Raising money for organizations is Sarah Howard’s passion, but it’s a career she said happened by accident.
“It was supposed to be a short eight-month contract while I was studying down south and I fell in love with the industry … trained up and came through the ranks,” Howard explained.
Compton Fundraising Consultants is an international firm that works with community advocates and volunteers to raise money for a variety of projects.
Howard joined Compton’s Vancouver office in 1996, was promoted to vice-president in 2001 and became president in 2006 – the youngest person to achieve that role in the company’s 47-year history.
Howard said her favourite part of fundraising is the people she gets to work with.
“Whether it’s a church or a school or a museum or a hospital, generally those people are there because they want to make a difference in their community,” she said. “It’s a pretty neat caliber of people to be working with.”
One of Howard’s favourite projects was the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum in California.
Howard was brought in to help raise money for the fledgling museum, and managed to negotiate a multimillion-dollar donation from Microsoft.
But Howard’s passion for the sea didn’t end there.
She volunteers her spare time at the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club, and was recently named club commodore, a title equivalent to chairman of the board.
She said she is the first person to hold that title in the club’s 106-year history.
For Howard, fundraising is just plain fun, and until that changes, she said she has no plans to do anything else.
“I’ve always said from day one … the day it stops being fun I’ll get out.” •
