Adrian Sargeant is Co-Director and Professor of Fundraising at the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy in the United Kingdom. He was formerly the first Hartsook Chair in Fundraising at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University. He also holds visiting appointments at Avila University and the Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies, Queensland University of Technology. Adrian has published 12 books and around 150 peer reviewed academic publications in the domain of individual giving, fundraising, and nonprofit marketing. Most recently he has designed new qualification frameworks for fundraising professional bodies across the world. In the UK, for example, he designed the new Certificate/Diploma in Fundraising courses that are now offered by the Institute of Fundraising. In 2019 Professor Sargeant also developed the European Qualification Framework for fundraising qualifications.

He has received many awards for his services to the profession, notably being named to the prestigious Nonprofit Times Power and Influence List in the United States in 2010. In the UK he received a Civil Society Award for his Outstanding Contribution to Fundraising. In 2016 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Institute of Fundraising in London.