Sonia Gonzalez Banks founded Golden Banks Consulting to help not-for-profit organizations become more efficient and effective. Through her years as a full time professional in New York City, Brooklyn and Austin, she met passionate staff members committed to their work. She also saw a need for better systems, analysis and strategies. She believes all efforts must flow from an organization’s mission, the source and inspiration for everything an organization does.
Now based in San Francisco, Sonia utilizes her 15 years experience developing and implementing strategies for cultural, educational and environmental organizations to benefit multiple clients through Golden Banks Consulting. She attributes her years of success to an understanding of the ideal relationship among marketing, fundraising and programming departments. She helps organizations expand their communities in comprehensive ways, enhancing their ability to communicate and operate with consistency in service of their missions.
Sonia’s experience encompasses program assessment, design and management; integrated marketing communications; comprehensive database administration; streamlining development operations and special event conception and execution.
Recent projects include serving as the Interim Director of Development at San Francisco Botanical Garden Society in Golden Gate Park and as the Producer of the San Francisco Botanical Garden Society’s Community Day event celebrating its 75th anniversary. In her last full-time position as the Director of Individual Giving and Special Events at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Sonia was responsible for securing more than $2 million annually. Sonia increased the donor base to more than 16,000 supporters by implementing new, effective programming that led to record contributed income in successive years.
Before the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Sonia managed the membership program and associated marketing initiatives at the world-renown Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, more than doubling the membership base. She also brought success to development and marketing departments of American Federation of the Arts in New York City and the Austin Museum of Art and the Austin Children’s Museum in Austin, Texas.
A University of Texas at Austin graduate, Sonia has served on the communications committee and the board development committee of the YMCA McBurney board in New York City. In her free time, Sonia enjoys spending time in the California sun with her two toddlers and tackling home improvement projects with her husband.
