“Coming from a family of educators, education has always been a big part of who I am. Vibha’s focus on education is what got me attracted to this organization” reflects Anuja Singhal, who recently transitioned from her role as an Executive Director for Vibha’s Bay Area (California) Action Center.
Anuja started volunteering in 2009 with Atlanta’s Action Center with encouragement from her friend, Anoop Sinha, then an Action Center leader.
Given her academic and professional background in Accounting and Finance (CPA), she took on the much-needed finance lead role for the Atlanta Action center and did so for almost 4 years. She was one of the core leads in Vibe, International Dance Festival Fundraiser in 2011 held in Atlanta’s prestigious Rialto Center.
In 2013, Anuja moved to Bay Area, and within a year started volunteering for Vibha’s Bay area action center, helping with the execution of fundraising events like DreamMile and Dandiya.
In 2015, Anuja decided to take on a different challenge for Vibha and joined the Vibha Striders Marathon training program and finished her first marathon for Vibha in 2015. As the Vibha Striders team grew, Anuja brought in her financial acumen and organizational skills to streamline and manage the finances for Striders over the next three years.
After almost 9+ years of wearing multiple hats in two different cities, in February 2018, Anuja stepped up as the Co-Executive Director role for the Bay Area Action Center with Jasneet Anand. She has worked tirelessly on building the volunteer strength and engagement at the Action Center ever since.
Anuja believes in inspiring intrinsic motivation in the volunteers and understands that this is a very deliberate process. Her focus is always on the long-term success that such engagement can bring to the organization and hence the community-at-large. With this in mind, she started the local volunteering series with another fellow volunteer, Prerna, and added informational sessions around Vibha’s work in every volunteer meeting. She has always encouraged new ideas and been willing to experiment like the Sur Sangam, a music concert fundraiser in 2019, or the DreamMIleX in 2018 and virtual events amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
With 7 large scale fundraising events, leading with relatively small 20-volunteer core group, yet managing a large event day volunteer team – sometimes almost 150 volunteers, engaging a patron/donor base of almost 950+ and raising more than half a million dollars over the last 3 years, Anuja has created a strong base for Vibha’s growth in Bay Area and beyond.
We thank Anuja for her selfless & dedicated volunteer service to Vibha for almost 11 years and for taking others alongside her on this inspiring journey to bring better opportunities to those underserved.