Teresa Chien, Senior Consultant –During more than a decade of nonprofit development experience, Teresa Chien has helped a broad range of organizations, big and small, raise major contributed support and achieve program goals. As a development generalist, her experience encompasses reviving endowment campaigns, obtaining corporate sponsorships, writing grant proposals, cultivating major donors, and formalizing development and strategic plans.

Teresa has worked on major gift campaigns for the Make-A-Wish Foundation’s ( Los Angeles) Adopt-A-Wish program, conducted development audits for grant-making foundations and housing organizations, jump-started a stale $10 million endowment campaign for a medical organization, executed a cause-marketing partnership for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s charity and provided interim staffing for a variety of nonprofits.

She has even built entire development departments from the ground up, laying the foundation for healthy growth and advancement. In her most recent position, Director of Development at After-School All-Stars’ (ASAS) national headquarters (Los Angeles), Teresa created and established all development functions and management protocols for an organization that had historically been run without a systematic development operation. Today, ASAS National has transformed from a purely grant-making medium to an advisory and technical assistance leader for its chapters, supporting their efforts to improve fundraising.

Prior positions include Director of Grants & Communications for Families Forward ( Irvine, CA) and Senior Development Officer for a boutique consulting firm in Los Angeles. Raised in Southern California, Teresa has a B.A. in anthropology, a master’s degree in public policy and a fundraising certificate, all from the University of California, Los Angeles. Active in the Greater Los Angeles Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), she is also a Greater Los Angeles recipient of AFP’s Chamberlain Scholarship.