Sarah Cohen

Sarah has 15 years of experience helping arts and culture nonprofit organizations grow contributed income, train and develop advancement talent, improve stakeholder engagement and effectiveness, and implement best practices for development operations systems to advance their missions and make the greatest impact in the communities they serve.

I am deeply passionate about sustaining arts and culture organizations, as they serve as pillars of community-building and catalysts for a just and equitable society. It is immensely rewarding to collaborate with these organizations, contributing to their growth and ensuring their continued success.”

About Sarah

Sarah brings 15 years of experience in advancement and nonprofit leadership in the visual arts sector, as well as significant industry expertise in higher education and workforce development. She enables nonprofit organizations to grow contributed income, streamline resources, improve stakeholder engagement and effectiveness, and increase staff collaboration and performance to advance their missions.

Throughout her career, Sarah has:

• Led fund and case-for-support development for a newly established film and television production nonprofit focused on training qualified, underrepresented talent for below-the-line industry jobs.
• Directed a $35 million growth campaign for a higher education nonprofit to fund a national expansion that grew the annual operating budget to support more than triple the number of scholars served by the program.
• Created new funding opportunities at an arts and culture institution, growing annual contributed revenue by more than 20% to support exhibitions and educational programs.
• Managed a team responsible for funding collection development through cross-functional collaboration with 25 curators across nine curatorial departments at a large county encyclopedic museum.
• Established and implemented best-practice development operations systems, including new customer relationship management (CRM) systems at higher education, social services, and workforce development organizations.
• Delivered pipeline development strategies for nonprofits across various sectors, including developing cases for support, stewardship and cultivation plans, and impact reports, as well as providing organizational design, leadership, staff training, and development operations infrastructure building.

Prior to her role at Huron, Sarah was the founder and principal of Sound Point Consulting LLC, a consultancy specializing in strategic planning, fund development, and organizational design for nonprofits in the arts and culture, technology, and higher education sectors. Sarah began her career in development at two of Los Angeles' premier cultural institutions, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles, where she managed multimillion-dollar fundraising initiatives and delivered organizational improvements, streamlining resources and increasing staff collaboration and performance. She also served as chief advancement officer at SCS Noonan Scholars (now known as Thrive Scholars) and director of board relations at XPRIZE.

Sarah earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a certificate in modern art studies from Christie’s Auction House, London. Sarah is an Art Reality Studio (ARS) technical and administrative advisers (TAAC) member and a Lens on Life board member.