The Journey Part 3

If you’ve read the first two parts of my journey, I want to thank you for going down this road with me. I hope you find my story interesting and you find something you can relate to in some way.

When I last wrote about my journey, I was about to leave City of Hope (COH) to head to the University of California, Irvine (UCI). The timing of it all was interesting in that as I was leaving COH, my service on the Apra board was also ending. Two chapters were basically closing at the same time.

More than just being interesting, it was also significant. I some ways, I had reached the pinnacle of my career. I was doing important work for an organization I cared deeply about. I built a team, established numerous policies, procedures and processes and engaged with people all across the external affairs team. I learned. I grew. I contributed. I flourished.

I had also served my profession. I engaged. I connected. I networked. I made a small impact. I was a part of something bigger than myself.

I felt like I had achieved so much in my profession and I didn’t know what was waiting ahead for me.

I can’t emphasize enough how hard it was for me to leave COH and the relationships I had built there. Those relationships included friendships with some of the best fundraisers in the world.

I started at COH in 2000 and at the time, one might have considered the organization as sort of a sleepy organization that raised a fair amount of money, but wasn’t making any big waves, fundraising wise. That all changed in 2004 when Kathleen Kane was hired away from U.C. San Francisco (UCSF) to be the Executive Vice President of Development and External Affairs.

A short time after her arrival, she hired Paul Blodgett to be the Sr. VP – hiring him away from USC.

The two of them would transform the fundraising efforts of COH and I was lucky enough to have a front-row seat to the whole process.  When I say “transform” – I sincerely mean it. They turned COH into fundraising powerhouse and the organization began to set new highs for fundraising during their time there.

That change came with a significant cost. A monumental restructuring took place. Some people lost their jobs, some were reassigned or reclassified. It was painful in some ways, but it was probably what needed to happen in order for COH to move forward.

I will never forget the first time Kathleen addressed the entire team. She started by quoting Jeremiah 29:11.  “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  At that moment, Kathleen had my full attention because I had never heard anyone address their team by quoting the Bible. It also just so happens Jeremiah 29:11 is a verse dear to my heart for many reasons.

I have been a huge admirer of Kathleen through all the years I’ve known her. I always respected her and the tough decisions she had to make at COH. I always admired her for the contributions she made to an organization that needed to go in a new and better direction. I don’t know if she ever received the credit she (and Paul) deserved for the impact they had.

Kathleen and I had a couple things in common. We were both only children and at the time, we both had aging parents. Coincidentally, she had two dogs named Maggie and Molly and Cheryl and I owned two cats with the same names. We also shared a faith in Jesus.

I’ve remained in touch with her over the years. She even served as a reference for me (more on that later).  We also have yet another connection. When I arrived at APU, I reached out to Kathleen to let her know. She responded by telling me one of her close childhood friends was the Board Chair here (Peggy Campbell) at the time.

It really is a small world.

Paul Blodgett is one of my all-time favorite COH people. Paul is the kind of person who only needs a little bit of information to understand any situation. He just “gets it.” I never had to go into any long explanations about anything I needed to bring to his attention. He always got it and he always took action.

I could always go to him and have an open and honest conversation with him on just about anything. I loved his no-nonsense approach and more than anything, I always trusted him.

One of the most significant things he allowed me to do was contract with Target Analytics for their predictive modeling. He allowed me to make this choice even though we were clients of Grenzebach Glier & Associates (GG&A) who had their own predictive modeling product. Paul gave me the freedom to make my own choice and I was never pressured to use GG&A.

That’s what having true autonomy is all about and Paul (along with my VP – Amy Goldman) gave me that. It’s something I always appreciated and never forgotten.

It was a decision that wasn’t too pleasing to Martin Grenzebach, but it was a decision I was allowed to make. I know this, because we met to talk about why I didn’t choose GG&A. Looking back, I can’t tell you how much I appreciated having the freedom to do something like that. I know that doesn’t happen every day or at many other organizations, but it speaks to the kind of leadership COH had at the time.

Paul and I bonded over the years about baseball. Paul and his son – Jacob are Angels fans. Paul would stop by my office periodically to talk about our favorite team. It was something that was somewhat of a sight to behold for those who occupied offices or cubicles around me because it was a side of Paul they weren’t used to seeing. 

Paul had that reputation of being a no-nonsense kind of guy and seeing him talk about baseball with me was refreshing to those who saw it taking place. It was a side of him most weren’t used to seeing.

Paul has since retired and we’ve kept in touch over the years. He was very kind to me when I left COH, telling me that UCI was lucky to have me. We still email one another about all things relating to Angels baseball. He’s usually the first person I hear from whenever there is breaking news about the Angels.

I’ve even connected with Jacob through LinkedIn, who not only shares a passion for baseball, but for data and has engaged me in conversations about what makes a fundraiser successful. Jacob currently works at COH. I’ve never met Jacob in person, but feel like I know him just the same.

Paul and Kathleen are just two of the stories behind many of the relationships I built at COH. 

Before I move on, a little more about the decision to contract with Target Analytics. At the time I decided to do an RFP, COH was a Kintera client. David Lawson had sold P!N to Kintera and unfortunately that changed things considerably for me. Kintera didn’t provide the best customer service and I decided to move in a different direction. The issues were significant enough for me to make that decision.

David reached out to me during this time and made his pitch for us to stay with Kintera, but I couldn’t be convinced. I imagine the change might have been a bit of a shock to David. Even though I considered him to be a friend, it didn’t stop me from going in a different direction.

Kintera would eventually be sold to Blackbaud. Funny how that all played out.

Prior to the sale of P!N to Kintera, I reached out to David about Kintera to ask his opinion. He didn’t say much at all. Shortly after that, I learned about the sale and his non response made sense. Kintera was a publicly traded company and David couldn’t tell me about the pending sale, etc.

Small world.

Back to the story.

As I said earlier, I worked with some of the very best fundraisers at COH. If you’ve followed my blog over the years or even some of the things I’ve posted on LinkedIn – then you know all about Rick Leonard. Rick is the one person who has probably taught me more about fundraising and what it means to be a successful fundraiser than anyone else.

Rick is not the easiest person to work with, but I always understood him and got along with him. I get Rick. I really do. I also love the guy and admire him for how good he is at the work he does. We have always made for a great team and with Rick, I always felt like we were exactly that - a team.

Rick and I would later work together at PanCAN from 2015-2017. More on that later.

When I shared the news of my plans to leave COH, no one took the news harder than my friend – Joe Komsky. Joe and I became good friends and colleagues at COH, despite the fact that we couldn’t be more different. We are different in so many ways, but perhaps the biggest difference of all is that he’s a Dodger fan and I’m an Angels fan. The depth of our fandom for baseball is what really bonded us.

 

Joe is definitely one of the people I miss working with the most. Anytime Joe was in the office and not out visiting donors, we ate lunch together. We spent so much time talking about baseball and just giving each other a hard time (in a way that good friends often do). We still keep in touch, meet for lunch when we can (something that’s less likely now that he’s in San Diego), and find ways to make sure we stay connected. We both make the effort to stay in touch.

On top of everything else, Joe is also a really good fundraiser. I miss him.

Two fundraisers I have thought about often over the years have since passed away. Both lost battles with cancer. Sandee Zschomler and Lisa Considine both spent their careers fighting the battle against a disease that would ultimately take their lives.  Of the two, I knew Sandee a little better because our offices were on the same floor, while Lisa was based in COH’s San Francisco office.

I used to send Sandee instant messages while she was on the phone because I could hear every word of her conversations even though there were about 5 or 6 offices between us. I’d comment on her conversations just for fun. Sandee was always smiling and always a joy to be around.  She would eventually leave COH to become the VP of the Community Hospital of San Bernardino. 

She used to call me that 4-1-1 man. For those of you too young to know – 411, was the number we used to dial for information. It also happens to represent my birthday of 4/11. I was the information man, of course.

I learned about her passing while I was at UCI.

Lisa was one of the most positive people I ever worked with. She battled her cancer while still a part of the COH team. I used to read her blog which detailed her journey through that time of her life and it was beautifully written. I remember seeing Lisa after she’d been out for a long period of time and I was so happy to see her, that I was literally speechless. It was at that point that we thought she had turned the corner against the disease. Sadly, that wouldn’t be the case.

Both left us far too early.

My relationships and friendships went beyond just the fundraisers because I made a point to get to know those outside of my area.  While at COH, I organized what I called “networking lunches.” I did this by inviting six colleagues (including myself) to go out to lunch together. This included people from every area of the external relations team – marketing, the events team, data team, etc. I made a point to invite people who didn’t necessarily work with each other day to day. It’s one of the things I was most proud of while working at COH.

It would be a tradition I would take with me to UCI, PanCAN and APU.

At COH more than 70 people participated. The lunches were highly popular and very successful. People genuinely enjoyed getting to know one another. I believe it had a positive impact on the culture of our organization. It gave people reasons other than just work to talk to each other.

I’ve always been interested in company culture and what it means to have a connection culture. I am basically an introvert (which may come as a surprise to some), but this was something I really wanted to do. It really was fun. As I would later learn being an introvert doesn’t necessarily mean that we don’t like to be around people. It just means that we get our “energy” from our alone time. I enjoy engaging with people, but there definitely comes a time when I need to have my quiet time to recharge. The networking lunches remains one of those things I just love to do. It fits who I am.

Bestselling author, Brené Brown once said, “We are hardwired for connection, and connecting requires courage, vulnerability, and conversation.”

I couldn’t agree more. I wasn’t sure how people would respond when I proposed the networking lunch idea. I took a chance and it worked out better than I could have imagined.

Some cool dot connecting and relationships came out of this exercise. Rachel Hall, who was an Assistant Director on the Stewardship team also happened to be an accomplished novelist.  At one of our lunches, one of our major gift officers – Janet Morgan talked about her book club. One thing lead to another, and Rachel ended up being a guest at one of their meetings where Janet’s club would read Rachel’s book.
 
Side note - a few years later, I would help recruit Rachel to work at PanCAN. More on that later.

It was also during one these lunches that Katie Kornfield who was a Sr. Media Relations Specialist shared her story about her figuring skating career. Katie wasn’t just another ice skater, she was a gold medal skater. This lead to the discovery that Shannon Marie Klenk who was a Director of Development on the Industry side of the organization had a son who was also an ice skater and Katie and her son had the same coach. Small world, right?

Today, Katie runs her own successful consulting firm. Shannon lives back east and spends her time as a philanthropist and volunteer. The two may have never discovered what they had in common had it not been for those lunches. Stuff like that is just cool to me.

COH also had a lot of former college athletes working there. My buddy, Joe played volleyball at Penn. Matt Dodd was on a National Championship volleyball team at Pepperdine. Rob Myers was a punter for the University of Washington football team. Julie Filkoff was a former professional tennis player. Frank Simmons played baseball at Colorado State University and Kevin Collins played basketball at Harvard. Britta Bucholz swam for Loyola Marymount University. It’s funny how I always remember stuff like this.

I made it a point to get to know the people who worked at COH – even if I didn’t work directly with them. That was a result of the lunches I organized and because I found ways to engage with others all the time. Whenever I went to see someone, I didn’t want them to see me as someone just coming to ask them for something. Building relationships allowed me to build equity with my colleagues and that helped me foster better working relationships.

It was the little things, the tiny facts about my colleagues that kept things interesting. Small things like the fact that Randy Lapin; who was one of our top fundraisers, loved cilantro as much as I hated it. Whenever we ate Mexican food together, I’d ask for my meal without cilantro and he’d be ask for extra cilantro. It was a silly thing that connected the two of us and something I think about to this day whenever I request “no cilantro.”

Over the years, I heard stories about his daughters (some of them on the crazy side), and countless stories about his pets. We have a friendship that continues to this day.

Randy left COH in 2008 – four years before me, but he reached out to me when he learned the Angels public address announcer David Courtney passed away in November of 2012 – he and David were friends. Randy knew I was an Angels fan. I was working at UCI and Randy was (and still is) at the Jewish Vocational Services for Los Angeles (JVSLA), but because of our friendship we remained connected through news like this. It meant a lot to me that Randy reached out to me – even though I didn’t know David Courtney personally – Randy reached out because he knew how big of an Angels fan I was and continue to be.

This is the kind of stuff, I will always remember. I always appreciate when people find a way to stay connected. Randy continues to do that.

Randy has also leveraged his COH relationships well. There are numerous individuals he recruited away from COH to join him at JVSLA including Alan Levey, Suzanne Watson, Jorge Lazaro, Mary Koenig, and Angela Haynes come to mind.

While I was at UCI, Randy also referred Elayne Zalis to me, who was interested in a writing position within University Advancement. I referred her to Dan Montplaisir (Associate Vice Chancellor) and Elayne ended up getting a job on Dan’s team.  Networking works.

While at City of Hope, I also watched Maureen Carlson blossom into a rock star. She launched COH’s first ever cause marketing effort and has since gone on to be a superstar in the marketing and advertising arena. She’s been doing innovative things ever since and is in high demand as a speaker and consultant today.

She also happened to be an Angels baseball fan (and a Cubs fan too). Funy note – her husband looked just like retired football star – Howie Long.

COH was full of talented individuals, many of them would go on to do great things.  People like Colleen Finn Ridenhour who is the Chief Development Officer at Habitat for Humanity International. Colleen was a Sr. Director of Marketing and New Business Development at COH. 

Another absolute legend in fundraising still works at COH and her name is Diana Keim. Diana is the Associate VP of Annual Giving and Paul Blodgett will tell you, she was the best hire he ever made at COH. Her program is among the best. She is a leader in her field and one of the smartest fundraisers you will ever meet.

I also enjoyed working with Maricela Corletto, who worked on the program and data management side of things. She was instrumental in helping COH convert their database from a home grown product to Blackbaud Enterprise, CRM among many other things. She oversaw the principal business analysts who played a huge role in all of our successes by helping us navigate the best ways to use our data. Mari’s roots in the nonprofit world were actually in prospect research. Her understanding of our work was always appreciated.

There were just so many great people working at COH and I could go on and on about many of the people I worked with. The point of all this is that COH was and remains a special place because of the countless and valuable relationships I built there. Leaving was no small affair for me. I had no idea what was ahead for me, but I would soon learn UCI would represent a new challenge for me.

I know I keep teasing you about my UCI time and I will eventually get to all of that.

On the CARA side of my career, I had also established a lot of other truly exceptional relationships. Some of the extraordinary people I had the honor and privilege of serving alongside of included Cliff Anderson, Gary Lance, and Kathy Henderson.

Cliff was an exceptional leader and really set a wonderful example of what it meant to be president of our organization. He taught me how to build consensus with a team and his thoughtful approach to everything was a wonderful model for me to follow.

He was also an early adapter of all things analytics. Cliff was the most unassuming pioneer I’ve ever met. He was always doing something special with analytics and usually way before anyone else ever was. He has since long retired, but his influence on me continues to this day.

Cliff always reminded me of the actor Tom Skerritt for some reason.  He had this one look that always made me think of the actor. 

Gary Lance would eventually become President of CARA and after a solid career at Santa Clara University, would become a consultant and freelance prospect researcher. Gary was an A’s fan and I enjoyed so many great conversations with him over the years.

One of my fond memories is when Cheryl and I went to dinner with Gary and his wife during an Apra conference in San Diego. We dined at the late, Junior Seau’s restaurant got to know each other better.

I mention both Cliff and Gary because I miss them both now that they’re retired. They both represent some of the best things about our profession. I haven’t talked to either one in quite some time.

Kathy and my career paths are similar in their length (I started in 1992 and she in 1995), but there is one significant difference. Kathy has been at UC Davis for her entire 25+ year career. I’ve always admired her for having that kind of longevity at one institution.

Our time together on the CARA board was often spent questioning everything and anything. We were sort of partners in crime when it came to that. We both look back at the time with a chuckle. Kathy is the one person I always think of whenever someone is looking for a great volunteer. Over the years I’ve recommended or referred her for numerous Apra committees. I also nominated her for a CARA Service Award and was delighted when she received that award.

Over the years, we’ve had a lot of great conversations about our profession and fundraising as a whole. I have always valued her perspective. I think of her as one of the unsung heroes of our profession.

I learned so much from my friends and colleagues in CARA; especially, people like Nancy Ellis Taylor and Kate Fultz Holis. In my early days in the field, those two names were among the best known in the business with their knowledge. They also had a great willingness to share what they knew with others.

Time after time, CARA afforded me the opportunity to meet and engage with so many great people. It’s where I would meet Craig Belanger and Phillip Wallace, who were both at Biola University at the time. Craig is still there, doing wonderful work. Phillip has since transitioned into becoming a top flight data analyst and works at for the California State University.

Phillip impressed me from the very beginning. He is someone that I always wanted to work with and despite my best efforts, I have never had that opportunity. I tried to recruit him to UCI as a prospect analyst and tried to convince him to apply for a data analyst position at PanCAN. The timing just never worked out.

I admire him a great deal. He took an interest in data analytics while at Biola and has since parlayed that into his career. We continue to stay in touch. He’s just that guy I always want to root for.

Craig and I have had a lot of meaningful conversations over the years about our faith and our work. We talked on occasion about the idea of working together some day. He has always been someone I looked forward to connecting with at conferences.

Back in the day, Craig and Phillip worked with another gentleman, whose name escapes me. I used to joke with them that his name should be “Dean” (it wasn’t).  I joked that the three of them could called Phillip(s), Craig and Dean – which is the name of a contemporary Christian musical group. It would have been so appropriate.

Both Phillip and Craig are people I would have never met if it wasn’t for CARA. I’m thankful I got to know them. I don’t know either of them extremely well, but I know enough about them to know how special they are.

Craig sadly lost his wife in January of 2018.

In many ways CARA has always been somewhat of a giant extended family. We often share our triumphs and our losses. Many reached out to me when I lost my mom and my dad. This is something we do often. Craig lost his wife in relative silence. In other words, not many in our field probably know about his tragic loss. 

When I think of losses that are somehow connected to CARA, I think of Guen Malloy. Guen passed away on April 12, 2009 (Easter) after a brave battle with ovarian cancer. At the time of her passing, she was a prospect researcher at the University of Redlands. She left behind a husband (Dave) and a daughter (“Libby” who was 2 at the time).  The CARA conference scholarship was named in her honor.

As I write this, it occurs to me that most in our field today, probably don’t know her story or why the CARA scholarship is named in her honor. Guen was a thoughtful, smart, and ambitious woman. I don’t remember how we connected, but at one point, she considered coming to work at the City of Hope – even though the commute would have been horrendous. She was always seeking to learn and be the best prospect development professional she could be. Her passing was tragic.

Later in 2009, I had the privilege of honoring her memory at a CARA conference, announcing the naming of the conference scholarship in her honor. Her husband, Dave participated in the event and would continue to do that in the years that followed.  I understand he hasn’t participated in recent years.

There are so many stories scattered throughout the years and as time goes on, I can’t remember them all. It’s one of the reasons I’m writing about my journey. This process has given the opportunity to put things in writing. Story telling memorializes the events and people involved and I think it’s important to do such things. At the end of the day, it’s the driving reason behind my writing this story. I don’t want to forget and I want others to know the stories.

At some point during my career – we also lost a colleague in Sheila Faris-Penn. She too lost her battle with cancer (I believe). She was working at CSUF at the time and had transitioned from prospect research into web communications for advancement at the time.

I’m sure someone out there remembers her story better than I do. Her story shouldn’t be forgotten.