Madison

At CBI I was in charge of developing donor cultivation strategies to engage prospective donors who had capacity to financially support CBI and strengthen current relationships with existing donors in Madison and India. I worked with the marketing team on content development to enhance visibility of CBI and create a strong case for support to engage new donors especially a younger demographic and build a sustaining donor platform. I provided input for reports and outreach materials.

Madison

During the pandemic ALL hired me to build a more structured annual giving and Major gifts program to increase program and organizational capacity. With the team I planned short-term and long-term goals, created a map of donors and projected results for fundraising. I developed a fundraising strategy to reach more members in the community and increase the donor base. To increase visibility in the community, I created a corporate membership program to make ALL more accessible for the business community. In addition, I reviewed content for social media and the newsletter, drafted and reviewed grant proposals. I drafted sponsorship letters to be sent to potential donors and researched new funding opportunities from companies, individuals, government and foundations. As a result, ALL was able to grow in capacity.

New Jersey & Philadelphia (WF)

My work with Wildflower schools entailed compiling a fundraising training to share with other team members and the Wildflower network. I worked with team members in charge of securing funds to develop strategies, research foundation projects, individual donors to cultivate new partnerships with community members interested to support education. I connected with program officers in foundations and companies to learn about their community giving process and goals in order to draft successful applications and submit on time.

United Way of Dane County, Madison, WI

I was hired by United Way of Dane County as their first Major gifts officer to strengthen relationships with lager stakeholders and increase funding to advance United Way's community impact work and meet the annual fundraising goal of over $18 million, for investments in the community.

As part of the management team, I fostered collaboration and provided support to cross-functional teams. My job was to engage prospective community members with a capacity to support the organization. I met with Donors on a regular basis to update and educate on current programs and shared relevant materials to broaden their understating of community issues for example the affordable housing crisis and tried to persuade them to make or increase their investment. A big part of my role was to establish strategies and build connections to enlist new partners and expand the portfolio. I led and developed a comprehensive strategy to build a framework for a new major donations program for the organizations.

I worked closely with corporate partners such as Alliant Energy, Madison Investment Advisors, Old National Bank, UBS Financial Services Inc. and advised on employee engagement strategies to meet and increase annual fundraising goals for their United Way employee campaign, resulting in over 250K raised annually.

Internally, I worked cohesively with other departments to keep them up to date on Major Gifts work that impacted program funding, sponsorships and so on.

Gateway High School, San Francisco, CA

My role at Gateway High School was a new position created to grow the Development department. I worked directly with the Development Director to raise the annual fundraising goal of $920,000 for the school.

At Gateway, I managed large multiyear gifts and renewals with private foundations and individuals, along with a capital campaign with a goal to reach $5 million. I worked with the board of directors to represent the development strategies for fundraising and provide updates.

I worked directly with donors and applied different communication strategies to make a strong case for support. Some of the outreach methods included writing press releases, content for online media including setting up social media accounts for the school, drafting a community newsletter, working on funding related content for the website and drafting grant proposals.

I was the point person for two major fundraising events of the year and worked closely with board chairs to raise 1/3 of annual goal during these events.

Dr. Amrik Singh Cheema Foundation Trust, Chandigarh, India (Cheematrust)

Living in India for a few years gave me the opportunity to work at my family foundation. Before starting at Cheema foundation, I performed a needs assessment based on an on-site evaluation and meetings with stakeholders for program development and implementation in the community while also evaluating the ongoing programs to better understand where most resources needed to be applied.

I worked in collaboration with International, state and community level organizations, and private companies to advance community development programs in health prevention, education and women empowerment.

I advanced a solution based project such as the talking library initiative (making audio books) to serve visually impaired kids from low income communities -- a program that has served over 300+ students.

My role also entailed mentoring and managing 100+ volunteers that came to the foundation through their corporate social responsibility programs, local Rotaract Club and universities. The foundation partnered with other organizations and sponsored approximately 5 events a year to broaden its positive impact.

I trained over 100 student volunteers and 20 health professionals for a health initiative to serve low income communities in partnership with government schools. The program involved eye checkups and creating awareness on health and hygiene for 600 kids and their parents. The checkups resulted in early detection of eye problems such as cataract and via monitoring and evaluation we were able to determine the gaps and improve the program. As a result, I worked with eye experts developing a successful public private partnership designed and implemented effective monitoring systems for eye care camps and services to track impact and improvement.