Over the years I have met and spoken with literally thousands of donors.

I enjoy it. And I think I’m pretty good at connecting with donors and motivating them to support our work.  After all, between Smile Train and WonderWork we earned the trust and support of  almost 2 ½ million donors.

Donors like me.

But they love Michelle Sinesky.

At both Smile Train and WonderWork, Michelle was in charge of Donor Relations  and I’ve never seen anyone who was as naturally gifted at it and she was.  It really was her calling.

Michele has the perfect personality for making friends and connecting with people from all walks of life. People could tell that she really cared about all the kids we were helping and it wasn’t just the job for her.   Her affection for patients and surgeons and nurses was contagious.

She worked with hundreds of schools and students who put on various fundraisers and events to raise money for Smile Train.  Michelle  would coach them and send them all kinds of support materials like T-shirts and videos signs and posters. Sometimes she would even go to the school itself and give a speech or talk to a small group.  These students would call Michelle at all hours with questions, ideas, concerns,  you name it.  Michelle was their coach, consultant, cheerleader and  surrogate mom.

 

And she was just as good talking to senior citizens as she was talking to students. Most of our donors were over 50 years old and many were in their 70s, 80s and 90s. Some of them like to talk and Michelle would stay on the phone with them as long as they wanted as she told them how their donations were changing lives half a world away.

Michelle sometimes took major donors on trips to Africa and India. This was a tricky business as it can be difficult traveling the people you don’t know very well. But they would all fall in love with Michelle and come back from the trip raving about her and the experience. And they would be friends for life after that.

 Whenever we had an angry donor or misunderstanding, and with millions of donors this is going to happen, I let Michelle handle it at first because she was so talented at it.  

And because I never saw anyone walk away from a meeting or a conversation with Michelle without a big smile on their face.