Meet Sarabeth
Nonprofit Fundraising Strategist & Executive Coach
I've spent twenty years in the rooms where money and mission meet — and I've learned that what happens in those rooms is rarely about money at all. It's about trust. Clarity. The ability to translate what an organization believes into language that moves people to act.
My fundraising career began at the San Francisco Symphony, where I discovered that the most sophisticated donors aren't persuaded by need — they're moved by vision. From there, I spent a year in New York as the sole national corporate fundraiser for New Leaders, an urban education nonprofit, where I opened 85+ new corporate relationships in eighteen months and secured major commitments from Google, JPMorgan Chase, and Salesforce.
In 2011, I joined the California Academy of Sciences — one of the world's great scientific institutions — and over 13 years grew from Corporate Giving Officer to Director of Institutional Philanthropy. I directed a $6M+ funding strategy supporting global research, museum operations, and public education; worked closely with the Board and C-suite to translate ambitious priorities into compelling investment opportunities; and was appointed to the Academy's Leadership Team and Strategic Task Force.
Today, I serve as Director of Development Partnerships at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, the nation's largest Planned Parenthood affiliate, leading a $6.5M institutional portfolio across foundation, corporate, and government partners — and building the case for health equity and bodily autonomy across a multi-regional footprint.
My formal training and community work run alongside my fundraising practice. I hold a Professional Coach Certification from the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (IPEC) and a certificate from the Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders at Stanford Graduate School of Business where I now guest lecture. I earned a B.A. from UC Berkeley in American Studies with a Social Justice focus.
I also serve on the board of the Foundation for San Mateo County Libraries, advise UC Berkeley's Big Ideas Social Entrepreneurship Competition, and mentor emerging leaders through the Cal Alumni Network and Communicating the Arts #30UNDER30 Program.
A Note from Sarabeth
I chose to name this practice Vesper — the evening star and first light to appear at dusk, steady and luminous precisely when the sky holds both the warmth of the day and the quiet mystery of what's to come. It captures something true about the kind of work I do and the moments when it matters most.
The best fundraising work rarely happens at the triumphant finish line. It happens in the in-between spaces — the quiet season of strategic planning before a new fiscal year or the relational groundwork that precedes a transformational gift. That in-between space is where I've always felt most at home, and it's where I believe the most important leadership conversations happen.
Like the evening star, a great coach doesn't create the light — she reflects it. I don't arrive with a vision to impose. I help organizations and their leaders find and amplify their own: to see their mission with fresh clarity, to articulate it with confidence, and to build the partnerships that can carry it forward.
I became a fundraising coach because I believe that mission-driven organizations deserve leadership that is both strategically excellent and deeply human. I've seen what happens when those two things come together, and I still find it extraordinary — the moment when a relationship becomes a partnership, when a prospect becomes a believer, when an organization steps into what it was always capable of becoming.
The organizations I've admired most never waited for the perfect moment — they found someone to help them make the most of the one they had. This is the work I was made for. If it sounds like the work you've been looking for, I'd love to talk.
