Senior Team Archives - Page 3 of 9

John Sammis is a Senior Vice President and leads our Data Analytics practice. He brings more than 30 years of experience with statistical analysis and predictive modeling. He has devoted more than 15 years of his career to charities, universities, hospitals and other nonprofit institutions, helping them produce models and use the results to achieve their fundraising goals. At CCS, John helps philanthropy and fundraising professionals apply leading edge data analytics tools to address specific organizational objectives. He is constantly reviewing the latest statistics tools and innovations to ensure that CCS applies the best approach for each client. He has particular expertise in the areas of exploratory data analysis, interactive model building, model diagnostics and data vetting and cleaning.

During his time at CCS, John has worked with over 400 clients from all over the world to utilize data analytics for strategic fundraising.

John earned an MBA from the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University and a BS in Chemical Engineering from Clarkson University.

Sarah is passionate about working collaboratively with her clients to help them communicate their vision for the future and prepare systematic plans to achieve them. Her areas of expertise include planning comprehensive campaigns, staffing campaign leadership, managing volunteers, and engaging donors.

Sarah joined CCS in 2015, bringing more than 13 years of experience with nonprofits. Prior to joining the firm, Sarah spent nine years in development and community outreach with coastal nature preserves in San Diego, California, and Wells, Maine. While working in the binational Tijuana River Watershed, she collaborated with government agencies, international organizations, nonprofits, and businesses to secure funding to restore and protect the water quality and habitat along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Sarah earned her master’s degree in International Environmental Policy from the University of California – San Diego in 2012. Her undergraduate work was in Peace Studies at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. She has volunteered for numerous nonprofit organizations, including Amnesty International in London, the Appalachian Mountain Club, San Diego Coastkeeper, and a refugee resettlement center in New York State.

Sarah grew up in Maine, and currently resides in Portland. She loves to travel, especially in Mexico, but now spends most of her free time playing on the beach and hiking in the woods with her husband and two children.

select client parnters

Avesta Housing
Berwick Academy
Cheverus High School
First Parish in Portland
Knox County Homeless Coalition
Preble Street
Maine Audubon
Maine Historical Society
North Yarmouth Academy
The Nature Conservancy in New Hampshire
Thomas College
The Winsor School
Waynflete School

Since joining CCS in 2017, Sarah has partnered with nonprofits to secure the philanthropic support necessary to fulfilling their missions. Sarah has advised small startups and landmark organizations alike, with goals ranging from $5 million to $125 million. Her areas of expertise include campaign planning and management; principal, leadership, and major gifts; case development; annual giving programs; and development assessments. Sarah has served and counseled organizations that span sectors including arts and culture, social service, independent and boarding schools, and higher education. Sarah is a leader of CCS’s independent schools practice group and presents regularly at regional and national conferences including CAIS, NYSAIS, TABS, and NAIS.

Prior to joining CCS, Sarah was an elementary school educator at schools in and around New York. During her years in the classroom, Sarah experienced the incredible impact philanthropy can have on educational institutions and the many doors charitable giving can open for young learners.

Sarah received her BA from Bowdoin College and her MEd from Manhattanville College. A native of San Diego, CA, Sarah resides in Manhattan where she spends her free time visiting museums, reading, volunteering, and exploring the city’s parks with her dog, Sadie.

select client partners

American Museum of Natural History
Dodd Center for Human Rights – University of Connecticut
Horace Mann School
Saint Anthony Hall
Sid Jacobson JCC
Speyer Legacy School

Mission-minded and committed to impactful change, Sacha Lehto brings the skills, knowledge and insights gained from a sixteen-year career creating impactful fundraising strategies, managing and conducting prospect research, conceptualizing special events, guiding volunteer development, and leading transformative fundraising campaigns.

Sacha has extensive international fundraising experience, including with USA for IOM, the non-profit partner of IOM, the UN Migration Agency, where she led fundraising strategy development and campaign management, liaising with staff in both Washington, DC, and Geneva. Her international experience includes leading fundraising efforts for Texas Children’s Global HOPE (Global Hematology-Oncology Pediatric Excellence), a program focused on building long-term capacity to treat children with cancer and blood disorders in sub-Saharan Africa.

For over ten years, Sacha fundraised for health organizations in Canada, including BC Cancer Foundation, a comprehensive cancer control program for the people of British Columbia, and VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation, the largest hospital in the province of B.C. For CCS, Sacha’s healthcare experience continued, managing a $250 million comprehensive campaign for St. Louis Children’s Hospital Foundation.

Sacha’s fundraising expertise and passion for giving back have resulted in her being invited to join numerous volunteer committees and boards, including New York based ILEA (International Live Events Association) and Veterinarians International. Her degree in Fashion Design serves as a source of creative inspiration that she still brings to her work today. She has a love for travel and immersing herself in foreign cultures, having lived in Paris, Toulouse, Salamanca and Montreal, in addition to her native Vancouver.

select client partners

USA for IOM
Texas Children’s Global HOPE
American Battle Monuments Foundation

Raised and educated in Mainland China, Japan, and the United States, Ruyi began her career as a Development professional at The Juilliard School, where she worked closely with the leadership to identify domestic and international prospective donors, including for the creation of the Tianjin Juilliard School based in China.

Ruyi subsequently joined CCS in 2013 as part of the on-site fundraising counsel team for Stephen A. Schwarzman Education Foundation in support of the Schwarzman Scholars Program based in Tsinghua University in Beijing. During the engagement, the CCS team secured $375 million from 75 donors in five continents. Ruyi also served as a Campaign counsel for China Institute, the oldest institution in the United States with a focus on U.S.-China relations. Additionally, she has managed campaigns and conducted a number of development assessments for a variety of nonprofit sectors, including: arts and culture, secondary and higher education, youth and social services, religious, and environmental causes. These projects were based in California, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Texas.

Ruyi’s work in the Asia-Pacific region also encompasses her academic and research background as a Fulbright scholar with a focus on social enterprise management and leadership while living in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. During her graduate studies, Ruyi worked closely with the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University on delivering programs for faculty and students.

Ruyi holds a B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley and a Master’s from Harvard University. She is committed to serve as a volunteer and an advisor to nonprofit organizations focused on the Asian American and Pacific Islander community in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she lives with her husband and their son.

Select client Partners

Schwarzman Scholars/Stephen A. Schwarzman Education Foundation
China Institute of America
Chinese Hospital

Pronouns: she/her

Becky Kiely is a Senior Vice President with the Central United States team at CCS Fundraising. Since joining the firm in 2018, she has worked across sectors to direct campaigns and studies from $6M to $1B, and to collaborate with leaders to grow their teams’ capacity. Becky brings a care for relationship management, focused attention to detail, and strong communication skills to every client partnership. She helps client partners stay nimble to opportunity and focused on team development, with a goal to ensure organizations grow and learn alongside their fundraising success. Becky has expertise in campaign planning and management, case development, major gifts strategy, staff and board training, and volunteer engagement.

Within CCS, Becky is passionate about building an inclusive team and developing diverse talent. She supports recruitment and leadership development both within the Central US team and across the firm.

Prior to joining CCS, Becky worked as a frontline fundraiser in both secondary and higher education. Becky worked at Loyola University Chicago in corporate and foundation fundraising, and at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Pilsen in scholarship fundraising, board management, and development operations. Becky earned her MBA in the Baumhart Scholars Program at Loyola University Chicago – a selective program within the Quinlan School of Business that prepares leaders from the private, government, and social sectors to thrive at the intersection of profit and purpose. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University.

Nana joined CCS with over a decade of experience in development and nonprofit management, including securing funding for nonprofit programs in underserved communities across the Washington, DC region. She has partnered with more than a dozen nonprofits- assisting teams, volunteers, and other stakeholders to identify and implement, the most effective management and fundraising strategies to achieve their goals and mission. She recently served as the Project Manager for UNCF (United Negro College Fund). In this role, she led both a Development Assessment and a Feasibility and Planning Study. Following the onset of COVID-19, and with UNCF, Nana directed an initiative to secure essential funds to prevent a disruption in the education of students at HBCUs and other higher education institutions. More than $80 million was secured in just 7 months.

Nana serves on the Development Committee for Childhood Education International and is a Neighbor Ride volunteer – providing seniors with reliable transportation. She previously served on the Montgomery County Board of Social Services and the grant review committees for Montgomery Coalition for Adult Education Literacy, DC Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation, and DC Office of Latino Affairs.

Nana received her MPA in International Development and Nonprofit Management from The George Washington University and BA from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

select client partners

The Anglican Pilgrim Centre in Santiago, Spain
The Arc of the United States
Ashoka
Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital
UNCF (United Negro College Fund)
USA for UNHCR

recent resources

Fundraising for Higher Education: Insights on Today’s Philanthropic Landscape

Martin Camacho is senior vice president at CCS and has more than 20 years of experience working in the non-profit sector. He has helped clients raise more than $900 million in philanthropic support.

Martin was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona and is proud of his deep roots in the community, which go back nearly 150 years. Martin holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Arizona. He spent 15 years working in broadcasting prior to transitioning into fundraising.

His first job in development was serving as Associate Director of Development for Arizona Public Media, where he was responsible for corporate underwriting and leadership gifts. His next role was as Executive Director of the Catholic Foundation for the Diocese of Tucson, where he worked closely with the Bishop and the Board of Directors to implement a comprehensive philanthropic program including annual giving, major gifts, gift planning, as well as planning the annual Gala. Some of his achievements include raising funds to renovate St. Augustine Cathedral and successfully executing the Our Faith, Our Hope, Our Future campaign which raised $32 million for parishes and ministries of the Diocese of Tucson.

Martin joined CCS in 2011 and has worked on several key campaigns in the religious sector including the Archdioceses of Los Angeles, Chicago, and Denver. In addition, Martin has completed development assessments, pre-campaign planning studies, and provided executive consultation to organizations such as the Institute of American Indian Arts, Tucson Arizona Boys Chorus, Downey Family YMCA, and XICO, Inc.

Select Client Partners

Archdiocese of Los Angeles
Institute of American Indian Arts
Tucson Arizona Boys Chorus
Archdiocese of Chicago
Our Mother of Sorrows Church and School
Xico, Inc.

As a Senior Vice President at CCS that is results-driven and action-oriented, Maria excels at project management, with an emphasis on operations, fundraising staff engagement, strategic planning and analytic reporting. As a senior member of CCS Europe, she has led diverse initiatives from both a sector and geographical perspective – from a $250m campaign for the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to supporting UCD in receiving six and seven-figure investments.

Maria has extensive experience in securing transformational gifts from individuals, trusts/foundations and the corporate sector. Additionally, Maria has assessed large-scale fundraising operations, conducted feasibility studies in complex situations, and prepared resource mobilisation strategies for UN entities.

In joining CCS, Maria brought insight from both her corporate background and non-profit expertise. As a Marketing Agency account manager for Dell EMEA and as a Major Gifts Manager at the Make-A-Wish Foundation in New York.

Maria holds a B.Sc in Entrepreneurship and Information Technology and an M.Sc in Business Management from Dublin City University conducted through the Irish language, and was awarded a First Class Honours in both degrees.

Leigh Page, Senior Vice President, has over 15 years of experience in campaign strategy and fundraising within higher education, healthcare, cultural, public policy, conservation and international organizations. She has worked closely with CEOs, boards, leadership donors, partners, and volunteer committees. Her areas of expertise include organizational structure and strategy, campaign development, principal gift strategy, board management, fundraising operations, prospect and data management and donor cultivation.

Since 2020, Leigh has served as the on-site campaign counsel for the University of New South Wales Campaign to raise $650 million for university strategic priorities. Her role focuses on advancing the campaign strategy and operations, principal gift development, and program capacity. In 2023, Leigh will be a lead driver in executing the university’s new five-year fundraising strategy. In mid-2020, Leigh served as interim chief development officer, leading the university’s fundraising team to surpass the 50% raised campaign threshold on schedule.

She is also currently working with Menzies Foundation, to build a landscape of global prospects to support their efforts to explore the dimensions of leadership qualities and attributes that are key to leading in an Australian and global context.

In 2019, Leigh worked with Sydney Children’s Hospitals Foundation to design and launch a campaign plan to raise $60M in private philanthropic support to build new hospitals in Westmead and Randwick.

Previously, Leigh was the on-site director of National Audubon Society’s $650 million campaign to build capacity and launch new conservation initiatives. Leigh’s past CCS client organizations also include University of Maryland Children’s Hospital; Washington Animal Rescue League; Bon Secours Health; and Norwood School.

Prior to CCS, Leigh worked at Brookings Institution the Medical University of South Carolina.

Leigh earned a Masters degree in arts administration from Winthrop University and a Bachelors in communications and fine arts from College of Charleston, SC. She is a native of North Carolina and currently resides in Sydney, Australia. She enjoys painting, gardening, yoga and live music.

select client partners

Sydney Children’s Hospitals Foundation
National Audubon Society
University of Maryland Children’s Hospital
Bon Secours Health
Washington Animal Rescue League