Bonnie Noel Devlin joined Washburn McGoldrick in 2008 as a senior consultant. She became a principal in the firm in 2014, then managing principal in 2015 after she and Karin George purchased the firm from founders Sue Washburn and Bill McGoldrick. Since 2024 she has shared the managing principal duties with Carla Willis, who succeeded Karin George in that role.

Bonnie works with Washburn McGoldrick clients on program assessments, campaign planning and counsel, and campaign feasibility studies. She partners with the Washburn McGoldrick data analytics team to interpret constituent survey results and recommend appropriate programmatic actions. She regularly briefs advancement leaders, presidents, governance boards and campaign committees on trends and disruptors in higher education philanthropy. A trusted guide to numerous clients, she has helped many adapt to unexpected changes – from leadership transitions, extraordinary gifts, campus crises, and inevitable shifts in the economic and political environment – during successful campaigns.

In 18 years of consulting, after 27 years in advancement, Bonnie has built a reputation as a strategic and creative thought partner and a results-oriented leader. Since piloting the firm’s first major gifts Intensives in 2012, she has championed the firm’s training programs for staff, deans, and volunteers and its newest Advancement Leadership for Women. She has also shepherded the growth of Washburn McGoldrick’s quantitative capabilities while accentuating the firm’s signature qualitative skills. All these innovations have been fueled by her fundamental belief in the pivotal role education plays in transforming people’s lives.

Before joining the firm in 2008, Bonnie served Lehigh University for eight years as Vice President for Advancement during its $500M comprehensive campaign. Prior to joining Lehigh, Bonnie served the University of Pennsylvania for 14 years. She was Assistant Vice President during Penn’s Agenda for Excellence campaign, Director of Development for Schools & Centers – an “in-house” consultant to Penn’s deans and center directors and to unit development officers, and her cherished early-career role as director of development and alumni relations for Penn’s School of Nursing.

A member of Phi Beta Kappa, Bonnie holds a bachelor’s degree in American studies summa cum laude from Dickinson College. She served on the Dickinson College Alumni Council from 1999 to 2006 and served 14 years on the board of Holy Child Academy, including 3 years as board chair. A Giving Institute member, she currently serves on the Editorial Board for Giving USA. She and her husband live in Media, PA, not far from her two grown children and their spouses and three grandchildren.