Poonam Prasad

Poonam Prasad is Founder and President of Prasad Consulting & Research. In the face of drastic government funding cuts to nonprofits in the late 1980s, she established the firm in 1989 to help charities attract private philanthropic dollars to make up for the reduced levels of public support.

Ms. Prasad is on the Executive Committee of the Giving Institute: Leading Consultants to Nonprofits and on the Advisory Committee of Women of Color in Fundraising and Philanthropy. She has served on the Faculty of the Master of Science in Nonprofit Management program at Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies and was previously Adjunct Assistant Professor of Philanthropy and Fundraising at New York University's George H. Heyman, Jr. Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising for 15 years, training and mentoring a vast network of fundraisers, many of whom hold senior fundraising positions across the country today and of whom she is most proud. Ms. Prasad is also a sought-after trainer at workshops hosted by such nonprofit and professional organizations as the American Red Cross, the American Friends of the Louvre, Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas Health, United Negro College Fund, Weill Cornell Medical College, the Wildlife Conservation Society, the American Alliance of Museums(AAM), and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE).

Ms. Prasad is past President of Women in Development New York (WID-NY). Previously, she was co-chair of National Philanthropy Day in New York. She also initiated the first Research Track at AFP's annual Fundraising Day New York Conference (the largest one-day conference on philanthropy in the country) and has coordinated it for several years. Ms. Prasad also served as a member of the international board of the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement (APRA). She was a Board member and Chair of the 25th Anniversary Committee of the New York Women’s Agenda where she launched its first individual giving campaign.

Ms. Prasad has served on and led the boards and committees of numerous nonprofits in this country and overseas. She was honored by the US Ambassador to Jamaica for “outstanding service, unrelenting dedication and resourcefulness” as President of the American Women's Group. That year, the organization quadrupled the funds raised and created an endowed educational scholarship fund from which funds are still being granted annually. She was also recognized by the Rotary Club of Calcutta Midwest in India for raising funds for a free cataract surgery project in rural Bengal.

Ms. Prasad began her career as an investigative reporter and worked in journalism, advertising and public relations in India, South Korea, Hong Kong, Jamaica and the U.S. before transitioning to fund-raising for nonprofits. Her prose and poetry have been published in numerous publications around the world.