2026 Virginia Fund Raising Institute

Wendy F. Adams is the Founder and Strategic Leadership Coach of Cultivate for Good—a coaching and consulting agency for leaders who are done dragging the mission up the hill by themselves. She equips executive leaders with practical, culture-shifting tools to lead healthy, effective teams, build aligned organizations, and achieve mission success that doesn’t require burnout as the price of admission.After 26 years in the business world—plus years in the nonprofit trenches and as an entrepreneur—Wendy has seen the same slow leak sink too many organizations: misalignment, mixed messages, and culture drift that quietly drains trust and kills results. Her blunt summary? “Houston, we have a leadership problem.” Not because leaders don’t care… but because too many are leading on fumes, trying to get “buy-in” from people who were never given clarity.This work is personal, not just professional. While walking with her mother through an 11-month battle with pancreatic cancer, Wendy received an unmistakable charge before her mama left this earth: stop hiding your gifts behind one organization’s desk—go serve more leaders. In July 2023, she launched Cultivate for Good to help leaders become the kind of leaders people want to follow—not the kind they have to follow.Wendy’s mantra—Mentor. Motivate. Mobilize.—drives everything she does. Her approach is rooted in Relational Leadership: aligning mission with movement through authentic connection, compassionate accountability, and strategic clarity. Translation: she helps leaders stop managing symptoms and start fixing the system—starting with the culture.And yes—she brings that same energy to the boardroom.Wendy is known for helping boards move from “supportive in theory” to champions in practice—setting clear expectations, strengthening engagement, and equipping board members to show up with time, talent, and treasure in ways that actually move the mission forward. Her Building Board Champions work turns passive board seats into active leadership lanes—without guilt trips, confusion, or performative meetings that should’ve been emails.Based in Lynchburg, Virginia since 2012, Wendy builds bridges between nonprofit and business leaders to strengthen community impact. She earned her CFRE credential in 2021 and became GiANT 5 Voices certified in 2024, expanding her ability to help teams communicate, build trust faster, and reduce unnecessary friction.She also serves as Chair of the Lynchburg Regional Business Alliance Ambassador Team, is a board member of CVANE, and a member of the AFP Piedmont chapter. When she’s not coaching or speaking, she’s traveling, hunting for beauty in the ordinary—collecting ‘look at God’ moments through her lens, spending time with family (not defined by DNA alone), and firing up the smoker—because leadership is serious… but we still need to eat well.