CEO of Sacramento Region Community Foundation, Big Day of Giving organizer, to retire
The top executive for the Sacramento Region Community Foundation, which manages philanthropic funds and organizes the annual Big Day of Giving charity event, will retire at the end of this year after nearly a decade in the role.
Linda Beech Cutler began her tenure as CEO of the foundation during its 30th anniversary year in 2013. That year also marked the inaugural Big Day of Giving, a single-day charity drive that has pulled in more than $10 million across more than 600 Sacramento-area nonprofit groups each of the past two years.
“I am so proud of the incredible team I have had the opportunity to work alongside and am privileged to have worked with a Board of Directors that has been such a strong guiding force for me these past ten years,” Cutler said in a prepared statement posted to the organization’s website on Tuesday.
Including the 10th annual event set for May 5 of this year, Cutler will have overseen all 10 Big Days of Giving.
The event started as the “Arts Day of Giving” in 2013 and raised $500,000 for arts nonprofits before broadening its reach the following year. It has pulled in more than $65 million since then, with fundraising totals increasing every successive year since its inception.
The Big Day of Giving thrived in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, which introduced financial hardships for a number of different types of nonprofits. Donors raised a record $13.3 million for 688 nonprofits last year, following $12 million for 615 organizations in 2021, according to the foundation’s website.
The Sacramento Region Community Foundation also awards grants to organizations across Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer and Yolo counties.
Cutler “elevated the Foundation’s total assets to $200 million and has brought the Foundation’s annual grantmaking from fundholders and Foundation-based grants to an all-time high of nearly $20 million annually,” according to a Tuesday news release by the foundation.
Cutler will continue to live in the area and will remain an “individual contributor, including as a Foundation fundholder.” In retirement, she plans to spend more time with family who live on the East Coast and abroad.
The Sacramento Region Community Foundation’s board of directors says it will conduct a nationwide search firm for its next head executive. The organization hopes to have the new CEO chosen by this fall.
