KATHY WERTHEIM, CFRE
President,Werth-It
Kathy Wertheim teaches people how to ask for money and get it! She has been a professional fundraiser since 1983 and has helped dozens of organizations raise millions of dollars. She has taught fundraising and board development to thousands of people from Massachusetts to Malaysia, from Seattle to Santiago, in 22 U.S. states, Asia and Latin America. Her published articles on fund raising have been viewed by more than 200,000 people worldwide.
For six years, she was director of development at Emmaus Services for the Aging in Washington, D.C., where as sole development staff she tripled the revenue, quintupled individual donors, increased major donors by 1000%, and conducted their first capital campaign. As a fundraising consultant to Bread for the City, a human services organization in Washington, she helped turn around a struggling organization, increased the number of individual donors by 500% and tripled the revenue in just four years. Previously, she worked in the fundraising departments of the American Red Cross National Headquarters and Special Olympics International Headquarters.
Kathy has consulted for the Alzheimer’s Association, Devereux, the Legal Aid Foundation of Santa Barbara County, the Museum of Ventura County, Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (now Learning Ally), the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, Sansum Diabetes Research Institute (now the William Sansum Diabetes Center), the Santa Barbara Symphony, Turning Point Foundation, Ventura Botanical Gardens and WEV: Women’s Economic Ventures, among others.
She has taught dozens of boards of directors across America about fundraising and board development. She taught more than 100 classes in fundraising for the Institute for Policy Studies and the Ventura County Community Foundation.
Kathy has been on 12 boards of directors at the local, state, regional and national level since the age of 16 and has held every officer’s position. She is the past Vice President for Professional Development for the Santa Barbara/Ventura chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. She has donated gallons of blood including dozens of platelet donations. She has a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Occidental College and has taken additional courses in fundraising from The George Washington University and The Fundraising School at Indiana University. She is a 2006 graduate of the Ventura County Leadership Academy, Cohort XI, and an Advanced Communicator and Advanced Leader (ACS, ALB) through Toastmasters International, and was the 2009-2010 Toastmasters District 33 Public Relations Officer. She is a Master Trainer through the Association of Fundraising Professionals, one of 242 in the world. She is a Certified Fund Raising Executive, a credential held by fewer than 3% of fundraisers worldwide, which means she has raised millions of dollars, passed an extensive peer-reviewed credentialing process (renewed every three years), and passed a written exam.
She lives in Southern California and continues to teach and consult nationwide.
Werth-It Fundraising and Board Development 