Laura Huth-Rhoades

Laura Huth-Rhoades
President & CEO/Chief ChangeMaker

Well, hello there! I’m Laura, a nonprofit organizational growth expert with an unbridled passion for doing good.

I provide high-impact, results-oriented, and super-practical consulting, training, and coaching services for nonprofits seeking to do the good work they do even better.

I bring a passion and proficiency for helping nonprofits raise more money to grow their causes, use storytelling to engage and wow audiences, and build unforgettable communications tools to raise awareness. I love, love, love helping clients with organizational and special event assessments, professional coaching needs, and building easy-to-use planning tools to magnify efficiency and impact.

Across my consulting, coaching, and training work, I bring a unique blend of high-energy teaching, practical tools that create excitement and clear direction. I use an interactive, hands-on, “teach a person to fish” approach focused on organizational self-sufficiency and resilience.

Even Kenny McPoops gets in on the do good action!

I’ve been working in and for the nonprofit sector my whole life, bringing decades of real-life experience to my work with clients. My diverse background provides me with comprehensive nonprofit skills that allow me to analyze both big picture organization needs as well as dig into the more day-to-day functionality to improve efficiency and impact.

I have enhanced and award-winning specialties across fundraising & development, communications & marketing, community outreach & audience development, storytelling, nonprofit photography, and organizational and strategic planning.

I hope I’ve sold you on my drive for what I do and the talents I bring to the table. If you need help, I’m just a call or email away! Let’s chat.

Want to learn more about my background? Read on (especially to the end about how I met my husband!):

I cut my teeth in the nonprofit sector at age 24 by founding – on a dare – the Illinois Student Environmental Network, a statewide training organization teaching and training Illinois’ college students to be effective changemakers. The organization flourished and grew in my ten-year tenure (allowing me to say “I told you so!” to my darer!).

I moved on to take the helm of the nearly broke Habitat for Humanity of Champaign County. As Executive Director, I worked with my team to turn the failing agency into an award-winning powerhouse, overhauling fundraising, communications, reporting, and tracking strategies and systems.

In another dare, I ended up running for and being elected to the Urbana City Council in Illinois, serving 8 years, which was a marvelous experience (and one that proves extremely useful in my do good Consulting work today). I co-founded six different nonprofits, community groups, and businesses, including ones that won the Governor’s Hometown Award and Small Business of the Year. I also founded and co-chaired of the Institute for Nonprofit Leadership, an initiative to bring comprehensive and curriculum-driven training to central Illinois’ nonprofit leaders and their organizations.

Me with my husband Tom and our foster son Lawrence

do good Consulting was awarded the Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business of the Year designation. I was recognized as Woman of the Year, Outstanding Fundraising Executive by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, and was also named a United Way Difference Maker.

Where did this all start? I became an entrepreneur at the age of 10 by founding a small block-wide newspaper with my brother and sister, then launched a wildly successful babysitting business the day I turned 13 that allowed me to pay for college. This early start helped me to found or co-found six different nonprofits and businesses in the last 25 years. 

My husband, Tom, and I — and our foster son Lawrence — live in the Mitten State, on a serene acre surrounded by forests, bogs, and cropland. We are mid-point between Holland, Grand Rapids, and Kalamazoo and about 30 minutes from the shores of Lake Michigan. We live in an amazing barn turned into a house and just love remodeling the space, inside and out.

It’s a crazy, crazy story about how we met, truly! Just ask me about it!

Our barn home in rural southwest Michigan.

We are professional cat-wranglers: Charley-Poodle, Bennie-Benito, Kenny McPoops, Princess Poly P Von Shivers, Mrs. Mommas, and Gremlin G McGilroy keep us all busy! Also new to our fur-crew is our red-nosed pitty, Lady Piper le Pipes, a gentle soul who spends her days sleeping and snoring in her bed in my office (which was our garage until we turned into my office — all from upcycled materials! Ask me about what we used to finish the ceiling of this space. Or get on a Zoom with me to see it for yourself! I’m sure you’ve never seen anything like it!).

In my spare time, I enthusiastically love cooking sans recipe, gardening without gloves, and volunteering to create change. I also carry a deep, abiding love for bacon…always crispy.

When you talk to me, be sure to ask me the story about how I met Tom. It’s one you’ll never believe — and one you’re sure never to forget! <3