13 minute read
Passion & Purpose
For these NH nonprofit leaders, the path to a career change began with volunteer work
BY MIKE COTE
If you wanted to stoke some competition between Diane Fitzpatrick, Sharron McCarthy, Kathleen Reardon, Mike Gibeault and Erica Thoits, you could set a stopwatch for 15 minutes and see how much money they could raise for charity.
Then you could watch them scroll through their phones and start making calls. To excel in the world of nonprofits, your contacts are your key to success, whether you’re seeking donors, assembling a volunteer team or recruiting new members to serve on your board.
It’s not just who you know, but who you know who knows other people you should know — especially in a small state like New Hampshire, where personal connections are the currency of business.
It’s no surprise that the path for some nonprofit leaders begins with a career in another industry. Once they apply their skill sets to volunteer work, such as serving on the board of their favorite nonprofit, they want more, perhaps as a way to cap their professional life or to fulfill a desire to forge deeper connections in their community.
For the five people in the following profiles — four whose nonprofits are focused on helping children — the pathway was paved with passion.
Diane Fitzpatrick, CEO, Boys & Girls Club of Manchester
Back in the ’70s, when it was just the Boys Club, members had a place to play basketball, make arts and crafts and read books in the library.
Over the past decade, Diane Fitzpatrick has overseen the growth of programs at the Boys & Girls Club of Manchester to include daily meals, educational assistance and mental health services.
Fitzpatrick first became involved with nonprofits as a kindergarten teacher for the Growing Years in Manchester. She also served as a volunteer wish granter for Make-A-Wish New Hampshire, meeting with families to help shape wishes for children fighting life-threatening illnesses.
“I had two healthy babies. I was a kindergarten teacher, and I just wanted to give back,” she says.
Fast forward to 2011, when Fitzpatrick’s husband, Steve, was diagnosed with glioblastoma brain cancer. The college sweethearts had raised two children together.
“We had the house, the dog, the two kids, a boy and girl. Life was great,” says Fitzpatrick, who was working as dean of admissions for New England College. “And then you get news like that. It turns your whole life upside down.”
After her husband died two years later, Fitzpatrick was ready for a change.
“I just didn’t want to do what I was doing anymore. Higher ed was great and everything, but I just felt like I had a higher power. I needed to do something different.”
After a conversation with then-club development officer Brian Tremblay, who had given Fitzpatrick’s husband a book about the club published for its 100th anniversary, Fitzpatrick inquired about joining the nonprofit’s board.
After a short stint working in business development for the New Hampshire Center for Nonprofits, Fitzpatrick applied for the chief executive role at the club when longtime CEO Gary Frost decided to retire.
After a national search that lasted a year, the board chose Fitzpatrick, one of the two finalists for the job.
The club serves 560 kids through 160 programs at its Union Street club house, three school-based sites and a summer day camp. Fitzpatrick has been working with local leaders to open a community center on Manchester’s West Side that would include another club space.
“I absolutely love it. There are hard days. There’s no question about it,” Fitzpatrick says. “But when you think about our children and the work that we’re doing here and the community work, we’re making a difference in these kids’ lives, and we’re removing barriers.”
Sharron McCarthy, CEO, Girls Inc.
Sharron McCarthy joined Girls Inc. as CEO in January 2020 — just before COVID-19 hit.
Her first order of business was to convert the Girls Inc. annual auction to a virtual fundraiser with the help of local company Events United, a model other local nonprofits soon adopted.
McCarthy made a career shift after spending more than three decades in newspaper and magazine publishing, most recently with the parent company of New Hampshire Magazine.
McCarthy’s work with Girls Inc. began with a tenure on its board of directors. When the CEO announced she would be retiring in two years, McCarthy began considering applying for the role.
“I distinctly remember sitting in that board meeting when she announced that, and I just had a moment,” McCarthy recalls during an interview at her office in Manchester. “I had a full year to think about it and to kind of evaluate what was happening in my publishing job.”
While McCarthy loved her job and her team, she was rethinking how she wanted to spend the last decade of her working life. “I am very happy with how things worked out in my career. It was just a great time to make a change there,” she says.
Girls Inc., one of 75 affiliates around the country, serves 650 girls a year in New Hampshire through its centers in Manchester and Nashua and through school outreach programs throughout the state. The nonprofit provides education and leadership training designed to prepare girls for adulthood.
“Most of our participants can’t afford to pay so we either raise money to scholarship them or try to help the family figure out how to get some money from state assistance, and that’s tricky,” McCarthy said. Her publishing career prepared her well for her fundraising.
“I’ve been asking for money for 35 years now so I’m not shy about that,” McCarthy says. “But I feel so good about people who do something with us, the value they get, and that I hope they realize what a difference they make by doing that.”
McCarthy, the mother of two daughters, gets to experience that difference daily.
“I have a lot more young friends than I’ve ever had in my life, which is really fun,” she says. “You walk in and you get hugs from everybody. It’s amazing. It pumps you up.”
Anyone who thinks transitioning to a nonprofit will lead to a cushy pre-retirement job has never worked for one.
“It’s like every single skill I have ever learned in my career applies to this job every day — from managing people to being creative to bringing money in,” McCarthy says, “Now I’m learning about what it’s like to have two brick-and-mortar buildings and all that goes with that.”
Kathleen Reardon, CEO, New Hampshire Center for Nonprofits
Kathleen Reardon’s career is bookended with work for nonprofits, but her journey included a banking career that spanned nearly two decades.
Reardon serves as the CEO of the New Hampshire Center for Nonprofits, which provides leadership, collaboration and training for the state’s nonprofit sector. While Reardon worked for nonprofits early in her career, she spent 18 years with Citizens Bank before returning to the nonprofit sector.
“Growing up, I knew about community organizations, and I volunteered, and my family was active,” Reardon says. “But I didn’t necessarily think about volunteer organizations or nonprofit organizations as a career path,” Reardon says. “It wasn’t on my radar screen that way.”
After graduating from college with a degree in political science, Reardon worked for a multiservice agency in Cambridge, Mass., working side-by-side with the nonprofit’s executive director, primarily on administrative tasks.
“I got a lot of understanding of nonprofits and some of the ways that they worked at
that time,” says Reardon, whose nonprofit career including working in volunteer management for the Girl Scouts.
She did similar work when she joined Citizens, serving as public affairs coordinator before moving on to other roles. “I had a lot of different responsibilities and opportunities, but all of them had to do with community engagement and community involvement,” she says.
Reardon considers her role at the New Hampshire Center for Nonprofits as a natural progression from her early nonprofit work and the relationships she developed through the corporate grant work at Citizens. “Those relationships and relationship building in New Hampshire is so essential to your work no matter what sector you’re in,” she says.
Her role at Citizens also helped her better appreciate and understand the role of nonprofit leaders as well as the grant-funding process.
“One of the things that I really valued and appreciated about that role was how much nonprofit leaders knew about their field and educated me as a funder,” says Reardon, who through Citizens directed funds to affordable housing, community development and other local needs.
Reardon, who recently celebrated her eighth year with the center, was able to help nonprofits navigate through the pandemic, when fundraising dwindled just as needs rose.
“We were able to successfully advocate for the nonprofit Emergency Relief Fund, which was awarded $60 million for nonprofit businesses that were impacted by the pandemic,” she says. “New Hampshire was the first state in the nation to have a fund specifically dedicated for nonprofits.”
Mike Gibeault, director of philanthropy, Make-A-Wish New Hampshire
Mike Gibeault spent most of his career with Coca-Cola, where he worked in sales.
He’s still in sales now.
“Instead of selling Coke, I’m basically selling our product, which is something people really have a passion for and believe in once they get to know it,” Gibeault says in his office at Make-A-Wish New Hampshire in Manchester.
After 32 years with Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Northern New England, Gibeault joined Coca-Cola Corp. to service the company’s Dunkin’ Donuts customers. When the pandemic crimped the hospitality industry, he was at a crossroads.
“After COVID, my job was impacted. What that did was, it gave me two years off,” Gibeault says. “My goal was to work for a nonprofit, I but didn’t really have the opportunity to do that.”
Gibeault worked part-time for a couple of years, helping out some of his former Coke customers, which included local restaurants. But he didn’t have to wait long for that nonprofit opportunity to arrive.
Gibeault first became involved with Make-A-Wish in 2010, when he became a wish granter, a volunteer who meets with the families of children fighting life-threatening illnesses to coordinate their wishes. Some want a tree house. Some want to hang out with firefighters. Many want to visit Disney World.
Through his sales contacts, Gibeault also would solicit free goods for Wish kids to help keep the costs down. He was serving on the nonprofit’s board when he learned its director of philanthropy was stepping down. Gibeault wanted the job and was willing to resign from the board to take it.
Now he spends much of his time calling on long-time donors and potential new ones, nurturing relationships and playing the long game.
“The one good thing that I learned with my old position that helps me with this and even with the families as a wish granter is you’ve got to adjust to everybody’s personality,” he says. “That’s one of the things that I can do, whether it’s a wish family or whether it’s a customer or whether it’s a donor.”
Gibeault’s wife, Karen, who retired about the same time he left Coca-Cola, works with Make-A-Wish as a volunteer, helping staffers review wish referrals. Their college-age daughter, Madi, volunteers at fundraising events.
“Our whole family has been involved for a long time,” he says.
Erica Thoits, director of community relations, CASA New Hampshire
Erica Thoits decided to leave magazine publishing to work for a nonprofit after spending time on a barstool.
Josh Auger, sales manager for New Hampshire Magazine, and Marcia “Marty” Sink, president and CEO of CASA, were developing a new fundraiser in 2016 to raise money for the nonprofit, which trains volunteers to represent abused and neglected children in court.
“They came up with the idea for On Tap for CASA, which we just had in March (at New England’s Tap House Grille in Hooksett),” says Thoits, former managing editor of New Hampshire Magazine. “It’s a barstool marathon, and it’s a great fundraiser for us, a great community event. And they were trying to figure out how to do it. Josh asked if I would like to co-chair the planning committee with him.”
Thoits helped with planning and marketing and also volunteered at the event, which was an immediate hit.
“Our first year was really successful, and then we had two more great years,” Thoits says. “And then the pandemic happened, which put a halt to in-person events.”
Thoits wanted to remain connected with CASA, having gotten to know Sink and many of her staff members. And she had been working as an editor for 15 years.
“I felt very strongly about their mission. It was really sad that I couldn’t volunteer anymore in that capacity,” she says. “I think that is what got the wheels rolling.”
When CASA decided it needed a fulltime marketing person, the person in that role working part-time decided to retire. “I had been thinking about making a change, and knowing Marty and the staff, it just all came together in a really fortuitous way,” Thoits says.
Thoits is based in Manchester, CASA’s largest office, where about 20 people work. The nonprofit has about 25 staffers working at seven regional offices around the state.
More than 600 people serve as volunteer advocates through CASA every year. They must complete 40 hours of training before they can begin working with clients, and they are also required to complete additional training each year.
“Then there are all the things they have to do to go to court. They meet with kids, they meet with schools, they meet with medical professionals, therapists, foster parents, biological parents,” Thoits says.
“It’s a lot, and it’s a big commitment, not to mention the emotional commitment that comes along with it. It’s pretty remarkable that there are that many people in our state who are willing to sign up for this.”
While Thoits enjoyed writing and editing for magazines, her work for CASA has been fulfilling.
“It’s nice to feel like you’re making a difference,” she says. “Not that it’s all sunshine and roses every day, but there are kids out there who have a better shot at life because we exist. And that’s a good feeling when you go to sleep at night.”
