Member Spotlight: Beverly Neisler
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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS SPRINGFIELD
Innovate Springfield
Member Spotlight · September 2026
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This Month’s Leader
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Beverly Neisler
Beverly Neisler, M.A., CFRE · Founder, Leadership411
Nonprofit Fundraiser. Board Strategist. Entrepreneur.
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This Month’s Spotlight
38 Years of Rooting for the Underserved. Then She Started Over at 60.
Beverly Neisler spent nearly four decades in nonprofit fundraising, and raised $24 million for a comprehensive campaign that included the renovation of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at HSHS St. John’s Hospital. She led development teams at some of Springfield’s most respected organizations. When she retired, most people expected her to slow down. Instead she started a consulting firm, enrolled in Innovate Springfield’s Startup Roadmap, and is now building a second business focused on nonprofit board governance. This is what it looks like to treat a career not as something you finish, but as something you keep building.
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Beverly Neisler grew up in Nokomis, Illinois, a small rural community about an hour southeast of Springfield. She was a communications major in college, and when a college president suggested she try fundraising after noticing how easily she connected with people and followed through on her commitments, she had never heard of nonprofit development as a career path. She gave it a shot anyway. Thirty-eight years later she is still at it.
Her first fundraising job was at SPARC, where she served as director of development and public relations. Special event fundraising was the focus then, and the role taught her two things that have defined her ever since: how to be strategic about engaging people, and how much it means to show up for communities that do not always have someone in their corner.
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By the numbers
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38
Years in nonprofit fundraising, a tenure she calls rare in the industry
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$24M
Raised ahead of schedule in the comprehensive Imagine Tomorrow campaign at HSHS St. John’s Hospital
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2
Businesses launched after retirement, with a second in development focused on board governance
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“I love rooting for people who are underserved, who need a voice. That’s why nonprofit work really spoke to me.”
Beverly Neisler
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The Campaign She Still Thinks About
During her time at HSHS St. John's Hospital, Beverly led the Imagine Tomorrow campaign, a comprehensive $24 million fundraising effort completed ahead of schedule. Part of those dollars went toward the renovation of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), and that piece of the campaign is the one she carries with her.
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“It’s supposed to be the most exciting time of your life when you have a baby. And then to have that excitement turned into fear because something medically just happened to your baby. That was a very meaningful campaign for all of us who worked on it.”
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Because of that campaign and the generosity of its donors, St. John’s now has a renovated NICU. For Beverly, that is what the work is actually about, not the dollar amount, but what the dollar amount makes possible for families at the hardest moment of their lives.
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She Retired. Then She Started a Business.
Beverly had been thinking about owning her own business for a long time, but life kept moving and she kept putting it off. Then she turned 60 and asked herself a question she could not ignore: you said you always wanted this, so when exactly are you going to do it? She retired from HSHS in November 2024 and launched Leadership411, her nonprofit consulting firm, in January 2025.
The transition was not without adjustment. After decades of leading teams inside large organizations, she suddenly had no IT department, no marketing team, and no colleagues down the hall. She had to become all of those things herself, and she will be the first to admit her technical skills got a workout. But she was not afraid. She was ready.
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“I love the work I do. I love working with nonprofits. I just wasn’t really ready to walk away from all of that.”
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On Fundraising
“It is a 24/7 lifestyle. You are always on, always talking with people, working long hours. It’s not a nine to five.”
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On Entrepreneurship
“Find your people. Find people who have had a business for a while and learn from them. It can be isolating to be your own person.”
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On How She Lives
“I try to treat everybody with kindness and respect, whatever their title or where they are in life. We are all humans and we should all be able to respect each other.”
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The Board Impact Series
Through Leadership411, Beverly has launched the Board Impact Series, a professional development workshop for nonprofit board members, CEOs, and executive directors. Her view on nonprofit boards is not that they are doing things wrong, it is that expectations of what a board member needs to know are growing, and the training has not always kept up. Passion for the mission is not enough on its own. Board members also need to understand financial statements, governance responsibilities, and what it actually means to lead an organization through a volunteer role.
The series is free to nonprofit participants, made possible by two sponsors: the Community Foundation for the Land of Lincoln and the Junior League of Springfield. Beverly knows how tight nonprofit margins can be, and she wanted professional development to be accessible to the organizations that need it most, not just the ones that can afford a registration fee.
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Why She Joined Innovate Springfield
After decades inside large organizations, Beverly has always carried an entrepreneurial spirit. When she received an email about Innovate Springfield’s Startup Roadmap class, she wondered whether it might have something for her. She applied, took the class, and learned from it in ways that immediately shaped what she was building. The program gave her not just information but a community of people thinking the same way she was.
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“When someone is going to start their business, find your people. Use the Small Business Development Center. Join Innovate Springfield. You learn a lot of information about how to start something new.”
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That class also planted the seed for her second business, currently in development, which will focus on supporting the governing boards of nonprofit organizations. Leadership411 was just the beginning.
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“The community and the people they serve depend on that organization to get it right. Executive directors and boards have a giant responsibility, and they are rising to it.”
Beverly Neisler, on nonprofit leadership
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Looking Ahead
Beverly Neisler is back at Innovate Springfield, this time as a volunteer, and she will tell you it is partly because being at home gets boring when you are wired the way she is. But it is also because she genuinely believes in what this community is doing, and she has seen what happens when people who care about the same things find each other and start collaborating.
Her story is a reminder that a career is not a single arc. It is a series of decisions to keep going, keep building, and keep showing up for the people who need someone in their corner. Thirty-eight years in, a retirement that did not stick, a new business, and a second one on the way. Beverly Neisler is not finished. Not even close.
UIS Innovate Springfield is proud to feature her as this month’s member spotlight. Learn more about Beverly’s work at leadership411.com or connect with her on LinkedIn.
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