In our "Meet an Apra-IL Member" feature, we interview a different individual from our member rolls every month. This month, we are pleased to be featuring  Madeleine Marchaterre, an Apra-IL member since 2015.

Since 2017, Madeleine has been a Director of Development with Catholic Extension Society, where she oversees prospect research and prospect management, manages the organization's CRM, and smooths out the 17-person Development team's operational processes. Previously, she worked in prospect research at North Park University, and also at the University of Illinois Foundation - a "great training ground because of the complexity of development work across three campuses, and a host of great people to learn from."

Read on to learn more about Madeleine!

1. What is your favorite part about your current role, or about working for your current institution?

I love [Catholic Extension Society's] mission to work with impoverished rural areas across the US to build up vibrant faith communities. The needs we address are rooted in projects identified and deployed by religious and lay leaders in those communities. My role is the best ever—it’s varied in scope as I support annual, major, and planned giving efforts. One day I might be doing prospect research, event support, or running reports to track department metrics; another day I will be working on improving operational processes across the department or reviewing portfolios with gift officers. There is always something new on the horizon.

2. What is the silliest research request that you’ve ever been asked for?

I don’t know about silly but I had a true mystery once with someone who appeared to have changed his name to that of a friend/classmate who died in Vietnam. A gift officer was looking to connect, but he kept an exceedingly low profile and the trail went cold….I wish I could say I solved it, but that one is still a crazy mystery.

3. If you were not in prospect research, what career would you have?

Librarian? Financial Analyst? English professor? Polar explorer? Honestly, I probably would have gone to law school, but I have always been drawn to research and problem solving.

4. Why do you think local professional associations like Apra-IL matter?

Associations like Apra-IL are critical for creating a local network for professionals to access whether you are new to development or an old-timer like myself. I have dipped in and out over the years, but it’s always been there to find someone to talk to if you’re job hunting, to learn how other organizations navigate the same issues we all face, or to see what’s trending in the field. And I’m always re-energized about my role after networking with colleagues at events.

5. What is the last movie you watched (and how was it)?

I just watched the documentary The Thinking Game about DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, and the push for artificial general intelligence. It came out in 2024 and it’s amazing to think about how far AI has come and how much more pervasive it is in our daily lives. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in the development of AI or to learn about how it deployed AlphaFold to predict 3D protein structures. That was Nobel Prize winning work that shows the positive way AI could transform the world. It was a bit of a rebalance for me since I’m reading far more negative things about AI these days.