Marisa DeSalles (she/her)
Community-Centric Fundraiser and Troublemaker
Marisa is a changemaker, a Californian, an agent of chaos, a stubborn optimist, a sardonic GenXer, and a creative and restless soul with an insatiable appetite for knowledge. She began her career in marketing in San Francisco in the Nineteen Hundreds and parlayed that knowledge to benefit the nonprofit sector right around Y2K.
Until the COVID-19 pandemic turned life upside down in early March of 2020, Marisa worked for a nonprofit therapeutic horseback riding program for people with special needs. She created their fundraising, social media, marketing and training materials for over a decade. Now, she serves nonprofits in Northern California and beyond, reimagining fundraising and outreach efforts through a community-centric lens.
Marisa is a big-picture thinker, and a bit of an absent-minded professor. She might forget the day of the week, but has an uncanny ability to see through layers to the core of an issue, and a gentle but incisive insight into interpersonal issues that often plague organizations of good people doing hard work. She has become an instrumental part of the Sacramento Region’s annual giving day, recognized as an expert in her field and tapped by the Sacramento Region Community Foundation to provide mentorship and training for other nonprofit marketing experts. Her most popular webinar, “Addressing the Moment: Strategies for Nonprofits to Survive and Thrive in 2021” hosted by the Foundation, kicked off 2021’s year’s record-setting Big Day of Giving which raised over $13MM for hundreds of Sacramento-area nonprofit organizations.
Marisa is a faculty member with Impact Foundry, assisting as a Certified Sustainable coach, presenting a monthly series of educational workshops and is the featured speaker, Emcee and host for the Impact Foundry’s 5th annual What IF conference. She also serves on the global transition team for Community-Centric Fundraising, a burgeoning movement of nonprofit fundraising professionals working to improve fundraising through a lens of equity. She volunteers her time with Sacramento Community Land Trust, a cohort of Big Day of Giving mentees and dozens of other organizations, mentoring young and newly emerging fundraisers.
A Geek with a Creative Soul and Passionate Heart
Marisa has been a self-proclaimed geek since she programmed her Texas Instruments 99-4A in BASIC at age 11, and she is fully aware that admitting that marks her as a digital dinosaur. Marisa has built responsive WordPress websites and a complex bespoke Salesforce CRM to track program data and manage communications. She has written and secured a five-figure grant from the County of Sacramento and developed curricula for multiple programs. She enjoys the creative work of developing multimedia presentations and videos for training, marketing, educational and fundraising purposes. She is highly sought after as a warm, dynamic, personable, engaging speaker.
Consultant and Speaker For Hire
Marisa is currently planting her experience and mentoring skill into a holistic, community-centered consultancy for nonprofits. She specializes in small or emerging organizations, particularly those led by or addressing issues affecting BIPOC. Mentoring, training and public speaking are her happiest spaces to inhabit, but she also provides event planning, A/V media production, social media strategy, board development, writing, and more. Find out more here: marisadesalles.com/goodtilth
She believes in the Oxford comma.
Photo credit: the talented Vasey Coman of the Sacramento Region Community Foundation.