Jeffrey Sobel Consulting and
Semple Bixel Associates join forces
April 22, 2021
Today we are announcing some exciting news: a professional friendship that began 20 years ago in Newark, NJ is coming full-circle this month with the formation of a new, full-service consulting group for nonprofits.
The new firm, Sobel Bixel: Consulting for Nonprofits, brings together two leading expert organizations in nonprofit growth and success. The merger is the natural culmination of a long-standing professional relationship between Jeffrey Sobel Consulting and Semple Bixel Associates, both recognizing that the nonprofit community requires and deserves streamlined, efficient, and strategic approaches to organizational and fundraising planning.
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Vicki Bixel, leading a well-known firm founded in 1976 and Jeff Sobel, embracing his 10 years as founder of a respected consulting firm, are now prepared to take on the next chapter with Sobel Bixel: Consulting for Nonprofits. The firm will be led by Vicki Bixel as CEO, with an experienced and exceptionally talented management team – Maureen Prout Alvidrez and Amy Fiore – as Managing Directors. Jeff Sobel will remain as Chairman of the firm and Julia Bey Ahmet will be transitioning to a new Managing Director role within the organization. Sobel Bixel will continue to meet the expectations of the nonprofit community with increased expertise and expanded fundraising and organizational consulting services that these two companies have provided for decades.
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A little background...
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Very few people, if any, predict that they’ll grow up to be fundraisers. Even more so, very few people expect their careers to come full circle during a pandemic.
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Twenty years ago, Jeff Sobel and Vicki Bixel met in Newark, NJ. Jeff was a Director of Development for a Newark-based social and human service organization. Vicki, a former teacher, was working part time in the family fundraising consulting business as a Director of Development for an educational institution. Both young and becoming familiar with the nonprofit landscape following September 11th 2001, they were leading parallel lives, committed to the individuals they were serving, and to their respective positions as fundraisers in a new world trying to heal from a devastating local and national event.
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Over the next twenty years, Jeff and Vicki remained colleagues and friends. Vicki unexpectedly became CEO of the family business, Semple Bixel Associates, Inc., in 2005 following the untimely death of her father, Dave Bixel. Jeff went on to lead fundraising efforts for a social service agency in NYC and eventually founded his own consulting firm, Jeffrey Sobel Consulting, in 2010. For each firm, clients from all sectors – arts, education, social service, healthcare, environmental, and religious – were helping Jeff and Vicki fulfill their own passion to serve communities in need. In turn, Jeff, Vicki, and their teams were honored to help their clients meet short- and long-term organizational goals in order to raise philanthropic support to build facilities, increase programming, expand internal staffing capacity, and seed endowments and reserve funds. They were results driven and remained compassionate for each community they had the privilege to serve.
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COVID-19 encouraged a new way of thinking in the nonprofit and business communities. It has challenged us to do more, work harder, look deeper, and even in the most difficult of times, find hope.
As a full-service fundraising management consulting group supported by a team of experienced nonprofit and fundraising professionals, we remain steadfast in our work to mentor and guide gift supported institutions in sustaining and growing their missions while realizing their visions.
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What does this mean for the future? Our commitment to our clients and our work remains the same. Our clients can expect to receive the highest level of strategy and support. We remain focused on providing ethical service and our focus on results has not and will not change. Sobel Bixel: Consulting for Nonprofits means that the depth of our consulting team will expand and the talent will be even broader then before. The change is in the name, the promise to serve well will never waiver.
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Personal, professional, and global events often lead to individuals reflecting on what type of experiences they want as they move beyond defining moments in their lives. For Jeff and Vicki, 20 years of friendship and admiration for each other’s work has been shaped by the circumstances that impacted their lives and the lives of those they have served as fundraisers and consultants. Sobel Bixel, dedicated to serving nonprofits, looks forward to the next chapter and all we will learn from the events that will inform our work, our clients’ work, and the nonprofit community for decades to come.
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From all of us at Sobel Bixel, we want to personally say Thank You for your continued support, and we look forward to growing our relationship. We know our success is dependent on your success, and we are excited about what Sobel Bixel has to offer.