About Us

Sara O'Neal

Sara has 20 years of experience in fundraising and strategic planning, split nearly evenly between being a practitioner and a consultant.

Most recently Sara has served as executive director of Wildlaw, an Alabama based nonprofit environmental law firm whose mission is to defend the environmental integrity of human and natural communities through education, administrative actions, community capacity building, and litigation. Wildlaw focuses on clean water, natural habitat, and environmental justice.

Before accepting the Wildlaw position Sara had spent nine years as president of a fundraising and strategic planning consulting firm, Green Pursuits, Inc., working with a variety of nonprofits. Her specialty was training, and in 2000 Sara was selected as one of four trainers to be interviewed nationally for a best practices study funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation with the results published as Echoes from the Field: Proven Capacity-Building Principles for Nonprofits .

In 2000 Sara was selected as one of four trainers to be interviewed nationally for a best practices study funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation with the results published as Echoes from the Field: Proven Capacity-Building Principles for Nonprofits .

In the early 1990's Sara was Director of Major Gifts for the Sierra Club in several different regions including the Midwest (Madison, WI), Washington, DC, and the Southeast (Atlanta, GA). In this successful $92 million capital Centennial Campaign she worked with then Centennial Campaign director Marianne Briscoe. Sara was honored in the Sierra Club Board minutes as having done “a magnificent job not only in raising funds but also in developing a pool of prospects and in working closely with Club volunteers…”

A Georgia native, Sara also served as Director of Development for the Atlanta Ballet and Associate Executive Director of the Feminist Women's Health Center.

She holds a BS degree from Georgia State University and has attended professional workshops and classes on fundraising, grantsmanship, volunteer coordinating, planned giving, capital campaigns, long range planning, membership building, and board development.