Philanthropy
A clipboard, a big heart, and no idea what I was getting into.
That's how Sparkle Foundation started. I had a fierce belief that single mothers and their children deserved better than what the system was offering them, a grandmother's story driving me, and a refusal to accept the status quo. What I didn't have was a roadmap.
I figured it out. And I've spent ten years turning what started as a scrappy holiday gift drive into a multi-state organisation that has raised and reinvested over $3.5 million, runs on 100% volunteers, and serves thousands of families annually. If you're building something mission-driven — at any stage — I know this terrain.
This is about building something that can outlast you.
Nonprofit and philanthropy consulting, done well, isn't just about operational logistics. It's about helping mission-driven leaders build the capacity to do what they exist to do — reliably, ethically, and over the long term. It's about governance that actually functions, funding strategies that don't keep you up at night, volunteer and leadership structures that don't collapse when one person steps back, and a clear articulation of mission that attracts the right people and resources.
It's also about the founder — because an organisation that burns out its leader isn't sustainable, no matter how good its systems are.
WHO THIS IS FOR
Whether you're just starting or you've hit a wall — this is for you.
This work serves a wide range of people. Maybe you have a vision and you don't know how to structure it legally, operationally, or financially. Maybe you've been running a nonprofit for years and you're hitting a ceiling — on capacity, on funding, on leadership. Maybe you're a board member or philanthropic leader stepping into a more strategic role and you want someone to think alongside you.
What these people share isn't a demographic. It's a commitment: to something bigger than themselves, and to doing it responsibly. That's who I work best with.
What I pay attention to.
I bring a commercial lens to mission-driven work — because I've run both, and I know what the business world gets right about systems, sustainability, and growth that the nonprofit world sometimes misses. I help founders borrow those frameworks without losing what makes their work distinctive.
In practice, that means we look at governance structure, funding model, leadership and volunteer culture, external communications, and strategic priorities. And throughout all of it, I'm paying attention to you — because the way you're showing up as a leader directly affects the health of what you've built.
What tends to shift.
Founders who do this work often describe feeling less alone in it. They go from carrying everything to building a structure that can carry things alongside them. They start making strategic decisions with more confidence — because they have a clearer sense of where they're going and what they're building toward. They show up differently to their boards, to their funders, to their communities. And they stop feeling like the organisation's existence is entirely dependent on their personal bandwidth.
— EXPERIENCE —
Ten years and counting.
I founded Sparkle in 2016 and I've been running it ever since — through the early chaos, through COVID, through growth into new states, and through the launch of SparkleBiz. I've navigated the board dynamics, the funding gaps, the volunteer management, and the hard calls about what to say yes to and what to let go of. I'm a Jefferson Award winner and a North Bay Nonprofit Leadership Award recipient. More importantly, I've made every mistake so you don't have to.
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