Creative Fundraising Advisors Welcomes Tony Grundhauser and Sara Johnson
(Saint Paul, MINN) — Creative Fundraising Advisors (CFA), a national strategic fundraising firm based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, is expanding its staff to include Principal Tony Grundhauser, who brings more than 25 years of fundraising experience to CFA’s practice, and Creative Services Director Sara Johnson, who most recently served as Vice President Creative Director at KNOCK.
“We are so pleased to have Tony and Sara as members of our growing team,” said CFA President Paul Johnson. “They, like the rest of our group, believe in the power of nonprofit organizations to transform the world. People of the caliber of Tony and Sara, who are at the peak of their careers, add considerable strength to CFA’s bench and will be a major asset for our clients. Their addition helps us truly be a full-service consulting firm.”
About Tony Grundhauser
Most recently, Grundhauser was the executive director for the Minnesota Zoo Foundation. There, he led the foundation to its best fundraising year in history, doubling results from prior years. Under his leadership, the Zoo improved its annual fundraising performance, raised its largest gift in history, and launched the ambitious “Step Into Nature” capital campaign. Tony is passionate about the outdoors and started his career as the first campaign director for the Minnesota Environmental Fund where he increased the number of workplaces conducting campaigns on behalf of environmental organizations. From there, he moved to The Nature Conservancy’s Minnesota Chapter where he built a 30-member Corporate Council and helped shape its $15 million Campaign for Conservation. He rose rapidly through the ranks at TNC and ultimately was promoted to director and senior manager to lead the Conservancy’s work in Canada. From 2003 to 2006, he co-led an international campaign that raised $60 million to secure the permanent protection of more than 5 million acres in British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest.
After several years of intense travel, Grundhauser settled back in the Twin Cities to work in higher education, first as director of individual gifts at Macalester College and then for eight years as vice president for institutional advancement at Hamline University. Tony was recognized for his leadership at Hamline when he was nominated and accepted to the prestigious Harvard University Institute for Educational Management.
In his new position with CFA, Grundhauser has immediately applied his considerable experience working with environmental nonprofits to help launch Dodge Nature Center’s $40 million “Nourishing Everyone’s Need for Nature” campaign and leading CFA’s work with the Friends of the Mississippi River. He is also a part of the leadership team working with The Actors Fund in New York and Los Angeles on a proposed national campaign.
About Sara Johnson
Johnson has brought purpose, intention, and truth to visual storytelling and brand communications for clients around the world. Her core disciplines include design and creative direction for print, video, websites, and social content creation. She has more than 20 years of experience in the creative space, having worked as a graphic designer for Target Corp and then as the vice president creative director at KNOCK, one of the top branding and design agencies in the region.
At Creative Fundraising Advisors, Sara provides branding consultation, designs visual assets, and counsels clients on the creative direction of their campaigns.
“Having a Creative Services Director is unusual for a fundraising firm, but storytelling and design play an integral and vital part in the success of fundraising,” said Johnson. “Sara brings a level of excellence to our firm that will help our clients share their mission and vision with excitement, impact and effectiveness.”
About Creative Fundraising Advisors
Creative Fundraising Advisors is a full-service consulting firm dedicated to transformational fundraising counsel and implementation. The firm prides itself on developing and applying new techniques to tackle complex fundraising challenges. CFA’s services include campaign counsel, development assessment, strategic planning, annual giving, creative services and data analytics.
CFA’s clients include Dodge Nature Center (Saint Paul, MN), Academy Museum of Motion Pictures (Los Angeles, CA), The Gabriella Foundation (Los Angeles), Milwaukee Art Museum (Milwaukee, WI), Portland Museum of Art (Portland, ME), The McNay Art Museum (San Antonio, TX), St. John’s College (Annapolis, MD/Santa Fe, NM), The School for Advanced Research (Santa Fe, NM), The New Mexico School for the Arts (Santa Fe, NM), Northside Achievement Zone (Minneapolis MN), The Actors Fund (New York), Philadelphia Contemporary Art (Philadelphia, PA), Liberty Community Church (Minneapolis) among many others.
Creative Fundraising Advisors was founded in 2015 and has grown rapidly; in partnership with its nonprofit clients, CFA has raised more than $1 billion in the past five years.