Today we get the pleasure to speak with Sharen Butrum. Sharen is the Fund Development Manager for Rural Community Assistance Corporation, a non-profit agency based in Sacramento that helps disadvantaged communities overcome economic challenges. She is a grant writer and fund developer, responsible for helping the organization meet its $20 million annual fundraising goal.
Sharen began her career as a journalist with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in South Australia in 1966. She was the first female to be trained as a journalist by the
ABC and subsequently became the first woman TV journalist in Australia. On moving to Los Angeles in 1970, she transitioned into PR and marketing as V.P for advertising and media companies where she created and developed new PR divisions. When her husband’s career took the family to New York, Sharen opened her own Marketing Communications consultancy.
Sharen and her husband were residents of downtown Manhattan on September 11, 2001. In the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center, they joined with their neighbors to create a nonprofit organization known as Ground Hero Kids. Motivated by this experience to continue working in the nonprofit arena, she began serving as consultant grant writer.
She now supervises two other fund developers and continues to write numerous grant proposals. Sharen is 73.
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