Institutional work

I spent the more than two decades working (and volunteering) for arts organizations and nonprofits, raising several million dollars in the process, setting up countless administrative and program-tracking systems, and creating and refining communications strategies.

  • I currently work as an editor at Amazon, editing the self-help IT articles used by corporate employees.
  • I worked for more than four years as development manager at Page Ahead, a nonprofit dedicated to closing the opportunity gap for low-income kids in Washington through access to books and literacy resources, where I managed the organization’s fundraising and communications efforts.
  • I cofounded Seattle City of Literature, the organization created to shepherd Seattle’s bid to join UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network as a City of Literature, and from March 2014 to March 2015, I served as its managing director. I was also hired by the Office of Arts & Culture to write Seattle’s 2015 application, which was submitted in July 2015. While we didn’t get it the first time around, I was hired to write the subsequent application in 2017, and I’m very proud to say Seattle was designated a UNESCO Creative City of Literature on October 31, 2017! I joined the board of directors of Seattle City of Literature in December 2017 and was named vice president in March 2018 and president in January 2019.
  • From December 2016 to April 2019, I served as the assistant to the director of UW Press, where I did a combination of editorial, fundraising, and communications tasks.
  • I worked as the administrator for the Northwest Editors Guild from December 2015 to May 2017; I also served on the board of directors in 2014 (as treasurer and head of the operations committee) and 2015 (as president).
  • In the fall of 2015, I joined Poetry Northwest as their managing editor; I worked on the editorial side (copyediting, etc.) as well as on organizational structure, board development, and the like. In April 2018, I dialed back my involvement to an advisory basis.
  • I volunteered weekly for ten years at the Bureau of Fearless Ideas (formerly 826 Seattle) as a tutor, a writing workshop leader, and an outreach and event production support volunteer; I also worked there on a contract basis on several research projects and on a part-time, interim basis, managing their volunteer program and outreach efforts.
  • I worked at Richard Hugo House for four years, ending my tenure as development director.
  • I worked at ACT Theatre for three years, ending my tenure as grants manager.

Fundraising

Grants

Wanting to write grants is what first brought me to nonprofit arts fundraising; I’ve now written hundreds of applications to foundation, corporate, and government entities and brought in more than one million dollars in grant funding for the arts in Seattle. I love distilling down program descriptions to their most engaging, and matching up funders’ missions with the missions of the organizations I work with. Everybody wins.

Nonprofit Communications

I also write and design nonprofit communications like annual reports, fundraising and thank-you letters, internal and external how-to documents, email invitations and updates, auction and special event programs, blog entries, job descriptions, and more on a regular basis. In the same vein, I write and produce short videos featuring program accomplishments for social media, event programs, and donor outreach.

Other Development Work

Beyond my fundraising-related writing, I’ve also produced fundraising events like dinner galas, luncheons, write-a-thons, and local-celebrity spelling bees; managed annual and major donor giving campaigns; and generally threw my support wherever it was needed. I do it all extremely efficiently, too—when I came to the development position at Hugo House, for example, they had been getting $3.14 for every dollar spent on fundraising. I more than doubled that; by the time I left, we were making $7.89 for every dollar spent on fundraising.

Data Administration & Program Tracking

I have a lot of experience with patron databases, with much of my time spent managing Tessitura, Exceed! (exclamation mark is sic, though I am passionate about databases), CiviCRM, Bloomerang, and Little Green Light; I have also worked in FileMaker Pro and Access. With my MySQL and PHP experience, I understand both the scaffolding the databases are built around as well as ultimate point of the databases themselves—to be able to communicate with your patrons and keep track of their involvement in your org. Anything that doesn’t help you do that you probably don’t need.

And what of reporting to your community about how their support has made a difference? I’ve been involved in creating systems at multiple organizations to tracking program achievements in a way that is concrete and easily reportable to funders and stakeholders (internal and external), from surveys to spreadsheets to databases. Your mission and your work can be fantastic on paper, but if you can’t demonstrate that you’re making a difference, it’ll be hard to convince others to invest in your efforts.