Tyson L. Pinion, Ph.D.

Tyson Pinion is a Senior Consultant with Gonser Gerber, providing advancement consulting services to independent schools, healthcare systems, higher education, churches, cultural, social service, and other non-profit organizations. His areas of expertise include annual, major, and planned gift programs; strategic planning and visioning; campaign planning and execution; enrollment management; leadership management, team building, and human resources.

Tyson has been managing successful advancement strategies for over 20 years, having served in a variety of leadership and management roles with Advancement Offices and Foundations. He has experience leading and managing all direct reporting areas of advancement: annual giving, major gifts, corporate and foundation relations, planned giving, alumni relations, and database management. He has shaped policy in areas as diverse as board governance, endowment management, scholarship management, financial aid, stewardship, comprehensive budgeting, marketing, branding, and athletics.

Tyson’s experience includes multiple comprehensive campaigns and special projects:

• Tiffin University where he started his career as the Director of Annual Giving, he was part of two comprehensive campaigns expanding the campuses footprint by 50% and building a new indoor athletic facility ($15M);
• Purdue University where he managed the $500 M+ growth plan for the College of Engineering;
• University of Findlay, where he was engaged with a variety of fundraising projects including closure of the Give Voice to Your Values campaign ($55M+), launch and completion of the Center for Student Life College of Business capital project ($10M+), expansion of the Mazza Museum ($1.5M+) and all stages of the Together We Will comprehensive campaign ($75M+).

Tyson holds a Ph.D. in Higher Education with a specialization in Human Resource Management. Notably, his dissertation research focused on leveraging databases to analyze the relationship between a student’s engagement and future alumni giving. This positions him as one of the few researchers in the country with expertise in this specific area.  His research findings provide valuable insights for optimizing annual giving and major gift strategies.

He is engaged in his community and has served on several nonprofit boards.

Education

• Ph.D., Doctorate of Higher Education Administration,
  University of Toledo
• MBA, Masters of Business Administration, Tiffin University
• BCJ, Bachelors of Criminal Justice, Tiffin University

Personal

Residence: McComb, OH