All work is important work if you love it.
When I decided to leave Broder Webb Chervin Silbermann after five years of working my way up the ladder, learning from the best and serving talented clients, it was because I loved something else more. A passion for social justice and equal opportunity issues drew me to law school several years prior. Even though I didn’t love practicing law, I couldn’t leave behind the reasons I was drawn to it in the first place. Though it hurt to leave ‘the business,’ it was a conscious uncoupling. Bob Broder was gracious enough to pick up the phone on my behalf and agent me into my first nonprofit job.
I went to The Alliance for Children’s Rights, an amazing organization providing free legal services for kids in foster care, in the role of director of development. Though fundraising, rather than story development, was the function of the role, story-telling was absolutely at the heart of it. It was a complex task to explain the ins and outs of foster care policy and why people should care. So I didn’t. Instead, I told donors the story of a family desperate to get medical care for its infant foster daughter so that she could have a chance at learning to walk in spite of her cerebral palsy, and that with their help, we could get her what she needed.
For the past five years, I’ve served as the chief executive officer of Step Up, where we empower teen girls from under-resourced communities to graduate high school confident, college-bound, career-focused and ready to join the next generation of professional women. Whether I’m advocating my vision for the organization to the staff and board or persuading a global brand to support our work, I’m out there representing the best interests of our girls, the ultimate clients. To see these young women maturing in their confidence, developing a vision for the future, and activating on that with the help of a community of women who will move heaven and earth to make it happen is a beautiful thing.
There are many things that differ between philanthropy and life at the agency – smaller budgets, fewer bagels, and no trips to the Emmy’s – to name a few. But after a decade of service in mission-based organizations, it is clear that being an agent of change is very similar to being an agent. Fighting to have your client’s work bought and produced or persuading a studio to hire your director on the project for which she has the perfect take is ultimately the same function as ensuring the young people you’re serving have a voice and are able to reach their potential.
Advocacy is advocacy. It comes down to loving what and who you are advocating for.
