ABOUT
Mary Beth Sova provides mission-based and for-profit clients with customized, feasible, results-oriented fundraising, institutional advancement, audience & member building and business philanthropy consulting. She creatively engages with clients to successfully leverage missions, contacts, resources and supporters providing analysis, workplans, timelines and hands-on work to realize goals. She capitalizes and builds on the success of what they do - tailoring the partnership according to each client's capacities and needs. Given the goal and scope of the work or project, Mary Beth partners with experts in marketing and communications, public relations, print, electronic and website design, branding, grantwriting and social media, as well as on-site assistants to implement the planned work, move on timelines and meet deadlines, making the results as successful, sustainable and cost effective as possible.
Mary Beth began her career as a fundraiser in politics and political campaigns for candidates and elected officials raising millions of dollars locally and across the nation and making resourceful relationships before taking her considerable skills and talents to mission-based organizations. As the Director of Development at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, she increased the net income year after year in all fundraising categories, especially event and campaign fundraising, and appeals, and, as a member of the leadership team, helped to build and enhance the organization, especially the development department structure and organization. Mary Beth returned againto working on behalf of political clients serving as the Finance Director for the latter half of the Lightfoot for Chicago campaign and working with a team to raise millions of dollars for the transition and inauguration of Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot.
Mary Beth served in a full time position as the Director of Development at Friends of the Chicago River leading the efforts in urban environmental fundraising, where her leadership, creativity and resources led to repeated income increases and meaningful revisions and additions to the development department and the overall organization. During her tenure there, the organization experienced unprecedented successes, especially in business and corporate sponsorships and annual partnerships, individual donor programs, including major donors, and in-kind donations. She greatly increased and enhanced prospect identification and donor cultivation events and activities. Prior to her position at Friends, she ran an independent consultant practice whose clients included some of Chicago’s most effective and lauded non-profits contributing her expertise and resources to revenue enhancement across all categories of income, identifying additional sources of revenue, increasing members and audiences and providing broad outreach to build relationships and expand the identity, reach and visibility and awareness of her clients.
Mary Beth is a member of The Association of Consultants to Nonprofits and has served as a board member of Personal PAC, On Your Feet Foundation, 500 Clown and Friends of Stone Academy. She holds a B.A. in economics with a minor in psychology and completed master's coursework in demography in the Department of Sociology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.