Shelby LaMar

Shelby has more than 25 years of experience managing development programs for independent schools. He has helped clients optimally structure their development programs, prepare for capital campaigns, and permanently expand their philanthropic capacity.

Independent schools that identify the intersection of institutional opportunity and donor interest may better deliver their missions with a single conversation.”

About Shelby

As both a veteran consultant and longtime independent school practitioner, Shelby is afforded a deep view into the unique challenges and opportunities facing schools and their advancement programs. Shelby has played a critical role in delivering advancement program reviews, providing interim program management, managing campaign feasibility studies, and rendering ongoing capital campaign counsel. His clients have oversubscribed their most ambitious fundraising goals, and in the process, many of these development programs have also permanently elevated what their schools may expect their donors to furnish operationally and in the form of major gift support.

Across his career, Shelby has:

• Served as lead consultant for a 600-student independent school for prekindergarten through 12th grade so that it could prepare for its first comprehensive campaign in more than a decade. This collaboration comprised an advancement program review, a study to assess the feasibility of the campaign goal, tactical fundraising workshops for volunteer leaders, and support both before and during the campaign to ensure the activity was aligned to achieve philanthropic goals.
• Directed a series of projects to help a 400-student independent school for kindergarten through eighth grade prepare for its first major capital campaign. In addition to running an advancement program review and feasibility study and providing ongoing capital campaign counsel, this project called for deliberate and ongoing conversation with the school’s board and leadership to help fortify the school community’s understanding and appreciation of a true culture of philanthropy.
• Supported a centuries-old 700-student boarding/day school in pursuit of the most ambitious comprehensive campaign goal in its history. He played a key role in interpreting feedback from feasibility study interviews to discern the most strategic funding targets for the institution.

Concurrent with his duties at Huron, Shelby continues to serve as the chief advancement officer at Lancaster Country Day School in Pennsylvania, during which time the school has run three capital campaigns and seen its operational revenue quadruple. Prior to joining Huron, Shelby served as a consulting vice president at GG+A, which was acquired by Huron in 2024. Shelby has also held a variety of development positions at St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes School in Virginia.

Shelby earned a Bachelor of Arts from Washington and Lee University and a Master of Business Administration from Elizabethtown College.

Shelby serves as class agent for Washington and Lee University and is also on the alumni board of his independent school alma mater, St. Anne’s-Belfield. Outside of education, Shelby is a member of the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, historic architectural review board.