Hello!

I’m Valerie Costa, and I’ve been working toward social change since I was teenager leading my high school Amnesty International group. I started college in 1999 and was inspired by the global justice movement and student labor solidarity on campus. I switched from being pre-med to studying International Relations and History and received my BA from Boston University.

Life brought me to Seattle and honestly, I really needed a job. Thankfully, Senior Services (now Sound Generations) hired me in their fundraising department. I quickly realized that fundraising was a lot like the organizing I had done in college — telling a compelling story, making asks, and engaging in a lot of detailed project management. Turned out I was good at it, and I became the Vice President/Chief Development Officer of that $15 million organization, responsible for raising, along with my team, over $2.4 million annually from private sources.

I wanted to travel (remember that international relations degree?), so I left Senior Services and volunteered in India for a few months and explored Asia. I decided to study natural building, which was my first foray into a more earth-centric line of work, and I started Aril Consulting in 2011.

Through Aril Consulting I have worked with nonprofit clients from all over the country to help them learn how to raise money, get good at it, and grow their organizations. It’s been tremendously satisfying. I’ve supported dozens of social change organizations by helping them strengthen their infrastructure.

In 2017 I joined the Staff Collective of 350 Seattle, an organization I had been volunteering with as a Board member. I served as their Interim Executive Director until Fall 2021. Now that I’ve been an Executive Director I feel I can better understand the demands on my clients.

In Fall 2022 I began a year-long Master’s program in Political Ecology, Degrowth, and Environmental Justice at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. I look forward to returning to Seattle and the USA inspired by the progressive and feminist city policies advanced by Barcelona en Comú.