About

Cynthia Hurst portrait
Cynthia follows her passion helping nonprofits achieve success. Photo: Jen Fariello

Short bio

Cynthia Hurst is a nonprofit management and development consultant who most recently served for three years as the executive director of Foothills Child Advocacy Center, an organization helping children who have experienced abuse. Cynthia grew the program through a series of initiatives: increasing revenues by 38%, overseeing the creation of an enterprising strategic plan, developing new Memorandums of Understanding with the nine jurisdictions the center serves, and hiring additional staff, including a Child Abuse Pediatrician.

Ms. Hurst has more than two decades of experience as a nonprofit executive, consultant, and board member. From local nonprofits to international organizations, Cynthia has organized management teams and raised the funds for missions ranging from human rights to the environment, historic preservation, social justice, senior care, the arts, and animal welfare.

Long bio

Cynthia Hurst was raised in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley and has spent her career raising money for nonprofit organizations and managing them.

She began her nonprofit career at Clean Water Action, where she first learned the basics of fundraising and then directed the organization’s Baltimore office to be the highest netting office in the country. She played a leadership role in opening offices in Providence, RI; Portsmouth, NH; Miami, FL; Dallas, TX; and Los Angeles, CA. In addition, she mentored and trained eight new directors who went on to run offices around the country.

After opening and managing the CWA Miami office, Cynthia moved to be closer to her family in Virginia. There she served as development manager at the Wildlife Center of Virginia and development director at WHTJ Charlottesville PBS.

In 2006, Cynthia founded Butterflies in Progress, LLC. She has assisted organizations with management training, capital campaigns, major gifts, direct mail, special events, strategic planning, board recruitment and training. Clients have included dozens of national, regional and local organizations working on educational, environmental, historical, political, and social justice causes.

As comfortable operating around the globe as she is in her own backyard, Cynthia has organized donor groups traveling to India and grassroots activists knocking on doors. As Director of Development at the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), Cynthia helped lead member delegations to Dharamsala, India to meet with the President of Tibet in exile, and with the Dalai Lama. She also coordinated communications and development activities regularly with ICT’s offices in the Netherlands and Germany.

Most recently she served for three years as the executive director of Foothills Child Advocacy Center, an organization helping children who have experienced abuse. Cynthia grew Foothills’ program through a series of initiatives: increasing revenues by 38%, overseeing the creation of an enterprising strategic plan, developing new Memorandums of Understanding with the nine jurisdictions the center serves, and hiring additional staff, including a Child Abuse Pediatrician.

Cynthia has served on the boards of directors of Wild Virginia, the Environmental Fund for Florida, the Baltimore League of Conservation Voters, the Coalition to Preserve Black Marsh, and the Baltimore Recycling Coalition, which she co-founded. She chaired the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Nonprofit Council and taught fundraising courses at the University of Virginia.
She has a Bachelor of Arts from James Madison University and studied for her Masters in Public Administration at Virginia Tech.

Cynthia enjoys biking, hiking, and a daily meditation and yoga practice.