As we draw close to the end of the summer of small voices series (the final post will be next week) I’m excited to share one woman’s story of entrepreneurial success.

Linda Gatten Buttler is the president and owner of Butler Consulting, Inc where she has been helping organizations target grant seeking, fundraising, training and management since 1994.  She has also gone out of her way to show me the “entrepreneurial ropes”  during Low Hanging Fruit Communications first year–for which I am extremely grateful.

Welcome, Linda!

It all started with purchasing a shopping center. After eight years of capacity building, organizational developing and revamping board and staff members at a dying family service agency, we were a team prepared to conduct a successful capital campaign.

As the Executive Director, I was challenged to administer, supervise, fundraise, create, mentor, monitor, market, counsel and lead (are we having fun yet?). With a little help from our friends, we were able to position the family service agency as a well-deserved recipient of a large, anonymous gift from an “angel” (what every campaign needs, right?). This individual’s campaign donation enabled us to purchase a shopping center with monthly income from a non-profit health clinic and a pizza business (what fantastic marriages!) that insured sustainability.

This campaign turned out to be my  “swan song”, as upon its completion  a “higher power” delivered a message encouraging me  to continue serving and assisting others through my gifts–but not as a traditional non-profit employee. Continue reading →