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Emily Cole-Jones, Managing Director
Emily Cole-Jones stands at the intersection of philanthropy, advocacy, and the arts. She has spent more than two decades building community connections and leveraging millions of dollars in support of nonprofit organizations both in the RVA community and in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul. She combines her passion for mission-driven work with her talents in the visual and performing arts. Through her experience in nonprofit administration, fundraising, and consulting, she has led multi-million dollar advancement efforts and built meaningful cross-sector relationships to leverage support for the arts, early childhood education, healthcare, housing, the environment, and more, all toward achieving positive community outcomes and transformational impact.
More about Emily
Emily has acquired a depth of administrative, management, and fundraising expertise working across a variety of arts organizations, large and small, as both a consultant and as a full-time staff member.
Emily served as Associate Managing Director and previously Director of Development at Virginia Repertory Theatre, where she worked for a cumulative 11+ years across an 18 year span. In 2022-23, her team raised over $5.2 million for the purchase of and initial improvements to the 50,000-sq. ft. Scottish Rite Temple as the new home of the Virginia Rep Center for Arts and Education. For six years, Emily served as a senior consultant with Fox Advancement, a national fundraising consulting firm based in Minneapolis, and worked on a variety of capital campaigns, as well as led the build-out of the firm's grant writing business line and managed a team of two dozen grant professionals. She held other past fund development officer roles at Stages Theatre Company (Hopkins, MN), The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (St. Paul, MN) and the Minnesota Senior Federation (St. Paul, MN).
Emily is a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, where she also serves on the board of directors of the Central Virginia Chapter, as well as the National Grant Professionals Association. She is a frequent grant reviewer, serving on grant panels for the Virginia Commission for the Arts, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and Metropolitan Regional Arts Council (Twin Cities). She also served on the boards of directors of Beyond the Barriers Minnesota and the Minnesota Sinfonia, where she was Corporate Secretary.
Emily is a proud AmeriCorps*VISTA alum, dedicating a year of service as a community organizer and liaison on the issues of affordable housing and immigration. She received her BA from Augustana University in Sioux Falls, SD and afterward attended the Art Institute of Minnesota with postgraduate coursework in graphic design. She is an award-winning visual artist (emilyjcole.com), as well as a musician and actor. She lives in Bon Air with her husband, Robb, an acupuncturist, and their rescue dog, Indie Anna.
