An experienced institutional fundraiser and donor relations professional with a 20-year track record of securing grants for nonprofits, Suzanne Rivecca (she/her/hers) joined Public Advocates as Senior Grants Manager in 2025. Her role is to compellingly tell the story of Public Advocates’ work and its impact to our institutional funding partners, managing each stage of the proposal submission and reporting process and stewarding grants throughout their lifecycle.
Prior to joining Public Advocates, Suzanne served as a grant writer and development manager for such organizations as Homeless Youth Alliance, St. Anthony’s, Heyday Books, and the Bay Area Book Festival. Her most recent role was as Development Writer in Institutional Advancement at Occidental College, where her proposals to institutional funders and principal givers raised over $3 million in endowed and outright gifts and grants.
Suzanne is also a fiction writer. Her short story collection, “Death is Not an Option” (WW Norton 2010) won the Rome Prize in Literature and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Story Prize, and other honors.
Education
Suzanne received a BA from Grand Valley State University and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. She was a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Creative Writing at Stanford University and a Creative Arts Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard.