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Joanna Hogan is the founder of Inspire Generosity and creator of The DREAMS® Framework. With more than three decades of leadership experience in the nonprofit sector, she has helped organizations navigate fundraising, strategic leadership, institutional transition, and organizational growth.
Her leadership experience includes helping Michigan State University secure significant philanthropic support for its College of Human Medicine in Grand Rapids, leading major fundraising initiatives for the Clark Foundation, and guiding Compass College of Film and Media through a season of institutional closure with compassion and clarity.
But Joanna’s work today is driven less by fundraising metrics and more by a deeper conviction:
Generosity flourishes when relationships are rooted in trust, authenticity, and shared purpose.
Known for her thoughtful, relational approach to leadership and generosity, Joanna now guides nonprofit leaders and giving partners through transformational retreat experiences designed to cultivate meaningful, sustainable generosity for everyone involved.
When my last job ended, it felt like the perfect storm.
I had been hired to fix a fundraising problem, but the deeper issue was something else entirely: culture, clarity, trust. In the end, I helped the board make the hard decisions. I told the truth. The college closed, and my role as president was over.
But it wasn’t just a job that ended. It was an entire season of my life. And now, the role I had poured myself into was gone. The version of me who had held it all together for so long came undone. I kept asking God, “What am I supposed to do next?” Until a wise man gently said, “Joanna, I think you’re asking the wrong question.” So I stopped asking what I should do and asked instead: “God, what are You doing, and how can I be part of it?”
That’s when I received a clear message and a vision about nonprofit leaders who are doing brave, often lonely work to serve their communities. People full of vision and hope, but carrying the heavy burden of needing money to make it work. And I heard: They need what you have. Teach them the way I taught you. Help them get unstuck. Inspire them to dream again and dream bigger.
A few months later, I went on a seven-day solo retreat to begin writing the book that would become the foundation for The DREAMS® Framework. As I moved through each section, I kept inviting God’s guidance before I put anything on the page. In each part of the framework, before I could teach anything, God held up a mirror to my own life.
Every lesson had to be lived first, and every truth relearned. The first theme was generosity itself. When I asked what to say, I saw an image of an airplane oxygen mask. That’s when it clicked: before we can inspire generosity in others, we have to practice self-generosity ourselves. That realization changed everything.
This wasn’t just a curriculum. It was soul work.
And while this can be taught in many formats, this would be best received in a retreat setting, a space for stillness, reflection, and real transformation. I knew then that if I wanted to help others truly inspire generosity, I had to give them what I had just received. Not just tools. Not just training. A moment to breathe. A place to reflect. A path back to what really matters.That’s how Inspire Generosity was born.
Whether you lead, serve, fund, or guide, there's a place for you here.
