Margaret Kaur Gooding

Margaret is an oral historian and fundraising professional specializing in institutional giving, grant writing, major gifts, planned giving and donor relations. Her areas of concentration include education, oral history, public policy, American politics, agriculture, food, women's health, indigenous rights & activism. Much of her work focuses on the concept of sense-of-place, particularly in communities that have experienced removal or migration.

Work

Margaret began her fundraising career with the Kaine for Virginia campaign in 2011, where she coordinated fundraising events, stewarded donors, managed a 3,000+ constituent CRM, and compiled financial reports for FEC filings. In 2017, Margaret moved to Austin, TX where she worked as part of a two person development team for the Texas Civil Rights Project managing a grants portfolio in excess of $1.2 million. It was there she began to hone her skills as a fundraising professional with a focus in institutional giving. Applying her skills in academic writing and narrative, Margaret began to specialize as a grant writer. In 2018, Margaret was brought on as the Institutional Giving Manager at ZACH Theatre - the largest and longest running producing theatre in Austin. As part of a six-person development team, Margaret oversaw all corporate, foundation, and government relations for the theatre. She was the primary grant writer for the organization, managing a year-round institutional giving calendar and writing grants earning awards in excess of $500,000 annually, with a total institutional giving total of over $800,000 annually.

In late 2020, Margaret joined the team at Thinkery - Austin’s STEAM-focused children’s museum as the Grants Writer, and is now the Senior Institutional Giving Manager. Margaret oversees a year-round grants calendar of funders ranging from small donor advised funds to large, to corporate social responsibility grants, and multi-year federal grants bringing over $1.2 million in awards annually. Working with the Chief Advancement Officer, Margaret strives to incorporate Community Centered Fundraising principles, centering equity as the guiding principle of the organization’s fundraising efforts.

Since the Spring of 2023, Margaret has served as the Associate Director of Donor Engagement for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden where she is responsible for raising $3.5M in major gifts, planned giving, trustee giving, and dedications. She leads a team of development and donor engagement specialists with a focus on co-creative leadership, deep listening, compassion, and mentorship across the development spectrum.

Board Service and Pro Bono

Margaret has served on the Development Committee for the Oral History Association (US) since 2021 and has served as chairperson since 2022.

In 2020, Margaret provided pro bono grant writing and budget creation support to the president of the Oral History Association for Columbia University grant and later an NEH American Rescue Plan grant to support a fellowship and grants program for under/unemployed oral historians, with a focus on oral historians from communities that have historically been marginalized in the field; the proposal was awarded $825,000.

Education

In 2006, Margaret earned her certificate in fine arts with specializations in print-making, sculpture, and mix-media from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts. In 2011, Margaret received her B.A. from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts with a dual degree in History and Political Science with a concentrations in the history of marginalized groups and social movements in the 20th century American South. She was the proud recipient of the Hill Scholarship from the Chickasaw Nation for native youth pursuing their undergraduate degree in the humanities.

Margaret received her MA in Oral History from Columbia University in New York City in October, 2016. Her thesis, Turning Bullshit Into Fertilizer: Empowerment Narratives, Self-Definition, and Sense-of-Place in Agriculture in the American South explores the importance of stewarding and sustaining one's self and community from the land, how memories inhabit mind, body, and ritual, and the importance of sense-of-place for displaced and/or marginalized persons.

Tribal Engagement

Margaret is an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation and advocate for indigenous rights. She has spoken and lead workshops on oral history at the Dynamic Women of the Chickasaw Nation conference in Sulfur and Thackerville, Oklahoma with the goal of preserving the knowledge of elders and the Chickasaw language with a focus on mother-daughter dyads. With her mother, Margaret helped to develop the “Maternal Dialogic” theory of oral history, exploring the deep bonds between mothers and daughters that often transcend language through oral history collection, transcription, archiving.