Erin Koppel

I started at Lyric Opera as an intern in the development office in the summer of 1995 during my arts admin graduate work at University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. In 1996 I was invited to become Special Events Coordinator for the Women's Board. I was promoted to Assistant Director of Annual Giving responsible mainly for membership renewals and department budgeting in 1999. Soon thereafter, the donor records department began to report to me, and soon after that, donor services, at which time my title was changed to Director of Annual Giving, with a unit staff of 7. In 2006 I was offered the opportunity to take over supervision of the Women's Board, an elite fundraising board in Chicago. There are 11 people in both "sides" of my job.

Professionally, I also serve on the Member Advisory Committee of the Tessitura Network, representing the interests of all Tessitura Member organizations globally in the creation and evolution of the next version of the software.