Are you new to relationship management or considering making the leap? Have you wondered how all the pieces come together to help your organization reach its fundraising goals? As you’ve likely suspected, a lot happens across teams to support fundraising, and we’re offering a look at the inner workings of relationship management through our Fundamentals Course. In this course, you’ll build your skills in portfolio composition, data management, and cultivating your influence to be a trusted partner for your fundraisers. 

If relationship management is new to you, you may be struggling to understand your value and reach. Relationship management is the backbone of healthy portfolios and strong fundraising performance. It’s where fundraiser strategy meets interpersonal trust. What we’re not: the data “police” or hall monitors. We encourage the timely entry of opportunities in progress and the results of visits as a dynamic record of engagement. If fundraisers are unclear about their next steps with prospects in their portfolios, this can stall gift asks and slow momentum. By providing clear guidelines for data management, relationship management makes it easier for fundraisers to act on their strategy when the time is right. 

Relationship management plays a role in data management without losing sight of the bigger picture. You are the thread that connects fundraisers to the larger organization and mission. For example, when there’s a campus event with overlapping donor pools it can sometimes lead to feelings of territoriality and tension among stakeholders. But every time you share opportunities for collaboration with your fundraisers, you build bridges across the team that connect efforts and amplify outcomes. 

Relationship management is a combination of hard and soft skills. In this course, we’ll give you tools you can apply right away to optimize portfolios, use pivot tables to visualize data, and build the platform that guides your work. We’ll break down formulas for calculating projections and provide standard terminology so you can quickly access the tools you need. We’ll also explore the importance of ethics in action, influencing without authority, and how to serve as a trusted strategist navigating a large operation with diplomacy, curiosity, and clarity. 

This field has many unwritten rules, and we want to give you the guidebook early. The course will be delivered through bite-sized modules along with a live session. Sign up today for Apra Fundamentals: Relationship Management for a peek behind the curtain. We’re looking forward to seeing you there! 

Cynthia Mikimoto
Associate Director of Prospect Management at Caltech | Vice-Chair, Apra Fundamentals Committee 

Cynthia Mikimoto serves as Associate Director of Prospect Management at Caltech, where she partners with development officers to ensure their portfolios remain accurate, current, and strategically aligned.  

Cynthia plays an active role in onboarding new team members and meets regularly with frontline fundraisers to serve as their strategic partner. Collaborating with the information services team, she works to provide insights and the story within the data for fundraisers. Ms. Mikimoto brings more than 20 years’ experience in prospect management, prospect research, leadership briefings, donor relations and event management. At Caltech, she has implemented automations related to portfolio review notifications and stage management. She served as faculty on the introduction to Relationship Management course for Apra PD last year and is vice chair of the combined committee this year. She has presented on the critical collaboration between fundraisers and prospect development at conferences each year since 2023. In recognition of her leadership and contributions to the field, Cynthia was elected president of Apra’s California chapter, CARA, in 2025. She received her undergraduate degree in psychology from Loyola Marymount University.