About
I'm Amy Thomas, founder of The Collective Group, a Milwaukee-based fund development consultancy I launched in April 2023 after 18 years in the nonprofit sector. I run this practice full-time, serving clients on retainer across grant writing, fractional fund development, communications, revenue diversification, and board strategy.
My path into this work isn't a linear one - and that's part of what makes it effective. Those 18 years inside nonprofit organizations gave me a working knowledge of how this sector actually operates: where the funding gaps form, how strategy quietly erodes under operational pressure, what separates a proposal that gets funded from one that gets a polite decline.
Alongside that work, I've been a full-time caregiver for my adult son with disabilities. That experience didn't just shape my values - it gave me direct, sustained engagement with the same systems my clients are working inside: disability services, healthcare, family-facing infrastructure. I know how these systems work, where they break, and what it takes to keep showing up for the people they're built to serve. I bring that perspective into every engagement, and it's part of why my work resonates with organizations whose missions are rooted in community and equity.
I work with nonprofits, social enterprises, and mission-driven businesses across a broad set of program areas - neighborhood revitalization, harm reduction, housing, faith-based organizing, youth development, and public health. My role is to listen carefully, learn your work from the inside, and translate what your team and community know into proposals and strategies that funders respond to. I don't write generic applications, and I don't recycle boilerplate. Foundation jargon doesn't move funders the way real specificity does, and real specificity comes from doing the listening first.
Since launching The Collective Group, I've raised over $2.5M for nonprofit organizations, most with operating budgets between $50K and $400K. I've also built and scaled over $800K in e-commerce revenue for a mission-aligned business and grown a media platform from 4,500 to 160,000 paid subscribers, adding $83K in new monthly revenue inside 12 months. That range is intentional. Most organizations today need a funding mix - grants, individual giving, earned revenue, audience-driven growth - and I've worked across all of them.
The Collective Group is based in Milwaukee, and I serve clients here and beyond. My practice is full but always evolving. If you think we might be a fit, if you think we might be a fit, the conversation costs nothing.