Get to know new leaders in our field! We wanted to get you acquainted with some executives who have stepped into leadership roles at their foundations within the last two years. Have a look at the backgrounds, insights, and priorities of these leaders who will help shape the direction of their foundations over the coming years.
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Lindsay Stewart
Senior Manager, Patterson Foundation
Q: Tell us a bit about your background and the perspective you bring to your role.
LS: I’ve held a number of different roles at Patterson Companies for the past five years, most of them in digital marketing. My digital marketing experience taught me how to build a strategic plan and execute- a skill that I’m using in my position on the Patterson Foundation in order to encourage employees to get involved in an organization built for them and their communities!
I’m really happy to move into such a unique opportunity. I think the biggest advantage for me is my newness to philanthropy, my clean slate, really, and my understanding of storytelling. I’m not confined to the challenges of history or tradition.
Q: What have you learned about philanthropy since you started this job?
LS: I have learned so much about grantmaking and biased decision-making since starting. I had never read a grant application before starting, and it took a minute for me to control my bleeding heart. I wanted to help everyone! I have since started to understand our Foundation’s niche and helped to define the projects in which we want to support based on our employees’ passions and the original founders’ legacy. I’ve also recruited diverse candidates to help us on our grants committee- the more perspectives we have in the process, the better grantmakers we are.
Also, our finance committee would be happy to know that I have learned how to create an operating budget for my organization, and how to stick to it.
Q: What’s been the biggest surprise?
LS: Where do I start?! I think my first hurdle was understanding the role and magnitude of philanthropy in Minnesota. There is so much money in philanthropy and our goal is to give it all away. Such a different mantra than my goals in digital marketing, or any other corporate department, I’d imagine.
I was also encouraged by the kindness of the corporate philanthropy community. I’m leading a small foundation, and a small department, but there are so many other foundations and foundation managers that are paralleling my situation. Corporate foundations are a small community, but everyone has been so welcoming, helpful, willing to meet with me and guide me.
Q: What’s on the horizon for your foundation that excites you?
LS: Philanthropy is more than just money: it’s physical donations, volunteering, sponsoring important causes and events, and so much more. Our foundation is starting to look at all of these different giving vehicles and think about ways we can incorporate them into our legacy. This year, we instituted a Dollars for Doers program that has been wildly successful in both encouraging employees to donate their time and engaging employees in the foundation. We’ve opened up our guidelines to include more education programs, which animated our animal health division and our logistics crews. We’ve involved our employees in delivering grant checks personally, allowing them to learn about the organization and get their teams involved in their cause. This kind of engagement allows me to get rid of the stock imagery when we tell stories about the work we’re doing!
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Heather Logelin
President, St. Croix Valley Foundation
Q: Tell us a bit about your background and the perspective you bring to your role.
HL: As a leader, I am guided by three core values – family, service and impact. I want to do right by the people I love. I want to serve the community where I live. And I want my efforts to make a differenceWe moved to the St. Croix Valley in 2004 because we knew this was the place we wanted to live, work, play and raise our children. My happiest moments are outdoors, skiing at Willow River State Park, kayaking Lake Mallalieu, walking our dog in the woods near our home or enjoying an over-sized ice cream cone at Nelsen’s in Stillwater. The St. Croix Valley is filled with people like me – people who love this region and want to take care of it for generations to come. I truly believe that if each of us does our part, we will get that job done – and I am delighted to be leading that work for the St. Croix Valley Foundation.
Q: What have you learned about philanthropy since you started this job?
HL: Working for a community foundation is a dream job; instead of asking donors to make a philanthropic investment in a specific organization, we approach donors as their “philanthropic advisors,” asking them how we might partner with them to take care of the organizations, communities and/or causes they care about most. At the same time, we work with the local nonprofits doing the work about which these donors are so passionate, helping to match local philanthropy with local needs, and to build capacity within these local nonprofit organizations Community foundations are in a unique position to leverage two of our greatest assets – our relationships with our fund advisors and our relationships with local nonprofits – to do an even better job connecting local philanthropy with local needs.
Q: What’s been the biggest surprise?
HL: The biggest surprise since starting this position is how different community foundations are from one another. This is true not only across the MCF’s network of independent community foundations, but even within the St. Croix Valley Foundation’s ten affiliated foundationsThe work of community foundations runs the gamut, depending on the needs of the communities they serve. In some areas, community foundations are primarily focused on donor-advised pass-through funds; in others, on advocacy; in others, on their partnerships with local nonprofits; in others, on building unrestricted funds.
Q: What’s on the horizon for your foundation that excites you?
HL: There is so much to be excited about! I guess the thing I’m most excited about is the potential of our ten affiliated community foundations. Over the past two years, we’ve been working closely across all eleven of our boards – the board of the St. Croix Valley Foundation and the boards of the ten affiliated community foundations – on a collaborative campaign for unrestricted endowed funds. The theme of the campaign is “Together We Are Stronger,” and we’ve definitely seen how, by working together, we can reach more donors – and build philanthropic assets that will enable us to have a much greater impact – than by working alone. We are now talking about how we can continue to build on this effort by not only continuing to build permanent assets, but also by working together to identify shared concerns and – potentially – develop a plan for a collective response.
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Karen White
President & CEO, Northwest Minnesota Foundation
Q: Tell us a bit about your background and the perspective you bring to your role.
KW: My background spans three sectors across two states, and as such I’ve gained experiences and knowledge across a broad spectrum of situations and areas. I started my career as an engineer and manager at a manufacturing facility in North Dakota, which taught me a lot about customer relations, operations management, and processes. I then spent 14 years in higher education in two states learning how to build partnerships, how government bureaucracies work, and about program and grant management and resource development. I was hired by the Northwest Minnesota Foundation as its Vice President for Programs in 2016 and then as its President in 2019. As President, it is my role to help the organization see a vision for the future and identify the path forward to realize that vision.
Q: What have you learned about philanthropy since you started this job?
KW: I’ve learned that philanthropy is first and foremost driven by the mission. Mission-driven is a bit of cliché, but from my experience personally and professionally, it really does make the difference between doing a good job for your organization and those ultimately being served and taking it to the next level.
Q: What’s been the biggest surprise?
KW: There is a natural tension between saving for the future and ensuring the Foundation lives in perpetuity and having the highest level of impact for those who need the support today. You need to learn to be comfortable with these two competing and equally important forces. The hope is that the tension and the potential impact become the motivation to always strive to do the work better.
Q: What’s on the horizon for your foundation that excites you?
KW: The Northwest Minnesota Foundation has seen a very high number of retirements in the last five years with nine of 20 positions changed. I’m really excited to see where this team of talented, mission-driven, dedicated staff will take us in the next five-plus years.