About Kestrel Strategies
Strategic counsel built on three decades of fundraising leadership.
Kestrel Strategies is led by Sarah Humphries, a senior fundraising strategist who has spent three decades helping mission-driven organizations turn ambition into resources. Kestrel brings the clarity, discipline, and precision of the bird that inspired its name to every engagement.
Why clients choose Kestrel
Three decades of proven leadership.
Deep experience across capital campaigns, executive development, and organizational growth, translated into strategy that works.
Focus grounded in discipline.
Kestrel reads the landscape with precision, helping leaders act with clarity instead of reacting to pressure.
Personal, senior-level engagement.
Sarah leads every engagement directly, backed by a trusted network of specialists assembled for each client’s needs.
Strategy built to last.
Solutions designed to strengthen institutions, not just meet short-term revenue goals.
Depth in mission-driven sectors.
Particular expertise in climate, conservation, biodiversity, reproductive rights, and social impact work.
Philosophy & Approach
Development is not an auxiliary function or a necessary burden. It is a core strategic discipline that should help shape priorities, strengthen institutions, and build the power required to advance missions. At its best, fundraising is relational, strategic, and intertwined with an organization’s mission, leadership, and long-term impact.
Dedicated Care
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Mindful Practices
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Approach 3
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Partnership Built Through Bespoke Engagement
Discipline Grounded in Expertise and Perspective
An Immersive Approach
Every engagement is shaped by the client’s specific needs and opportunity, drawing on landscape analysis, organizational assessment, and hands-on immersion. The process surfaces the insight needed to move forward with confidence, revealing not just what an organization needs, but why. Each assessment is tailored to the organization’s goals and circumstances, ensuring strategy is built on real insight rather than assumption.
Leadership
Sarah Humphries
Sarah Humphries is a senior fundraising strategist who has three decades of experience helping mission-driven organizations unlock the vision, positioning, and partnerships required for transformational growth. She has guided organizations working across climate, conservation, biodiversity, reproductive rights, and women’s health through periods of expansion, inflection, and strategic reinvention.
Fundraising & nonprofit leadership
Leading development at the executive level
Served as Head of Development
Proof In Action
Trusted by organizations committed to lasting impact.
“Sarah Humphries is a tremendous fundraiser, and so much more. Sarah’s brilliance rests in both her innate curiosity that allows her to go deep on subject matter while thinking strategically about how to best craft a strategic plan in service to effective campaigns. Her dedication to mission and brand is unparalleled as is her tenacity to achieve measurable results and impact.”
“Sarah is an incredible visionary and strategic thinker. She has the ambition and experience to quickly assess and understand the challenges and barriers to transformational giving for nonprofits. But she doesn’t just identify problems or barriers; she actively seeks out solutions and works tirelessly to implement them. She has an instinctive and strategic understanding of board culture as it relates to organizational strategy and programming, and her work with Ocean Conservancy’s board and leadership led to entirely new and strategic opportunities for the organization, including partnerships with American Express, Breitling, Super Bowl 54 and Team Seas.”
“Sarah knows what it takes to raise transformational capital, full stop. She has an exceptional ability to read the philanthropic landscape, identify where opportunity exists, and connect strategy, people, and resources in ways that produce extraordinary results. She brings both vision and deep expertise to her work and is an invaluable asset to any organization navigating a complex fundraising environment.”
“I had the pleasure of working with Sarah Humphries for nearly ten years at Ocean Conservancy. Sarah is one of the smartest, most insightful, and broadest thinkers I know. She has demonstrated excellence in fundraising, but this success comes not from a focus on money but rather on the personal stories, programmatic narratives, and institutional impact that draw donors into an honest conversation about shared values and desired outcomes. If you are looking for a consummate professional to help you grow your impact, Sarah should be your partner. She will listen deeply, always challenge assumptions, and often ask the hard questions that others would rather avoid.”
“Sarah is one of the most talented professionals I know in the NGO space. She is smart, creative, and passionate – all of which allows her to create bespoke approaches to helping her clients advance their fundraising objectives. She is a tremendous asset to every organization and CEO with whom she works.”
