Opportunity Made Podcast Transcript, Episode 1

Kelly Hall, Becoming a Young Philanthropist

[00:00:00] Kelly: I think we sometimes think about the naming stuff a little bit from an ego perspective, and I'm sure that's true at some level, but some of it is also just the impermanence of our time here and wanting to leave a stamp on the world to sort of say, Kelly was here, but not on the inside of a bathroom stall.

[00:00:40] Katherine: Welcome to the Opportunity Made podcast, where we chat about how we can make new opportunities for yourself and others. I am your host, Katherine Lewis, and we are talking about becoming a young philanthropist with the incredible Kelly Hall, the Director of Development at the University of Colorado Boulder, specifically in

[00:01:00] the Leeds School of Business.

[00:01:02] I'm going to give an audio description of myself, so here we go. I am a European-American woman with short blonde wavy hair. Today, I am wearing a blue long-sleeve shirt and there is a white wall behind me. Kelly, would you like to give an audio description?

[00:01:19] Kelly: I'd be happy to. I am also an American woman of European descent. I have short gray hair and I matched my hair to my sweater. I have a long sleeve gray sweater on, and I'm in my bedroom at home in Denver, Colorado.

[00:01:33] Katherine: Awesome. Well, Kelly, I love this topic because people don't talk about financially giving back at a young age, it's something that is reserved for people who are deep into their careers or who have retired and are ready to leave a legacy and donate.

[00:01:49] But scholarships are so important for students who go to college and need financial support to complete their degree. I know for me, I went to CU, the University of Colorado in Boulder,

[00:02:00] and received several scholarships, which helped me reduce my debt and support me in paying off my student loans sooner.

[00:02:06] It was about two years after graduation, that one of my mentors from CU shared with me that he started an endowment, which is basically, for those of you who don't know, a large amount of funds that then the revenue is used to create more scholarships. I'm sure Kelly can better explain it than I can.

[00:02:27] Kelly: That was pretty good.

[00:02:28] Katherine: But it was incredible because he was only in his forties, which is not the usual age I think of when I think of a philanthropist. So hearing about his endowment broke a mental barrier for me, it broke down the fibers of my bias that only older folks create scholarships. I thought if he could do it, I could do it, and he connected me with you and you helped me create a scholarship and made it so easy that I was inspired to look back at all the other institutions that have supported me in my journey

[00:03:00] and reach out to see if I could start a scholarship with them.

[00:03:04] So I would love for everyone to meet you and learn more about the importance of young professionals becoming philanthropists and how they can leave a legacy. I'm going to share a short bio, and then we can kick off this with a few rapid-fire questions if that sounds good?

[00:03:21] Kelly: Great.

[00:03:22] Katherine: Okay, so officially, Kelly Hall joined the Leeds School of Business Advancement team in July 2018. Kelly brought 10 years of fundraising experience to the team, having raised millions for Colorado nonprofits. Kelly's experience includes working with organizations focused on civil rights, public transportation, K-12 education, and most recently as a development officer for St. Anthony Health Foundation. Kelly received a bachelor's degree from the Colorado College in neuroscience and earned a master's degree in environmentally sustainable business from Prescott College.

[00:04:00] Kelly grew up in Ouray, Colorado and enjoys climbing, hiking, and skiing. So, Kelly, what is not on your LinkedIn profile?

[00:04:08] Kelly: Yeah. Lots of things. Primarily that I think what's not in there is the elements that bring me to this work. So you mentioned that I grew up in Ouray, Colorado. I blamed my mom for getting me into nonprofits.

[00:04:21] She saw a need in our small town for after-school care. There was nothing for students after school and just like everywhere else, school ended at 3:30, but work for our parents did not. We all filed down to the hot springs pool or to the park and try to entertain ourselves as much as possible, but some structured after-school care is really highly correlated with success on a number of, number of levels. And so she wrote this enormous grant. Back then we were doing tobacco cessation. She wrote a tobacco cessation grant and at 14 years old, I went to pitch this

[00:05:00] idea to a panel of adult humans. I remember having to go take my retainer out in the bathroom before I gave my pitch.

[00:05:07] And that was so exciting and thrilling. It was wonderful to speak my truth and of course, they funded it. And that after-school program is still in existence today because it's meeting a very important unmet need that we talk about as upstream philanthropy, so an opportunity to solve problems before they start.

[00:05:26] That really kicked things off and I was 14 and before LinkedIn, so that would never have ended up on my profile, but that's really how I got into this.

[00:05:35] Katherine: That is such a cool story. Do you think it was you and the way that you presented that really helped them move the grant through? Or was it such an amazing proposal letter?

[00:05:45] What was it?

[00:05:47] Kelly: It was both. My mom actually got phone calls for years afterwards, referrals from this foundation to say, talk to Pat Finley. She is an amazing writer. She wrote the best grant we've ever seen. And then I think it really impressed

[00:06:00] them to hear from a student who would be on the receiving end of the impact, and that's something that we really are passionate about at CU, that we connect people to the impact that they're having on our school and our students on our faculty.

[00:06:15] I think if you can get as close as possible to the impact that you're having with your philanthropy, especially at an early age, it helps you to see the power of it and to be less intimidated about how to get involved and that your support does, in fact, make change.

[00:06:34] Katherine: Yeah, that's incredible. It's always so nice to see the people who are going to directly receive that support and understand on a very human and personal level, what the work you're doing is going to mean for this individual. Okay. Cool. Well, I know that you were into skiing and that's a shared common experience,

[00:06:55] I have to ask, what's your favorite resort to ski in Colorado?

[00:06:59] Kelly: Oh,

[00:07:00] Telluride. I grew up skiing Telluride. There are, I shouldn't say this out loud because it'll change, but there are no lines there. So I, I would say, Telluride above and beyond anything else.

[00:07:12] Katherine: I have never been there. So I'm going to have to check it out and get all your recommendations.

[00:07:17] I know you would think also being a Colorado girl I would have traveled down to Telluride, but I haven't yet. It's still on the list.

[00:07:25] Kelly: It's a schlep for sure. But it is definitely worth the trip, and Telluride also boasts I think it's still the only publicly funded gondola in the United States that takes you from the mountain to, to the actual town of Telluride. So that's something you can't miss while you're there.

[00:07:42] Katherine: That sounds like a lot of fun. Okay, so in your work, I know that you meet with people all the time across the country, and probably have visited hundreds if not thousands of coffee shops. So coffee or tea? What's your favorite?

[00:07:58] Kelly: Coffee,

[00:08:00] coffee for sure I do a decaf. I'm not a huge tea drinker.

[00:08:04] I, I should be. I think it would be better for me, but coffee.

[00:08:09] Katherine: Okay. Awesome. And books or movies, what are you

watching or reading right now?

[00:08:15] Kelly: I'm reading Shantaram which is the true story of a man who escaped from a New Zealand prison and his sort of life after escaping prison, which is a tome. It's enormous, but it's kind of the Count of Monte Cristo adventure story.

[00:08:31] And what am I watching? The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel just came out with the third season, so we're enjoying a little comedic relief in the evenings.

[00:08:43] Katherine: That's awesome. I've heard good things about that show. And as far as the book goes, I very much enjoy reading stories about people who have had that experience of being a person in prison and then have come out and been able to share their story and the

[00:09:00] transformation that happened.

[00:09:01] I'll definitely have to look into that book recommendation. So next question. Favorite social media platform?

[00:09:07] Kelly: I'm really feeling LinkedIn right now. I think LinkedIn is having its heyday.

[00:09:13] Katherine: Well, being someone who currently works at LinkedIn, I will take that answer any day.

[00:09:19] Kelly: I promise this is not brown-nosing.

[00:09:21] No I have profiles on other platforms, but everything sort of boasts the desire to build community, and I have only felt that through LinkedIn. I have not felt that on other platforms.

[00:09:36] Katherine: Okay. Fair. All right. So you studied neuroscience. How did you get into philanthropy and fundraising?

[00:09:43] I know you shared a little bit about your story with your mom when you were 14. Did that have an impact on your decision?

[00:09:51] Kelly: Yes and no. So yeah, the neuroscience piece. I think I always had a penchant for trying to do good in the world and I, [00:10:00] that the thing that I thought would have the most impact would be medicine.

[00:10:04] So that was sort of my goal. I was pre-med. Neuroscience was a great way to cover a lot of your credits and work your way towards a nervous breakdown. Mostly kidding. But all the time in the background, I was doing a lot of philanthropic work. My sorority had a philanthropy component.

[00:10:23] And so I managed all of the fundraising and event logistics for that a couple of years in a row. I was a class officer in college, so I was fundraising for some of our class projects. So it was always there in the background. And then at the end of my time in college, I needed a job as one does before I thought I was going to go to medical school and Colorado College had a fellowship program, the Public Interest Fellowship Program, that connected current and graduating students with nonprofits in Colorado Springs and Denver, and having had some non-profit experience growing up, I thought, oh, well that will be a nice way to

[00:11:00] take a break.

[00:11:01] I'm really tired from this neuroscience degree. Before I go to medical school, I'll just like do this side hustle, all this sort of extra thing and I'll study for my MCATs. So I got a fellowship working for a nonprofit in downtown Denver and being a somewhat like just eager learner, I asked if I could help with the grant writing and that led to helping with pitching grants and helped

with running events, and all of a sudden I found myself there two and a half years after my summer internship was overdoing that work more and more. So I, I don't know that a lot of people end up in fundraising because that is a life goal. We probably should work on that. Mostly because people don't know that this is a job, that money just sort of appears to support their favorite organizations.

[00:11:51] But mostly I think I always wanted to provide some kind of community benefit. I wanted to be in service in

[00:12:00] some way, and I found very quickly that if I did that through social benefit organizations, that I didn't have to go to medical school and withstand years of training to do that. I could do it right away.

[00:12:15] Katherine: That's awesome. I love how you still had that same mission and purpose in life. It just ended up being fulfilled in a different route. And it seems like you have all of the talents and skills that you needed, that it just flowed very easily, very naturally into that space. So for anyone who is intentionally interested in going into philanthropy or fundraising, how do they end up with a job in that field?

[00:12:41] Kelly: There's a lot of ways, a lot of paths. Because fundraising is like, it's like being an education, right? There are people who are teachers. There are people who are administrators. There are people who are researchers. There's a lot of nuance to the job and the same is true in fundraising. So I started out working for

[00:13:00] the Anti-Defamation League, doing database entry and back-office support.

[00:13:05] So I was helping with events and vendors and working in our database processing checks, writing thank you notes, really like kind of ground- level stuff, which was the best possible training. And I still to this day, I think that it's great to start in that arena for a couple of reasons. Bruce DeBoskey, who was the regional director at the time, I remember getting a $2 bill in the mail and I took it into his office.

[00:13:29] I was like, oh, Bruce, it could cost us more money to process this $2 than we're actually gonna get from it. And he just looked at me right in the face. And he said that's exactly what I want you to learn while you're here. I want you to go back to your office and I want you to write the nicest thank you note by hand that your brain can muster and you're going to thank that person for what might be a very meaningful gift from them, because while $2 may not seem like a lot to you, it may be a lot to them, and they chose to

[00:14:00] give it to us when they could do a million other things with it. And that has, I mean, clearly, we're 20 years later is totally stayed with me.

[00:14:06] So that is a way to get into fundraising. Now I'm a specialist, so I work with individual donors primarily and getting into that work some people come to it from sales oftentimes or they've had tangential experiences in for- profit companies, they're really good with people, clearly, they can talk, and so this is appealing because they feel like it's a way to support an organization they believe in and use their people skills.

[00:14:35] We need people who are great writers to write grants. We need people who are great event planners to plan events. Yes, we are still doing those, even in COVID land. So it's really a sector that I think there's a spot for everyone. It doesn't always look like people like me who are out in front of individual donors.

[00:14:56] Katherine: Yeah. Awesome. So for your specific

[00:15:00] position, what is your daily job look like? Can you give us some insight into what a day in the life of Kelly Hall is?

[00:15:07] Kelly: I'd almost have to give you like a month-long snapshot because no two days are alike, which is one of the things I like about it. So I, I cover a territory, so I traveled to California a good bit. And those days are back- to-back coffees and lunches and dinners and getting, you know, sitting down with the people who believe in what we're doing and talking to them about how they can help. In between those visits, I also support some folks here in Colorado, so I have that kind of here and there.

[00:15:36] We're doing way more phone calls and zoom calls, which is lovely, so it doesn't take me away from my family quite as much. But mostly it's a lot of, I mean, it's a very similar process to sales. You're using the data that you have, the database that you have and unfortunately, when you work in higher ed, you have this constant renewing resource of individuals who are graduating from your program, and at least at the Leeds

[00:16:00] School of Business, we are pipelining into great jobs who are maybe in a position to give.

[00:16:05] Sometimes that looks like money and we'll talk about that, but sometimes that looks like time and talent. I have a gentleman who's arriving today from San Diego who is going to spend three days with us working with individual student groups on their startup concepts. And that is worth its weight in gold, really helping them to think through, to problem solve, to talk about ways to get funding, to build out their marketing, really all sides of it.

[00:16:31] So there's a lot of ways to support and my job is to be a front door for those folks. Some days I'll be making warm phone calls from referrals, from

people who say you got to talk to so-and-so other days it's coming through the database, trying to find people who no one has talked to yet to ask them if they would like to talk about how they could help.

[00:16:49] That is, it's very dynamic and fast-moving, and it's one of the things I like about it.

[00:16:56] Katherine: I feel like the speed and the

[00:17:00] amount of mental energy it takes might be the same as being in neuroscience.

[00:17:07] Kelly: There's a great deal of memorization that's for sure. You become an accidental encyclopedia for whatever organization you're working for.

[00:17:15] Katherine: That's so awesome. Well, very cool. I want to address a little bit the stereotype that anyone who is a philanthropist tends to be older in years, wealthier, usually retired, and it kind of makes sense where that stereotype came from based upon where the world used to be.

[00:17:35] But how would you define a philanthropist in 2022?

[00:17:38] Kelly: The one thing you didn't say, or maybe the two things you didn't say, was when we ask people to think about what a philanthropist looks like, they'll tell you male and white. And I think that that hearkens back to the days of, you know, Rockefellers and Carnegies and people who were maybe more public about their philanthropy for the first time.

[00:17:57] Really, you know, naming hospitals and institutes

[00:18:00] of higher education and getting at that was hugely powerful and important because it was showing people a way to be engaged in philanthropy and the importance of it and the fact is that like if you've ever been to a hospital or are you driven on a, on a road or really like any piece of public infrastructure, there is probably some element of philanthropy that made that possible. So I want to call that out, but then also talk about where we are now. So the stereotypes of philanthropy while they're grounded, in some degree of reality, are far from the truth.

[00:18:34] The fact is that our biggest philanthropists are low-income humans. They give the greatest percentage of their money, their resources, and that has stood the test of time. So if you look at demographic groups and you look at percentage of their income that they give, their income or their wealth in general, that they give the greatest the group that makes the greatest uses the

greatest percentage of

[00:19:00] their income to give, tend to fall below the poverty line.

[00:19:04] Now, those folks tend to give to religious causes and the reason in large part they do that is because they receive direct benefit from that community. They have been on the receiving end of their prayers, their support, their home-cooked meals. So it makes sense. They feel the impact of their giving.

[00:19:22] And then when you break it down by, you know, race and part of the country, and all of those things, everything we think is true of philanthropy, you know, Bill Gates types that is such a tiny percentage of who actually makes up our, our demographics for philanthropists. We're also seeing, and this is really exciting, we're seeing philanthropy skew younger. In large part because we're seeing this enormous transfer of wealth. This is the first time in history where we've had this many generations alive at one time and so we're seeing older generations have a real interest in building a legacy of

00:20:00] philanthropy with their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

[00:20:04] What I think is really powerful is that folks aren't having to come to philanthropy on their own in quite the same way that that was the case in previous generations. And then social media is a great layer on top of that. I just said that Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher gave $3 million or they're pledging $3 million to support humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.

[00:20:27] Thank you social media. That will turn into $30 million overnight from people who are also a similar age, who look up to them and see them as the kind of humans they'd like to be in the world. So there's all of these layers that are shifting the demographics away from fitting into that Rockefeller Carnegie mold.

[00:20:51] Katherine: Do you think nowadays people are more encouraged by being able to name a building or have a bench or name a hospital,

[00:21:00] or is something else driving the motivation to give?

[00:21:05] Kelly: It's a million-dollar question. If I could effectively answer that, I wouldn't tell you. I would market it and sell it.

[00:21:09] I think what's underneath that question is, you know, the ultimate philanthropic question is why does someone feel compelled to give? There were always be people for whom having their name on a building is a driving force and I think that that speaks to our desire to be recognized in the world, to leave

a legacy, to feel like you, you actually made an impact and you could see and touch and feel it and to be associated with an organization you believe in.

[00:21:39] So it's not, I think we sometimes think about the naming stuff a little bit from an ego perspective, and I'm sure that's true at some level, but some of it is also just the impermanence of our time here and wanting to leave a stamp on the world to sort of say, you know, Kelly was here, but not on the inside of a bathroom stall.

[00:21:57] I think from most people, the

[00:22:00] motivation to get them has to do with their relationship with the organization. So you talked about your experience at CU. That is largely the case for folks. I used to work in healthcare. Folks who had been saved by Flight For Life feel a huge compulsion to make sure that that service is available for people who need it and it's largely funded philanthropically.

[00:22:22] So if you have been on the receiving end of something that has had a positive impact in your life, there is a compulsion to see that continue to exist in perpetuity be it your school or your healthcare facility, or religious institution. So that tends to be a more driving force. I think what's challenging in this particular moment is that there's a lot coming at us in terms of local and global need.

[00:22:51] I've had people asking me to help them to figure out how to support Ukraine, how to support GLBT communities how to

[00:23:00] support communities, women who are being impacted by the changing women's health laws.

[00:23:04] So there's also that piece where even if it doesn't hit you right at your core, you don't have personal experience with it, we're seeing human suffering and we want to figure out how we can help and the fastest way to do that is to put financial resources in the hands of people who are experiencing that trauma, that devastation, whatever it may be. So there's layers to it. But I think the other piece that's on top of all of that, there's a generational difference in why people give. So we see certain trends that are true for Boomers that are not true for Millennials.

[00:23:47] One of those examples being the desire to align your financial giving with your time and talent. So that was less true for Boomers. They mostly were interested in giving their money and

[00:24:00] getting out of the way, they like to get an annual report, but they didn't necessarily want to volunteer.

[00:24:05] The sort of the pendulum has swung the other direction for younger generations who, who really value the ability to see and touch and feel their impact, to meet the people that they've supported with their scholarships and that helps to continue to motivate them to want to give. So my job is to make sure I'm kind of providing those opportunities in a personalized way so that folks who want it have it, and for those who don't, that they still feel the impact of their gift and it motivates them to continue to give, but in a way that is personalized to them.

[00:24:43] Katherine: Yeah. That makes sense. That's a lot of different hats to wear, a lot of different approaches that you have to have to different people, and like you said, having that Rolodex of knowing who different people are and how they

[00:25:00] want to relate and what their relationship with their giving is - it's just kind of incredible to hear more about your job.

[00:25:07] Kelly: And that I should say is like the piece of what my day looks like, that maybe I did talk about is the part where it costs you less money and it costs the organization less to keep someone who is already invested in you continuing to invest in you than it does to go out and find new people. So the thing we try to value the most are the people who are already giving their time, talent, and treasure with us and make sure that they feel the love. So I end up having to know a lot of strange details about people who are not in my family so that I make sure I'm thinking about that.

[00:25:41] I know that somebody just had a baby, or I know that folks are running a marathon or that their dog is sick, or they had surgery, those sorts of things so that they know that we care about them as humans and that we're meeting them where they're at, and we're timing our ask for their time, talent and treasure, we're supporting them

[00:26:00] in a personalized way with all of those life events. My husband jokes, he's like, I sometimes think that you know more about them than you do your own mother and it might be true.

[00:26:12] Katherine: Oh man. But that's what makes the job exciting I'm sure and touching on a heart-based, to be able to care about people.

[00:26:20] Kelly: Absolutely. That's right.
[00:26:23] Katherine: So what do you think is the biggest mental or emotional

barrier to younger folks giving earlier in their life?

[00:26:32] Kelly: Yeah, I mean, I think you said it, just not knowing that your gift is going to be meaningful if it's not in the million-dollar range.

[00:26:40] We have a tendency to herald the big, the huge gifts and we should, absolutely, but we do kind of ... and I'm going to say we, I mean like philanthropy, in general, we do a less good job with folks who are having a collective impact, whose $10 a month, $500 a [00:27:00] year, you know, those smaller quote-unquote smaller gifts are having a huge impact inside of a collection of other humans who are also giving.

[00:27:11] We sort of talk about philanthropy as a pyramid, and at the tip of the pyramid is your handful of folks who can and will in their lifetime or after make those million-dollar gifts. But the rest of the pyramid is people who are committing a few thousand dollars a year over decades and really committing to supporting the core work of your organization.

[00:27:34] So those are the stories we need to get better about telling because all humans will do what they either, what their crazy wild imagination can imagine, and I love those people because they give me so much energy, or they'll do what they have seen be done by people with whom they identify. So I'm trying to make sure we get in front of that latter half who need some

[00:28:00] scaffolding in order to dream big.

[00:28:02] And a lot of folks just need that one person, like you were saying to say someone like me did this, so then that must mean it's possible for me to do it as well.

[00:28:16] Katherine: Yeah, exactly. So taking a step back, you were mentioning how people are living longer. So you have the older generations pairing with the younger ones. What does that look like in actuality?

[00:28:27] Kelly: Oh yeah. Sometimes I wish I had gotten a master's in social work to help these families because there's a lot of healing to be done between several generations. Everybody's got their family stuff and philanthropy is a place to do a lot of that healing.

[00:28:43] A mentor of mine talks about setting a round table for multi- generational philanthropy, where everyone has equal say, and everyone has a seat at the table and it gives the family an opportunity to say, you know, as the older

[00:29:00] generation, we may have started this, but we want you to have an equal seat, an equal say, we want you to be a part of this.

[00:29:06] It's not us handing this down to you cause even saying down sort of diminishes the impact. We want to do this together as a family and we want to build something together. In the process of doing that you've got to unpack a lot

of your values, your ethos and within an individual family, you may have people who are on ideological and political ends of the spectrum.

[00:29:32] So how do you get to those core values that everyone shares that everyone can meet in order to find a way forward together? And I find that in that the work ends up being more about the family than necessarily the cause or the issue. The desire to do good, to make an impact that's there and so we sort of start there and then the what, what you give to, what you set up, that's

[00:30:00] totally secondary. You want to start with the why and the how.

[00:30:04] Katherine: That's so interesting. I had never thought about philanthropy as being a process of healing intergenerational, strife, maybe we could call it. Wow. What a fascinating aspect of the job, oh, I'm sure you have stories, but we won't go there now.

[00:30:25] Kelly: I do.

[00:30:27] Katherine: I have a question and it's around philanthropy and where it's headed in the future. We have the financial industry that's changing. There's more of a focus on cryptocurrencies. How do you think that's going to impact philanthropy?

[00:30:43] Kelly: You know, I hope it does. The challenge in a lot of philanthropy is that it tends to be somewhat reactionary and is not terribly proactive. So we're, we're definitely behind the curve when it comes to cryptocurrencies. And part of that is I think a more conservative

[00:31:00] mindset. Over the last 10, 15 years philanthropy and nonprofit causes have been under a bit of a microscope and some of that is well deserved.

[00:31:09] There have definitely been some scandalous acts by founders and boards and nonprofits that have called the use of their funds into question and, rightly so. But as a result, what it causes is this ripple effect where nonprofits go, we're playing with somebody else's money, we perhaps should take a more conservative approach to where it comes from and what we do with it when we get.

[00:31:33] As an example of that very few, if any, non-profits, or I'd have to do more research to know, can take money from the cannabis industry. Even though it's legal in Colorado, we have stayed away from that. Partly for federal reasons, we didn't want to put our federal funding in jeopardy, and then partly because we're not sure how to handle the stigma and we're not sure how to bank it. We're not sure what to do with it, right? Like we don't want to be part of

dealing with money laundering. Like there's

[00:32:00] all sorts of layers to this. A more progressive approach would be to lean into some of the cryptocurrencies and to build infrastructure around that.

[00:32:09] But I think as an industry, it's been hard to get excited about that. What I think is coming is more public-private partnerships that would enable us to do that safely with our, our board's blessing without having to take on all the risk.

[00:32:28] So working with more impact investing firms, as an example, that would be willing to take on the funding, create a partnership with the nonprofit to actually do the work, but not have to create cryptocurrency accounts we had to manage, not have to change our federal filings not have to have to make significant shifts in our finances. We're just not ready yet, but I know there is a desire to do that. We just have to work out the logistics and I think public- private partnerships are probably the best way to go about that.

[00:33:00] Katherine: Yeah. I like that suggestion. Is that something that's in the near future or is it going to take some work to get there?

[00:33:07] Kelly: I think organizations that are perhaps founded by or working in a more tech space... so I'm thinking about like Girls Who Code as a great example, you're more likely to attract board members, staff members, and supporters who operate in that space and are perhaps more keen and more willing to take on the risk of those kinds of currencies and then create agreements that say, okay, when, you know, if the bottom falls out of this, just like in the market, we're willing to take on some of that risk and build infrastructure around it so that your organization can continue to function, you can make payroll, right?

[00:33:53] You can support your work. And I think those organizations will create the pilots and proof

[00:34:00] points for bigger organizations, like CU who are perhaps a little bit more nervous given our stakeholder base. our trustee base to take on that level of risk. So I think it's in the near future. I just think you'll see it in smaller bite-size pieces for probably the next five or ten years.

[00:34:17] Katherine: Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so we were talking about the donor base and realized that the ones that get maybe more of the attention at the top are matching the stereotype and then it's the base that looks also like those who are receiving the scholarships. Is that true? Or is there a big gap between who's giving and who is receiving, demographically?

[00:34:44] Kelly: Yeah. Ah... no, there, there is not. But that's just not what we're seeing when it's marketed. Some of the most transformational philanthropy in the last couple of years has started to get a little bit of the market share of the media,

[00:35:00] but they're not getting as much of it because it's going to HBCUs.

[00:35:04] It's, it's going to organizations that, you know, don't come to the top of the media, but have come from people of color, from LGBTQ organizations, from more minority groups who have come together to pool their resources and support the kinds of causes that they're, they've been on the receiving end of.

[00:35:25] So when you think about who is on the receiving end of social impact organizations, nonprofits, especially, I think we have a tendency to put them in this box that's like, it all looks like direct service. It all looks like providing housing for homeless and food for children after school.

[00:35:44] And that is a piece of the work, but the vast majority of especially new nonprofits that are coming online are what we call upstream. So they're doing policy work, they're doing advocacy work, they're trying to solve problems before you need that after-school program, right? They're

00:36:00] trying to create infrastructure that builds that into our societal fabric and those organizations are largely founded by and funded by the people for whom they were the receiving end of the more downstream nonprofit response.

[00:36:17] So they're just not getting as much media attention, but it's shifting dramatically. The piece that isn't as easy to quantify is the time between being on the receiving end of that and then when people actually start to give and get involved, and if we could crack that data nut, that would help us to both shorten the distance, right, and then also meet people just in time. So what is the mediating event that is happening that is causing them to suddenly start to give five years, 10 years?

[00:36:58] What, what is that? Is it,

[00:37:00] are they reaching a point of wealth where they feel comfortable including philanthropy in their budget or have they had enough time and distance to start to feel like they're ready to give back and they want to get re-engaged? What is that? And that is the piece that I think we are missing.

[00:37:16] Katherine: Yeah, that's super interesting, just identifying what's happening in their life or in their mindset, or maybe even in their wallet, that's making the jump from receiver to giver, right?

[00:37:27] Kelly: That's right.

[00:37:29] Katherine: Yeah. It would be incredible if we could change the marketing narrative and I hear that it is shifting, but I can feel inside of me, it's like, well, let's, let's go, let's do it faster. Let's start sharing these stories. You don't have to be the million-dollar donor to show that you've made an impact and honestly, I think we would have a lot more philanthropists if people realized, oh, they're just people just like me, right? It makes it a lot more accessible.

[00:37:55] Okay. So how does someone start a scholarship if they're interested?

[00:38:01] Kelly: Well, it depends. So at CU, we have a few ways to get involved in scholarships. So you can give to an existing scholarship at any level. But we have hundreds of current scholarships named by individuals, organizations, and then we have general funds, scholarship funds for undergraduate and graduate programs.

[00:38:20] At any dollar level, you can go to your favorite Institute of higher education and do a little scholarship research and see what, what strikes you, what aligns with your ethos and your values. But once you get to a place where you want to create your own name to scholarships, so that's where it's, you know, the Kelly Hall fund for women in business, if I wanted to do that at CU that's a conversation with an individual fundraiser, with somebody like me.

[00:38:45] So you just go to that organization's website, you find their fundraiser. In higher ed we call it we call... my department is Advancement and you look for your Advancement officer and you just either pick up the phone or send them an email and say, I want to have a

[00:39:00] conversation about what this looks like.

[00:39:01] Different institutions will have different minimum giving levels in order to create a named scholarship. And they'll have different criteria. At CU we give people a decent amount of breadth in terms of what criteria or preferences they want to include. I tend to talk people out of being too specific.

[00:39:21] Previous gardening experience, being something that's not great criteria to include 'cause that doesn't always come up in a scholarship application. But then, you know, things like GPA, place in the world you're from, area of focus for what you want to work on while you're at CU are great things to include.

[00:39:38] Obviously the fewer criteria you include, the more flexible it is. One thing to think about is what's important to you. For some people it's, I want to support students who have the highest financial need. For other people, it's just about students who are the most academically gifted.

[00:39:54] And then there's of course a great Venn diagram for the two of those criteria as well. You want to kind of think about

[00:40:00] what's important to you ahead of time, but certainly, people trained in my field ask the good questions and we can walk you through it. And then yeah, you work on those criteria, you name your scholarship, you commit to your gift.

[00:40:10] We recommend making a multi-year commitment. So a student can count on your support at least while they're at that institute of higher education. So for an associate's degree, two or three years of support. At a four-year college, four years of support. Graduate programs, you know, can vary as well.

[00:40:27] And part of the reason we do that is in part so the student knows what they can expect, but also that, that is a recruiting tool. So students are more likely to accept a university that offers them scholarship support for the entire tenure of their, their time there. So it really helps us to retain high achieving and, and excited students who want to be there.

[00:40:50] And then yeah, then there's the matching process. We handle all that on the backend and then usually in the fall there's an opportunity to connect with your student and

[00:41:00] introduce yourself and start what we hope will be a lifelong relationship of mentorship and friendship.

[00:41:07] Katherine: Yeah, and I know for myself that that process is super easy, especially when you are matched with people like Kelly. So if anyone is thinking about it, highly recommend. When you look at this student body, is there a portion of it that tends to get overlooked when people are creating scholars?

[00:41:26] Kelly: Yes. So for those who are unfamiliar, there is something called a Pell grant and we talk about Pell-eligible students, which are our highest financial need students. And these folks, even though they are Pell- eligible, and even though they're able to get a good number of scholarships and grant support they still tend to run a bit short. And so these are your students who were, you know, trying to keep two or three jobs at the same time.

[00:41:50] So I definitely encourage folks to think about the financial need component and I think more and more people do, there's building awareness

[00:42:00] around that, but it's actually the group just underneath that group that I want to call out. There's a bit of what we call a donut hole in financial needs.

[00:42:08] You've got your, your folks on the outside of the doughnut, who are your highest need folks, right? They get those Pell grants, they get a good bit of financial support, and then there are folks on the inside of the donut who are just inside of that highest need category and they're what we call middle need.

[00:42:27] So these are folks whose parents or, or family members, or maybe they're self-sufficient are making just a little bit too much money to qualify as high need, but still can't afford full tuition. And so those are the folks that when I'm talking to people about how they craft their need-based language, that they consider making their scholarship available to both middle and high needs students.

[00:42:53] So that if we are in a given year able to meet the needs of all of our highest-needs students, that we're able to then

[00:43:00] shift your support to include those middle need students who otherwise wouldn't be able to come, wouldn't be able to attend college. And then the one other category, merit scholarships get kind of a lot of flack cause people have this idea that, oh, well, those really smart students at a private school in upstate New York, I don't want them to get my scholarship.

[00:43:21] Except that those private school students in upstate New York or whatever part of the country is in your mind, those really academically gifted students, they add so much to the experience of our school. They bring their own unique perspective and especially at a public school like CU, you know, we're competing for those students with Ivy League schools, with higher-ranked schools and we don't want all of those students to just hang out at five or six schools in our country. It would be wonderful to have them sprinkled throughout the US at all of our institutions,

[00:44:00] not only because they have so much to learn in terms of their own experience, but also so much to give in terms of the community experience.

[00:44:07] Oftentimes your merit and your financial need are overlapping, but in cases where they're not, you know, you get just a little below that band beyond the, the middle need, you're able to support students and in a way that they otherwise wouldn't have access to because they are outside of the financial need category.

[00:44:26] So I don't want people to dismiss merit thinking that those kids don't quote-unquote, need their support. They do. It just doesn't look exactly the same as it does for the middle and high-needs students.

[00:44:41] Katherine: Thank you for calling out that gap. I think it's something for people to really think about, not only if they're trying to give, but just in general to recognize that there is a gap. It's not serviced, maybe because of some of the biases that we have and things that are built into the system, but we're not

[00:45:00] recognizing.

[00:45:00] So if there's a student out there who's looking to apply for scholarships. Is there any advice that you would give them?

[00:45:09] Kelly: Yeah. More and more universities are getting away from applying for scholarships. And what I mean is that when you send your application in to a school, you're just generic admissions application, more and more universities are actually going ahead and putting your application through our scholarship process without you needing to send or submit a second application.

[00:45:30] I think you do have to check a box that says I'd like to be reviewed for scholarships, but you don't have to go through a whole secondary application process. That's one thing to sort of think about is schools that will automatically review you for scholarship support. It just makes it easier.

[00:45:44] What comes with your admissions letter is also, you know, these are the scholarships you qualify for. I would also look when thinking about scholarship support specifically. You know, you can look up a lot of this stuff online before you

[00:46:00] actually apply to see what kind of philanthropic support a particular school is getting, what that looks like.

[00:46:07] A lot of this stuff is publicly available. You can go on CU Boulder's website, or you can go and CU's website, toggle to any of our four institutions and look up, you can just put the word undergraduate scholarships in, and you can see the hundreds of scholarships, maybe thousands at this point that show up across CU Boulder.

[00:46:27] And there really is something for everybody. As I said, gardening is a preferential criteria for some of our scholarships. But do your research ahead of time to get a sense of what kind of support currently exists that will you would even be eligible for on a 30,000-foot scale because we oftentimes are encouraging students to look at schools for their programs and their majors and

their rankings, but forgetting particularly for students who are needing need- based scholarships to do their scholarship research as [00:47:00] well.

[00:47:01] Katherine: This may not apply if students are automatically being put through the application process, but have you ever heard of instances where students either are not able to receive a scholarship mentally or emotionally or don't think that they're worthy or maybe you think they're too privileged and they shouldn't apply?

[00:47:23] Is that a, I'm going to call it a syndrome, is that a syndrome that happens?

[00:47:29] Kelly: Yeah. I mean, that's part of the reason that we're doing it automatically, so students will count themselves out. They'll look at the criteria and not think that they are competitive or worthy is certainly a way to think about it and then don't apply. And then you have these like, you know, great full-ride scholarships and you get two applicants and you're looking at your application pool, and you're going I know there's at least 25 other kids who could benefit from this. I don't understand why no one applied. And part of that is

[00:48:00] your lens, right?

[00:48:01] Our scholarship committee is a group of trained individuals who both know what to look for on the application side, but then also are trained, they're kind of like a human algorithm, like match.com to like match up the criteria and preferences and the scholarship with what they're seeing in a student's application.

[00:48:18] So we're taking that human element out of it where students were counting themselves out because that is absolutely something that happens. And then there's also a fatigue component. I mean, when I applied to college, I applied to 10 schools, I think. I was wiped out after just the admissions process. The idea of going online and then applying for more scholarships was just daunting.

[00:48:41] We don't want that to be a reason that a student doesn't receive support or we don't award a scholarship. We want to make sure that every dollar of available scholarship support gets out to students who need it and deserve it.

[00:48:54] Katherine: Did you have scholarships when you were going through school?

[00:48:59] Kelly: I got an

[00:49:00] ROTC Navy scholarship which was interesting. It was an interesting time in my life. This is a pre... I guess it would have been 2002 and my scholarship was applied to a school that I ended up not going to. The Colorado College didn't have an ROTC Navy program so I declined my scholarship.

[00:49:19] I got an academic scholarship to Loyola Chicago and I went and visited and loved Chicago in the summer, not a huge fan in January. So I did, and I ended up not taking either and ended up going to Colorado College on you know, my mom and family's dime and looking back, you know, it's, it's really hard, especially as a parent, I don't know how my mom managed to let me walk away from that.

[00:49:46] I think it's a, it's a hard thing to balance for a family, wanting your child to have a great experience, be around people that they feel share their values and their interests, where they can build community and also that financial

[00:50:00] support. So there are real challenges there that I'm now more empathetic to than I might have been, had I not had that personal experience.

[00:50:08] Katherine: And do you give now, and that could be time, talent, or treasure?

[00:50:13] Kelly: I do. My husband and I make our philanthropic decisions together and we are particularly focused at this point in time on early childhood education and that will probably shift slightly as our children move into K-12, but certainly, early childhood needs all the help we can get.

[00:50:32] Katherine: What about having younger philanthropists in society would shift things around?

[00:50:39] Kelly: You know, I think it would build a culture of more empathetic humans. I think if you have decided to make the decision to give your own resources and we're talking any amount... I try to explain this to people, even if you're an alum of CU as, as an alum, you get certain levels of communication from an

[00:51:00] organization.

[00:51:00] But then once you become a donor, you get a totally different level of communication because what we're trying to convey to you is the impact of your gift, and what we're trying to do is build empathy. We want you to be emotionally engaged in what we're doing. And so I think if more young people were more philanthropically engaged, were volunteering more, were giving more, they would be more empathetic.

[00:51:27] And I see this in real-time. I mean, I see this with folks like you. I see it was so many of the humans I work with and have in my personal life. So I think it is true that those people feel a sense of community, a sense of humanity, and a sense of empathy that is harder to achieve outside of giving your time, talent, and treasure to an organization or an individual person.

[00:51:52] Katherine: Yeah. Yeah. Let's say that I don't have any funds and we're just focusing on the time and talent

[00:52:00] portion and I come to you and I say, Kelly, I'm a software engineer, I love the university, I want to work with students, how do I get involved? Am I able to craft my own experience? Are there certain holes that I can plugin and fill?

[00:52:15] What does that look like?

[00:52:16] Kelly: So the bigger the organization, the better they're going to be equipped to help you with that. So having worked for a lot of small organizations in my tenure, having eager volunteers was really hard. We just didn't have a lot of places to plug people in. Particularly if the work that we were doing, so hospitals are a great example. It is really hard to plug in eager people who want to volunteer, who can't commit to like a regular schedule, right? Who want to just sort of like hop in and out help with a random thing. So I think being careful about aligning your skills and interests with an organization that is in a place to receive it is, is

[00:53:00] important.

[00:53:00] So at we're a huge organization. I mean, right now we need hundreds of volunteers to help us to review scholarship applications. So if you come to CU and you say, I want to give my time, we will find a place for you. And sometimes that might be setting up chairs of graduation. But if you said you want to help, I do have something for you to do.

[00:53:19] It gets more specialized as you get into a particular school. So, you know, software engineers all day long between our engineering school and our computer science program, and frankly in our business, engineering, and tech program for women, there are lots of places to stick you and put you in front of students, have you work in student teams.

[00:53:37] I mean, that is hugely valuable, but I just want to caution people that you be careful when you reach out to smaller organizations with small staff who are perhaps doing work that is much harder or requires certain skills and

training to put you to work and that you don't accidentally end up

[00:54:00] creating expenses and programs, just so that they can help you feel warm, fuzzy as for volunteering.

[00:54:07] So I would hope that those organizations would sort of gently encourage you to, you know, talk to these folks over here at X organization. But certainly the bigger the organization, the more likely we're going to be able to use your unique skills and talents.

[00:54:23] Katherine: Yeah. It sounds like at that point it might just be better to give them a $2 bill.

[00:54:28] Kelly: Yes, always.
[00:54:32] Katherine: Well, this week is Young Alumni Giving Week at CU,

which is really exciting. How can people participate if they're interested?

[00:54:42] Kelly: So we would love to have your help. And I think if we can include the link in the show notes, that would be great. So we have a bunch of challenges and games, and we're trying to gamify it and really get people excited about a Young Alumni Giving Week. I mean, follow us on social, on

[00:55:00] LinkedIn, on Instagram. We're going to be posting a lot this week.

[00:55:03] Make sure your email is updated so we're sending the emails to the right place and your phone number too., we're going to be doing a text campaign this week to try to get out in front of folks and give what you can or respond with I want to learn more and I want to, I want to get involved or say, you know, now's not the right time for me, but call me in a year, call me in five years.

[00:55:26] Let us know what that roadmap looks like. And then if we're in touch with you or we reach out to you and this is not your jam and not what you want to give to that is totally fine and extremely helpful so we can put our energy to people who want to be involved. But just be nice because we have a lot of volunteers and students who are helping us with this, and it would be nice if they felt like their community while they may not be able to, or may not want to give still supports that.

[00:55:56] Katherine: Yeah, I look forward to joining some of those

[00:56:00] events and as we close out here, what do you want to leave with the listeners?

[00:56:06] Kelly: I think I would encourage everyone who has even an inkling for philanthropy or wants to know what it is or why it matters, just get started. Don't overthink it.

[00:56:18] Don't go too nuts with your research. Just take 10 minutes and think about the kinds of things that matter to you or have mattered to you in your life or a salient experience you've had in your life. Do a quick Google search and start giving $5 a month, $10 a month, whatever it is, and start to see what that communication from that organization is like and then you can start to build a philanthropic ethos from there.

[00:56:46] And I hope that some people will do that because as a person I told recently who's been giving $10 a month from their paycheck for the better part of 30 years, they have made an enormous impact at

[00:57:00] CU. So a little goes a long way. It does add up really quickly.

[00:57:03] And I, I hope if folks have any interest in learning more about this and philanthropy in general, they just get started. That's my advice, just get started.

[00:57:12] Katherine: That's wonderful. Thank you, Kelly. This has been so informative and multidimensional. I have learned so much, so I really appreciate your time and your talent, and the conversation.

[00:57:25] And you've just made it really easy for anyone who wants to start leaving a legacy. Thank you.

[00:57:31] Kelly: You're welcome. It's been a real pleasure. This is very fun. And I think I learned some things about myself as well.

[00:57:37] Katherine: Well awesome. We're all growing and maturing here, so it's great. And to everyone out there, thank you for listening to the first episode of Opportunity Made podcast.

[00:57:49] It's such a pleasure to meet with good friends and share new ways that we can all create more opportunities in the world. I'm excited to meet all the young professionals who now get to call themselves

[00:58:00] philanthropists. Anyone who does start a scholarship, please let me know at Opportunity Made on social media and Kelly is there a way that people can connect with you and keep the conversation going?

[00:58:11] Kelly: Yes, you can find me on LinkedIn, Kelly Hall, or you can find me on CU Boulder's website, Kelly Hall at advancement.

[00:58:19] Katherine: If anyone in the audience knows anyone who would be interested in being on the podcast, you can reach out via one of the social media links in the show notes below, or at opportunitymade.com.

[00:58:31] The link to the Young Alumni Giving Week activities will also be in the show notes. In the meantime, serve widely, give greatly and take care y'all.

[00:58:40]