringing real world challenges and experience to his classroom. He holds an MA from the University of Michigan and an AB from Columbia University.

On projects that would benefit from communications and design expertise, we collaborate with Bidlack Creative Group of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Linda and Chris Bidlack are the principals in Bidlack Creative Group which has more than 30 years of experience serving a variety of corporate, public sector and non-profit clients -- including extensive experience working with non-profit development campaigns and donor relations work for multiple universities and institutions including the U-M Medical School, U-M Law School, U-D Mercy and U-D Mercy Law School, DMC Cardiac Care Center and DMC Children’s Hospital.  Currently, Bidlack is assisting Yankee Air Museum with their $20 million dollar campaign to build the National Museum of Aviation and Technology. Bidlack believes that great communication is based on strategic, targeted messages skillfully combined with clever and unique visuals. We work closely with our clients and partners to discover relevant background information for each project. Once we have the detailed information we need to develop a coherent message strategy, we work with our design team to develop the effective executions of those messages. Bidlack’s communication experts have many years of experience with all forms of printed and electronic communications, including websites, mobile communications, social media and SEO, branding and messaging.

We have real "bench strength" in the form of highly-qualified allies on whom we can draw to create expanded project teams to meet the needs of particular clients. These include specialists in different aspects of fundraising, economic development professionals, budget and finance people, and social scientists.