Until his retirement in 2005, Russell Browning was the philosophical beacon for Browning Associates, the firm he founded with Irish Browning. A 1942 alumnus of Washington and Lee University, Russ had served in India during World War II as a First Lieutenant with the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers. After 14 years as a partner in the Boston investment firm of Gregg Storer, Inc., he had joined Marts & Lundy, where he worked for six years as a fundraising associate.

When he and Irish founded Browning Associates on January 1, 1966, the firm served just three clients: Williams College, Marymount College, and The Hotchkiss School. Since then, Browning Associates has worked with more than two hundred and fifty institutions, mostly secondary schools, counseling on governance, strategic planning, and all aspects of fundraising, and facilitating retreats. Russ himself was involved with more than two hundred of these clients.

Certain focuses quickly came to characterize the Browning Associates approach to development consulting. The firm was among the first to stress the institutional study as a critical tool in a successful client relationship. In keeping with its trademark "Total Development" philosophy, Browning Associates has from the beginning seen its work with clients' governing boards as central to its ability to help effectively.

Browning Associates has always recognized that a relatively few individuals will make the difference in any capital fundraising effort. A corollary of this has been the firm's emphasis on the annual fund as the ideal vehicle for reaching all members of a constituency.

In the early years the firm typically did what clients with rudimentary development offices couldn't do for themselves because of lack of expertise. We never were "resident directors," however, that now-rare approach in which a consultant is actually ensconced in-house. Instead, the firm evolved a team concept, with two or even three specialists providing specific expertise – an effective approach that the firm still uses today.

Where once it was rare to find a development office adequately staffed with knowledgeable people, today all that has changed, and our role now is never formulaic and always responsive to individual client needs and situations. We help sophisticated clients in one way and offices in a start-up posture quite differently.

Historically, long-term relationships with schools and other institutions have been the norm for Browning Associates. Many affiliations have lasted a decade and more. The Hotchkiss School and Marymount College are among the numerous clients that have fallen in this category, as are Canterbury School, The Hill School, Indian Mountain School, The Loomis Chaffee School, The Masters School, Millbrook School, The Montclair Kimberley Academy, New Canaan Country School, The Pingry School, The Taft School, and Westminster School.