Laurel Fisher, M.Ed.
Laurel is a nonprofit specialist with over 20 years of experience working in fundraising, grants management, social enterprise, data collection, impact measurement and nonprofit training. Laurel holds a M.Ed. in Nonprofit Leadership from Belmont University and has held positions at some of Nashville’s most dynamic organizations including Vanderbilt University, The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, W.O. Smith/Nashville Community Music School, and Catholic Charities of Tennessee. Laurel most recently served as the Grants Manager for Metro Arts, a department of local government program that supports the arts community in Nashville, TN. In her role there, she managed their community arts grants program that annually distributes $2.5 million to over 60 nonprofit arts organizations and projects in Nashville, TN.
Laurel has presented both regionally and nationally on grantmaking and grant writing for groups such as Arts and Business Council of Greater Nashville and Grantmakers in the Arts. She is an experienced grant writer having written successful proposals to hundreds of funders including the State of Tennessee, HCA Foundation, Predators Foundation, The Healing Trust, Memorial Foundation, The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, Tennessee Arts Commission, and National Endowment for the Arts, among others. She is a Nashville Emerging Leaders alumni and serves on the board of the Nashville Philharmonic Orchestra. She also finds time to be actively engaged in Nashville’s music community as a classical singer with Elevare and a staff musician at St. George’s Episcopal Church. While she isn’t a Tennessee native, she has lived in Nashville, TN for over 10 years. She loves visiting Nashville’s breweries, spending time with her nephew, reading, kayaking, and jewelry-making