I thought it was gonna be a temporary sh- stop in my career, and 16 years later, I'm still in the fundraising world and I'm loving it.

All right.

I'm Jeff Schreifels.

I'm principal and owner of Verdis Group and, uh, live in Philadelphia.

So I was 30 years old and I was in my second development job at that time, and I was working for a medium-sized m- nonprofit.

And I got a call from an owner of an agency, a fundraising agency in Seattle that I had met when I was about 25 and just learning how to do fundraising.

And I used him as a mentor, and I would send him things like, "What do you think of this or that?" And he, you know, I think he liked that I was curious in the, the questions I was asking.