St. Vladimir’s Seminary is pleased to announce Tim Nieuwsma as its new Major Gifts Officer in the Office for Institutional Advancement. Tim joins the team at SVOTS after 30 years of experience in the business and non-profit world. Tim grew up as an “MK” (missionary kid) in the Philippines and graduated from Wheaton College, before moving into a position as a fundraiser for schools in DuPage County, Illinois.
In the late 1980s Tim and his wife, Ginny, moved to California, settling their family in San Jose. Tim joined Saratoga Investment Company, where he served as a commercial real estate broker for ten years, working with landowners, investors, and developers. It was during this time that Tim discovered the Orthodox Christian faith and was chrismated, along with his family, after a year of soul searching and study. Key people in his spiritual journey have been SVOTS graduates, including priests from the Greek Orthodox and Antiochian Orthodox Archdioceses, and the Orthodox Church in America.
In 1996 Tim moved into the non-profit world, accepting a position to head a company that develops studio, family, and seniors apartments for low-income people in Silicon Valley. Under Tim’s leadership First Community Housing (FCH) rose from near collapse to stability and prominence, garnering regional and national awards, including California’s first and current top producer of LEED certified (Green) affordable apartments. Tim found numerous strategically located sites for FCH, negotiated purchase agreements that enabled affordable development, worked with a complex mix of lenders and government agencies to fund new projects, secured over $40 million from tax credit investment partners, and re-negotiated problematic old FCH debt. He also attracted new board members, hired new staff, assisted in the creation of a new corporate image, and helped generate and form a $10M dollar privately-donated fund to provide ongoing seed money for non-profit developments.
Tim’s non-profit work led to his becoming a founding member of a consulting firm that advised individuals, public agencies, private and non-profit corporations (such as Catholic Charities), hospitals, the county, utility companies, school districts, colleges, investors, and developers. Since 2000 Tim has served in a number of ways: as a member of the Mayor of San Jose’s blue-ribbon Housing Trust Board, as Chairman of the Housing Action Coalition, as a member of the Silicon Valley Housing Leadership Council, as a Rotarian, and as an active member of his parish in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese.
In June Tim completed initial coursework at the Indiana University Fund Raising School. He says he is “delighted to be working for SVOTS.” He has been married to Ginny for 31 years, and is the father of six children and grandfather of five.
