2025 Hunt Scanlon Non-Profit Recruiting Top 65 Search Firm
2025 Hunt Scanlon America’s Top 250 Search Firm
2024 Hunt Scanlon Non-Profit Recruiting Top 60 Search Firm
2024 Hunt Scanlon America's Top 250 Search Firm
2024 Women of Color in Fundraising and Philanthropy Top Search Firm for Women of Color
2023 Hunt Scanlon Non-Profit Recruiting Top 60 Search Firm
Cook Silverman brings more than two hundred combined years of nonprofit experience, spanning all aspects of development, advancement, communications, and executive management. Our team includes individuals who have served as executive directors, development and marketing directors and other senior positions in nonprofits, and therefore have unique knowledge and abilities to evaluate skill sets of nonprofit executives.
We have worked in the positions our clients hope to fill, which gives us a unique perspective on evaluation of the candidates.
Victoria is the Managing Founder and CEO of Cook Silverman Search. Victoria has served the nonprofit sector for almost forty years. Throughout her career, Victoria has worked in senior fundraising, advancement and management positions in higher education, arts, biotech, engineering and environment sectors at Stanford University, Washington University in St. Louis, the University of California, the American Film Institute, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, the Marine Mammal Center, and the Buck Institute for Age Research, among others. She has worked with heads of state, CEOs of major corporations, scientists, Hollywood celebrities, and leaders of industry. Victoria is an AIRS© Certified Diversity and Inclusion Recruiter.
Victoria is a proud first-generation American which ignited her passion for and commitment to equity and inclusiveness throughout her life. Victoria is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis and attended St. Louis University School of Law. She has been a "heavy hitter" speaker for the Council for Advancement and Support of Education and has served on fundraising advisory committees for several nonprofit organizations. She has served as a pro bono instructor for the YWCA, CANDID, AFP, Women of Color in Philanthropy (WOC) and Development Executives Roundtable. Victoria has served as an AIRI conference presenter, a YMCA volunteer, and a former member of the Reed Union School District advisory council.
Victoria is a Past President (2020) of the board of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), Golden Gate Chapter and a member of the Oregon & S.W. Washington, Silicon Valley, and GLAC (Greater Los Angeles) chapters. She is a member of Development Executives Roundtable, and Northern California Planned Giving Council and the Network for Nonprofit Search Consultants. Victoria serves on the steering committee for Women of Color’s Allies in Action Network.
Victoria is an avid hiker and enjoys the beautiful Marin hills. She is also a proud mother of two amazing young women.
Pam Cook, co-founder of Cook Silverman Search, has conducted searches for nonprofits since 2000. Prior to Cook Silverman, she founded and was principal of Pamela Cook Development Search.
Pam has more than thirty years of experience in philanthropy. She managed The Clorox Company Foundation and worked in senior development positions at the Stanford University School of Engineering, the California Academy of Sciences, the University of Virginia, and the United Way.
Pam co-founded a women's giving circle in 2006 which supports international nonprofits that benefit women and children. She is on the board of the College of Marin Foundation and chairs the College's Program Advisory Committee, serves on the Marin Advisory Board of 10,000 Degrees, and is a Steering Committee Member of the Marin Student Elections Ambassador Program (SEAP). Pam was president of the board of the Golden Gate Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP-GGC) and wrote fourteen articles about search and nonprofits published in AFP's international magazine, Advancing Philanthropy. A Big Sister for ten years, she previously served on governing boards of the Fulbright Association and the SEMI Foundation and on the West Coast advisory board of the Institute of International Education.
A graduate of Duke University (B.A.), University of Virginia (M.A.), and a Fulbright Scholar at the Australian National University, Pam is an ACFRE (Advanced Certified Fundraising Executive), one of only 115 in the world. She received a certificate in corporate community relations from Boston College. and completed the Coro Community Leaders Program, Leadership Oakland, the Environmental Forum of Marin, and Stanford Advanced Management College.
Pam was named as the 2003 Hank Rosso Outstanding Fundraising Professional by the Golden Gate Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals and Northern California Grantmakers.
Pam founded her book group in 1997. She loves to hike, swim, play pickleball and being a grandmother.
As the Regional Director of Southern California and Operational Manager of Cook Silverman Search, Kelley brings over a decade of experience in nonprofit, team management, fundraising, talent sourcing, and operations.
Kelley began her nonprofit journey in Santa Barbara, where she attend the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Combining her political science studies, her love of service, and her two invaluable internships at Vitamin Angels and Dream Foundation, she followed a steady nonprofit path and went into fundraising. After UCSB, she moved to the Bay Area and joined the development teams at Silicon Valley Community Foundation and Stanford Medical Center Development. In her last role, she was the Associate Director of Philanthropic Partnerships at Search for Common Ground, the world’s largest dedicated peacebuilding organization. Starting in 2022, she worked part-time as a Talent Sourcer for Cook Silverman and was introduced to the world of recruiting.
In 2023, Kelley was elected to become the youngest chapter president of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, Golden Gate Chapter. After serving on the Silicon Valley Chapter board and then moving to the Golden Gate Chapter board in 2020, Kelley established herself as a leader for young professionals and DEI values. Her proudest accomplishment was establishing the Golden Gate Chapter’s IDEA Fellowship. The program brings together a cohort of ten Bay Area fellows from historically underrepresented communities and provides them with a full year of membership, a personal mentor, and access to all of AFP’s resources. The IDEA Fellowship launched in 2021 and is still going strong today.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Kelley is back in her hometown and excited to represent Cook Silverman in Southern California.
Kate heads up the marketing, communications, and PR searches at Cook Silverman. With over 25 years of integrated marketing experience from top agencies and nonprofits in London and San Francisco, Kate has developed a valuable perspective on how "marketing for good" can drive change and build communities. Working with teams at all levels and Boards, Kate swiftly steps into leadership, facilitator, motivator, planning, and implementation roles. She helps clients refocus and re-build consumer relationships through story-led, brand-defining, data-smart solutions that support them culturally, strategically, and fiscally. In every role and project, she brings a deep skill set and a marketing and communications ethos that is resourceful, motivational, and results-driven.
Kate has led multi-million-dollar integrated marketing campaigns for top brands from American Express to MINI. Most recently, she served as the fractional Director of Marketing at Ritter Center—a nonprofit dedicated to preventing and resolving homelessness. In that role, she built the Advancement team from the ground up and led bold, strategic marketing efforts to elevate awareness, grow community support, and drive fundraising success. Consultant and recruitment clients include: The Charlie Cart Project, CuriOdyssey, Quantum Leap Healthcare, Fair Trade USA, SFBATCO, Silicon Valley Urban Debate League, Save The Bay, San Francisco Ballet, Bay.org, Slide Ranch, The Marine Mammal Center, and Wildcare.
Kate graduated from Durham University (UK) with a BA Hons in Linguistics and English Language. She lives in Mill Valley, CA with her husband, two giggly girls, and two adopted cheeky kittens.
Jackson Harris, a linguist from San Francisco, CA, joins the Cook Silverman team as our Search Administrator.
Following a lifelong passion for language, Jackson graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a B.A. in Linguistics, Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese, and as a member of the Sigma Delta Pi National Collegiate Hispanic Honor Society.
As an undergraduate, Jackson held a year-long internship as a legal interpreter and ESL tutor at East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, a nonprofit organization offering legal and social services to low-income immigrants in Berkeley, CA. Jackson returns to the nonprofit sector after working in the tech industry at companies like Samsung Research America, where his team won the R&D Team Star award for their work on the Bixby smart assistant. Jackson strives to apply himself professionally in ways that uplift and empower others.
Jackson is currently pursuing his M.A. in Linguistics with a concentration in Computational Linguistics at San Francisco State University. He is excited about exploring Natural Language Processing (NLP) and sharpening his coding and research skills.
Jackson enjoys cooking and walking his dog, Champ, in his spare time. Jackson’s favorite pastime is bowling, and he is interested in learning Japanese and visiting Japan someday.
Darcie comes to Cook Silverman Search with more than 25 years in senior level roles in the nonprofit sector and serves as our new Associate Managing Director. Darcie will work closely with clients, managing all aspects of the search process.
Darcie received extensive fundraising training and worked under some of the most respected and well-known fundraisers in higher education during 14 years at Stanford University. She served as a director on the advancement team during Stanford’s $1 billion Campaign For Undergraduate Education and $6.2 billion Stanford Challenge. Additionally, Darcie was a Director at University of California, San Francisco during the $6.2 billion campaign for the new Mission Bay campus and oversaw the Robert Mondavi Teaching and Research Winery campaign at University of California, Davis. Additional positions held include Executive Director of two Bay Area non-profits and Regional Director of Philanthropy at Sutter Health. Darcie is a native of Northern California and resides in Moraga with her husband and two daughters. She lists her career highlight as working on NFL legend Bill Walsh’s book, Finding the Winning Edge.
For the past four years, Darcie has been an independent nonprofit consultant and has contracted with non-profits throughout the United States.
