USA Projects

John Spokes, an experienced fundraiser and management consultant with an extensive background in the performing arts, joins the USA team after serving as the director of development for UCLA Live for the past five years. Since moving to Los Angeles from Minneapolis in 2004 (the most liberating day of his life was selling his snow blower), he also served as senior vice president at Netzel Grigsby Associates, a financial and organizational development firm in Culver City, where he provided counsel and expertise to local nonprofit organizations.

In Minneapolis, Spokes operated his own nonprofit management consulting business and served as director of development at Chrysalis, A Center for Women, successfully implementing a multimillion-dollar capital campaign. From 1994 to1998, he was a key part of the development team at Minneapolis' Guthrie Theater, working as director of annual and individual giving, interim development director, and director of community giving. He was also the annual fund manager at the highly respected Children's Theatre Company, director of development at the innovative Illusion Theatre, and co-founder and managing director of the Eye of the Storm Theatre.

Spokes devotes much of his work and leisure time to arts advocacy as a volunteer leader. In addition to his ongoing commitment to several local theatre companies, including Pacific Resident Theater and Buzzworks Theater Company, he helps with Heal the Bay and has previously served on the boards of Cornerstone Theater Company, the Association of Fundraising Professionals in Orange County; the Cammack Marshall Fund for Children in St. Paul; Minnesota's Metropolitan Regional Arts Council; and Minnesota Citizens for the Arts.

Spokes, a graduate of Pomona College, is a tackler of the daily sudoku and a classically trained percussionist who enjoys hiking and birding.