Introducing Julia Emlen

We are very pleased to announce that Julia Emlen has joined CMW as our Director of Development. This is a new position that reflects CMW's growth as an organization, and our plans to grow in the coming years.

Julia joins us after a long association with CMW that dates back to the Fall of 2000, when I attended a one-day class she taught on newsletter writing. (View a CMW newsletter from 2002 here.) I was impressed with her knowledge of non-profit communications, and after the class asked her if I could pick her brain about growing CMW, which was at the time in its fourth year. What followed was a memorable coffee date, in which Julia gave me dozens of ideas for building the organization, the first of which was to solicit her for a gift. I squirmed until she instructed me how to do it, and I left that meeting with her personal commitment of support. Julia has been an informal adviser ever since. 

Over the past eighteen months, with capacity building funding from the Rhode Island Foundation's Initiative for Nonprofit Excellence, we have worked with Julia as a consultant to review our development and communications strategy, and to recommend changes that will enable us to grow. She comes to us with a stellar national reputation as an expert in philanthropy, having consulted to organizations across the country as the principal of Julia S. Emlen Associates for many years, and before that overseeing donor relations for Brown University.

Please help us welcome Julia by introducing yourself to her at the next CMW concert.

-Sebastian Ruth, Founder & Artistic Director