Julia Gourley Donohue says she wasn’t even looking for a new job! However, she’ll start one this week in Columbus, Ohio. She’ll be the new Director of Major Gifts at Columbus College of Art & Design, a four year college with a downtown Columbus campus.
For the past 17 years, Gourley Donohue has been on the Leadership Team at Krasl Art Center in St. Joseph. She began in December 2005 as the Director of Education, supervising Krasl’s many art education programs for children and adults. In 2011, Krasl Executive Director Donna Metz retired, and Julia emerged from a nationwide search as the new Krasl Executive Director.
Along the way, she learned about non-profit fund raising—and the fact that she enjoyed it. So, last year she assumed the new role of Senior Director of Advancement at the Krasl. She worked closely with the businesses and individuals who make major provisions for the Krasl’s work in their financial and philanthropic plans. Now, that growing expertise in fund-raising will lead Gourley Donohue to a new challenge in Columbus.
“Everything was going well,” she told MoodyOnTheMarket.com in an interview. “But I started to sense a need for a change, for growth, maybe even a change of scenery. So, I applied on a whim at the deadline—and I got the job! With tuition remission, too, It’s an opportunity I couldn’t pass by.” Her son Isaac Greene will attend CCAD in the fall.
Gourley Donohue says she’s looking forward to being part of a team of fund raisers vs the ‘sole role’ at Krasl. Her focus will be on ‘Individuals & Major Gifts’. At Krasl, she says she ”learned to love fund raising, connecting with businesses and individuals and finding how they can be a key part of the important work that we do. I truly have come to enjoy having conversations about the mission and the many ways people and businesses can become involved and benefit.”
Gourley Donohue is confident she is leaving the organization in a stronger position. She is particularly proud that the Krasl is even more ‘outward facing’ and tied to the community. She told us “Our members are passionate about the things that we do. I hear that from them every day.”
Pressed to choose a project she was most proud to be a part of, Julia pointed to the Sculpting Community project that raised $ 2 Million Dollars, highlighted by the total ‘remake’ of the Krasl’s outdoor space, making it much more welcoming and available to the community at large. She feels the project succeeded in creating “a space where people feel comfortable sitting and staying and making connections with one another while surrounded by Krasl Art Center’s mission.”
Julia continued, “Working with the team and with Richard Hunt to commission the site-specific sculpture ‘Rising Crossing Tides’ was a true honor. Seeing people snap photos with the sculpture, say their wedding vows beneath it, have picnics, birthday parties, or morning coffee in the shaded plaza, this all affirms the work of ‘Sculpting Community’.”
Gourley Donohue feels the Sculpting Community campaign “ enhanced Krasl’s ability to be many different things to different people, based on their individual art and cultural interests.”
“We understand that it might be a little intimidating for some people to walk into the Art Center. So, if we can welcome them through our outdoor spaces, it can encourage them to come inside and explore a world of interests and opportunities…”
“it’s really gratifying to see that happening, sometimes just driving or walking past and seeing people engaged with their own activities, and then having some of them venture inside… It happens all the time!”
Julia is quick to point out that the annual ‘Krasl Art Fair on the Bluff’ in July is only one aspect of the organization’s service to the Community. However, she acknowledges it may be the best known—and it’s how many people are first introduced to the Krasl. She called it “a unique opportunity to meet and actually shop for art among the artists who created it—something you rarely get to do anywhere else.” For the artists and longtime Krasl volunteers and members, she said, “It’s like a family reunion.”
Julia takes pride in having significantly changed the role of the Art Fair in Krasl’s financial picture. She spear-headed the move in 2021 to charge a $ 5 dollar admission fee to Art Fair attendees. While there has been some community opposition, she feels the change has been successful. It has helped make the Art Fair a contributor to funding other year-round Krasl programs vs an expense item in the organization’s budget.
She says the Art Fair is a wonderful vehicle to help expose the many Krasl programs that otherwise might be unknown. “We have a captive audience of 22,000 people who are focused on us for two days in July. How do we use that platform as a positive way to tell the Krasl story of the rest of the year?”
While Julia Gourley Donohue is starting a new professional chapter of her life in Columbus, she points out with a smile that she’s not really leaving Southwest Michigan behind. She will keep her home here and rent a place in Columbus. She plans to return often and says she is “really looking forward to enjoying SW Michigan as ‘just a person.’ Meeting people in the grocery store as friends rather than ‘official donors’ is a refreshing thought.”
Julia acknowledged—and suggested we mention—that “Leadership can be a heavy load. Sometimes you need a break, or just a different load.” She came to this realization herself after leading a major capital campaign, then caring for her terminally ill husband, Duane, until his death; followed immediately by enduring pandemic leadership. She described it as “seven hard, intense years.”
Her 18-year-old son, Isaac Greene, will also be in Columbus—attending CCAD as a design major. “He’s going off to school and I’m going off to work. We’re going to pretend it’s to different places,” she said with a smile. Julia will be forever grateful that Isaac grew up surrounded by the people of the Arts Community of St. Joseph and Benton Harbor and graduated from St. Joseph High School. “This will always be home for us,” she said.
As Gourley Donohue wrapped up her final week at Krasl Art Center and talked with us, she looked out over Lake Bluff Park and reflected on her 17 years here:
“The relationships I’ve been a part of forging between KAC and people in our community is what has mattered most to me. From the art camp kid who is now out working in the world to the donors who entrust KAC with their most precious stories and resources, this is what I’m most proud to have been a part of.”
“And this is what I’m very excited to begin to do with CCAD. The arts are incredibly important resources in communities, for reasons that vary from person to person. My work gives me a unique opportunity to find the common interests between people and a mission, and to invite people to be meaningfully involved in the good work being done.”
