#19 - Have a conversation with someone who has a job I’d be interested in pursuing. (4/101)

One of the best pieces of career advice I've received is to speak to as many people as possible in careers that you think you might be interested in pursuing. To complete number 19 on my list, I was excited to meet an amazing leader and new friend this past week and have a conversation with him about his story and the philanthropic sector. 

This past week I attended the ROI Summit, put on by the ROI Community, a gathering of 150 change-makers that brings together Jewish leaders from around the globe and enables them to turn their passion into action and shape the future of the Jewish world. Part of the conference including something called brain dates, which allowed participants to take advantage of the incredible human capital by offering their expertise to fellow participants for thirty minute powwows.

As I was reading through the bio book and perusing possible brain date options, I realized there was one participant who was in a career that I have always found fascinating. He serves as a Vice President and Program Officer for J.P. Morgan Private Bank in their Corporate Responsibility group, basically the philanthropic arm of the huge bank. I work in the philanthropic world, currently for a family foundation and am so thankful that I get to do the work that I do. But I have always been interested in how philanthropy and the corporate business world can intersect, so was excited to chat with my new friend about his work. 

I started by telling him a little bit about me - my mom works at a large brokerage firm so I've always had a business influence in my life. My parents instilled in me from a young age the importance of giving and have been great philanthropic role models. I went to university thinking I'd study business, realized I really disliked the classes, didn't get into the business school (thank goodness!) and ended up studying religious studies and leadership. I got very involved in extracurricular activities and the common thread between all of them were giving and resources. Either I was running a small grant pool for my American Cancer Society fundraiser, donating proceeds of baked challah to hunger fighting organizations, serving on the board of my University's Hillel on the fundraising committee, serving as my sorority's philanthropy director...you get the idea. I realized that I loved being involved in these endeavors and could turn my hobby into a career. My favorite class I took at UVa was one in which our class was given $100,000 to grant out to worthy organizations in the Charlottesville community and beyond, instilling in students the values and thought behind philanthropy. After graduating I spent a year in Argentina working for two different nonprofit organizations and now work for the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation where I am lucky to get up everyday knowing that I am doing something good in the world with an organization that aligns with my personal values and passions.  

I then asked him for his story, it went something like this: "I was very involved with Hillel and other Jewish organizations at my university and got selected for a fellowship with Hillel International directly following graduation. While in that position I realized I couldn't really figure out who made the decisions and who had the "power". I started asking my supervisor questions which led me to ask their supervisor more questions and led to me sitting down with Hillel's CEO and President at the time to ask him questions. I still didn't think I had asked everything so I sat with one of the board members, who was also the national director of a Foundation that was one of Hillel's biggest donors and from her I finally started to realize philanthropy was a lot more than just writing the check. She explained to me the meaning behind strategic philanthropy and I realized this is what I wanted to be doing. I asked her how I could work at a foundation and her answer was "well you can't yet, you need to get a bit more experience, become a master in a certain area and then you will be able to work for a foundation". This answer didn't sit too well with me but I thought ok, I'll do something else then I'll work at a foundation. So I found a job working for something called the Jewish Funders Network and liked working at an organization where I got to learn a lot about philanthropy in the Jewish world and have somewhat of a birds eye view on the scope of the community. After working there for awhile, I felt an itch to try something new so was looking for jobs in the Jewish world and instead ended up finding a job in the philanthropic arm of J.P. Morgan advising philanthropists on utilizing their resources to actualize their goals. While working there I completed a Masters in Public Administration. I have recently switched to this new role in which I am working on philanthropy for J.P Morgan as a corporation instead of with individual philanthropic clients and am involved with Jewish organizations as a volunteer leader." We went on to talk more about his current job, general interests, thoughts on the sector and more. 

It was a fascinating conversation! I was excited to gain his insight and learn from him, I hope we will stay in touch.