Presswala joins development team

kathleen presswala

Kathleen Presswala, a Georgia native and UGA law school graduate, has spent her career as a fund-raiser in the nonprofit sector.

Kathleen Presswala, an Atlanta native experienced in serving the nonprofit sector, has joined the RSPH as director of annual giving.

She is part of the fund-raising team led by Kathryn Graves, associate dean for development and external relations.

Presswala comes to Rollins from the Atlanta Ballet, where she served as the annual giving officer. She began her fund-raising career in Boston as a development associate for Elderhostel after graduating from Bowdoin College.

She subsequently returned to her home state to attend law school at the University of Georgia and serve as a legal assistant with Waffle House. During law school, she interned with public defender offices in Athens and Atlanta, where she assisted clients beset by difficult circumstances.

“I enjoyed the work, which was both challenging and affecting,” she says. “It was hard to leave at the end of the day because I knew my clients were spending the night in jail.”

Her appreciation for the arts drew her back to nonprofit fund-raising with the Atlanta Ballet, where she supported dancers and donors by staffing events, conducting research, cultivating supporters, writing letters, and licking stamps.

“The ballet had a small development team, and everyone pitched in to help,” she says. “It was our way of sharing our passion for the dancers and their artistry.”

At Rollins, Presswala will grow annual giving by finding ways to connect alumni and friends of the school with students, faculty, and programs that interest them. The work allows her to apply the analytical skills that she learned in law school to fund-raising for the RSPH, for which she has quickly developed a passion. She likens her new role to the one she held as a public defense intern: “I want to do good—not for me but for the community and the world.”

To learn more about annual giving opportunities at Rollins, contact Kathleen Presswala at 404-712-8687 or kathleen.presswala@emory.edu.

Table of Contents


Bookmark and Share

Magazine Cover