Chris Jabin

Chris Jabin founded Dragonfly Advisors, Inc. in 2017. The Firm offers strategic consulting services to organizations helping them build funding networks, develop leadership, prepare and test campaign readiness and establish or enhance development programs. It also advises individual clients and their advisors on the benefits of including charitable gifts in financial plans to achieve philanthropic objectives.

Clients served include Joffrey Ballet, The Chicago Community Trust LGBT Community Fund, Chicago Children’s Museum, Chicago Academy of Sciences/Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, Howard Brown Health, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation, St. Louis Aquarium Foundation, School of Architecture at Taliesin, Acorn Center for the Performing Arts, and Chikaming Township in Southwest Michigan. Dragonfly Advisors, Inc. is affiliate counsel to Public Communications Incorporated (PCI) Chicago.

Prior to establishing Dragonfly Advisors, Inc., Jabin built a 30-year career serving several prominent Chicago cultural institutions including Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art, John G. Shedd Aquarium, Chicago Zoological Society and the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio Foundation. During his tenure leading development programs for these organizations, he oversaw campaigns supporting annual operations, programs, endowments, capital funds and planned giving totaling more than $400 million.

In recognition of his many contributions to the field, Jabin received the Benjamin Franklin Award from the Chicago Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals in 2014. He was elected to the Board of Arts Alliance Illinois in 2012 and served as a member of the Executive Committee through 2021. He was honored by UBS in 2008 as one of the first participants in their Nonprofit Scholars Art of Leadership Program offered in conjunction with Northwestern University. He has served as an adjunct faculty member at the School of the Art Institute and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Jabin received his BA degree from Albion College in Michigan with a concentration in public service from the Gerald R. Ford Institute for Public Service.