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40 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 12.14 WHAT THEY'VE LEARNED WHAT THEY'VE LEARNED Susan Barry president and CEO, Community Foundation of Louisville Anne McKune development director, ACLU of Kentucky Bryce Butler managing director, Access Ventures Jane Walsh executive director, national nonproft Just Faith Ministries Kevin Connelly (retiring) CEO, the Center for Nonproft Excellence Barbara Sexton Smith chief liaison, the Compassionate Schools Project (and former Fund for the Arts CEO) "I have a very basic belief about giving: I think every human being wants to give money to something. Now, everybody may not KNOW they want to give just yet." — Smith "People fundamentally want to be a part of something bigger than themselves." — McKune "I just feel like this work is a call and you answer it. I actually don't have much work experience. I worked at the Vogue Theater when I was a very young woman, and I worked for (now-closed bookstore) Hawley- Cooke. I'm a fourth-generation Louisvillian, and I've been in nonprofts here my whole life. "My parents were teachers, and when I was young there was quite a bit of hubbub around 'forced busing.' I remember marching with my parents in favor of school desegregation and understanding that there was inequity, that we had to take a stand on a certain side of that. I was probably seven." — Walsh "My dad was an engineer, and I love that kind of stuf. I was majoring in chemistry, and my sophomore summer, I worked at Our Lady of Peace in the admitting ofce, and I thought, 'Wow, I know nothing about psychology.' I started reading these journals and switched my major, to my father's dismay — 'You're going into what?' I was kind of leaning toward something that wasn't so materialistic. I thought there was more meaning in jobs that maybe didn't have as much of an emphasis on ... I'm really putting myself into a corner here." — Connelly "I would say compensation is not the No. 1 concern of the people who work in this feld. To feel fully compensated means something else besides the paycheck." — Walsh "I don't think nonproft leaders should ever feel that we should have to apologize or defend the compensation levels for ourselves or our staf." — Smith "I do care about how my people are paid, and, over the last fve years, we've worked diligently to increase the salaries because, when we measured against other companies like ours around the country, we were below par. Good people will migrate to other jobs if they're not paid fairly." — Barry "I'm on the board of the Louisville Rescue Mission, and two years ago they almost closed their doors. It's the fourth-oldest rescue mission in the country, founded in 1881. And they almost went bankrupt. Literally no toilet paper, no money in the bank. We were able to come in and help with some funding for them, restructure their board. We had to close some programs — an internship that was costing the center money — and their response was, 'Well, what about the people beneftting?' 'Well, those programs aren't part of the core mission. Would you rather help those six people and, as a result, not be able to help any of the city's homeless population?' Now they're looking to expand to southern Indiana. If your organization tries to serve everybody, you'll end up serving nobody." — Butler "One of my early experiences was when I was with the Center for Women and Families. I'd just started, and we got a new executive director, who cut a program. She said, 'We're not reapplying for that program because that's not what we do.' But we had been taking the funding to keep, you know, the doors open. It was a really courageous thing to do as a new leader. It showed me what it takes to lead an organization is to ask: What is the mission? And if it's not consistent with the mission, don't do it." — Walsh "The extent to which you don't pay attention to your board is the extent to which you will live in peril." — Connelly "I think you should just have to say, 'I'd love for you to think about giving at this level.' It's a really hard thing to do. I know this will sound bizarre, but I used to practice in the mirror until I got comfortable with it." — Barry Six local nonproft experts speak out. Photos by Chris WItzke