Sharon F. Berman
Sharon Berman has been designing and implementing successful fundraising campaigns for a wide range of non-profit organizations for 25 years. Areas of development in which Ms. Berman focuses include strategic planning, annual campaigns, capital campaigns, board development, prospect research, donor cultivation, solicitation training, feasibility studies and marketing.
She has served as Vice President for the Lupus Research Institute, a national medical research organization located in Manhattan, where she directed a $35 million capital campaign from 2000 through 2003. Ms. Berman also served as the Director of Development for the SLE Foundation, New York, where from 1996 to 2002 she was directly responsible for the development and implementation of the organization’s first full scale fundraising campaign. Under Ms. Berman’s direction, the campaign grew from $500,000 to over $2 million in annual contributions. Board members and honorees with whom she worked included Jerome Chazen, former Chairman of Liz Claiborne and Michael Bloomberg, Mayor, NYC.
Since 1995 Ms. Berman also has been a paid consultant to a number of non- profit organizations, including The American Friends for the Hebrew University, National Council for Jewish Women and the New York City Fire Department. During this period she also held the position of Vice President of the Planned Giving Division for National Madison Group, Inc. (NMG), an estate and tax planning organization with offices in New York City and Greenwich, CT, serving affluent individuals and families.
Ms. Berman also served in a management capacity for the Tannenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding as Director of Development and for the UJA-Federation where over a seven year period she was Director of the Trustees Campaign for the UJA-Federation’s 130 non- profit boards such as Mount Sinai Hospital, the 92nd Street Y and the Associated Y’s of Greater New York. In her capacity as Director of the Trustees Campaign, Ms. Berman led successful study trips of 50-100 New York City community and business leaders to Italy, Poland, Austria and Israel. These educational programs were designed to inform donors first hand about services provided abroad. Annual contributions resulting from these programs grew to $18 million.
Over a six year period Ms. Berman served in various management and executive capacities at the United Way of Tri-State, NY. She was responsible for directing the Major Corporations Division comprised of more than 60 Fortune 500 companies, including The American Broadcasting Companies, Mobil Oil, Dun & Bradstreet Corporation, IBM and Y & R Advertising. She was a co-creator with IBM ‘loaned executives’ of a solicitor training program and manual that was used by companies such as Met Life. Annual revenues generated were in excess of $7 million, with average increases of 15% each year.
Ms. Berman has served as a development consultant to Student Athletes, Inc., an academic and athletic program for inner-city teenagers in New York City and to the International Intellectual Property Institute, a Washington think tank and development organization. She has also served as an unpaid director for a cross section of non-profit boards, including the Epilepsy & Neuropsychiatric Institute in Manhattan and was a founding director of the Briarcliff Manor Education Foundation. Ms. Berman is graduate of the State University of New York, Stony Brook, and is co-author with attorney Sam Radin of “New IRS Threat to Charitable Gifts of Life Insurance”, which appeared in the National Underwriter.