How This Started
This isn't a consulting firm that read about fundraising. It's a firm built by someone who helped build one of the most important companies in American philanthropy, then spent 14 years bringing what he learned to organizations that needed it most.
In 2002, I joined a small startup called Foundation Source as one of its earliest employees. The company had a handful of clients and a big idea: become the operating system for America's private foundations.
Over the next nine years, I helped build the engine. The brand. The advisor engagement strategy. The demand generation system. The thought leadership. The commercial motion that brought a thousand of America's wealthiest families through the door. By the time I left, the firm had grown from $50 million to over $5 billion in assets under management. Today, Foundation Source serves over 5,600 private foundations and 1,700 nonprofits, administers more than $55 billion in charitable assets, and maintains a 98% client retention rate. The engine we built in those early years didn't just last. It became the industry standard.
That experience didn't teach me how to consult. It taught me how high-stakes philanthropic decisions actually get made, from the inside. Not what the textbooks say. What actually happens in the room when a family is deciding where to put $10 million. What makes them lean in. What makes them hesitate. What makes the commitment feel inevitable.
In 2011, I started The Weinbaum Group because I kept seeing the same problem. Brilliant nonprofit leaders, passionate, committed, doing important work, who didn't have the system to match their ambition. Their teams were managing relationships but not guiding decisions. Their conversations were warm but not structured. Their pipeline was a list of names, not a system of prioritized opportunities.
I knew what they were missing because I'd spent a decade building it for someone else. So I started building it for them.
14 years
in the field
100+
engagements
$1B+
in client revenue growth
98%
the client retention standard he helped set
14 Years. 100+ Organizations.
Since then, we've partnered with organizations ranging from $2M community foundations to billion-dollar enterprises, including MIT Solve, USC, XPRIZE, American Endowment Foundation, TechSoup Global, WeConnect International, and dozens more. I've trained boards, coached CEOs, and installed the revenue systems that turned stalled pipelines into seven-figure growth engines.
What People Say
Tom has an uncanny ability to significantly increase and accelerate growth in ways I have never seen before. His approaches are on a level well above any other sales and marketing advisor I've ever studied. He's a true original, and he cares as well.
Stunning results are produced when Tom's clients act on his wise and practical counsel. He has impeccable timing, perceptive instincts, and above all, exciting and positive things happen when Tom is involved.
I have always been impressed with Tom's ability to navigate challenging situations: impossible deadlines, severe financial limitations, and precarious negotiations. He is a masterful connector of ideas, people and possibilities.
What We Stand By
Warm before corporate · Clear before clever · Wise before impressive · Deliberate before reactive · Real before polished · Earned before claimed
"I didn't start this firm to build a consulting business. I started it because the system I helped build at Foundation Source changed everything for the families it served, and I believed nonprofits deserved the same thing."