Beth McGorry, CFRE

I think really my success has come from being a lifelong learner. I always want to do the best for others, and I see that my place in the world is to give and to share my gifts. Along the way, I get to learn, and that brings me immense joy. Learning from others is so important to me. I continue to receive education from my top leaders, and now I'm actually training others to do this job and these roles. When we get to do all of that, it's key to everything. My success has come from learning and talking to others and really learning how to do the best that I can do with the skills I have today.

The best advice I've received has really been about finding something that you love and what suits your soul. I know that I was meant to be doing the work that I'm doing. Sometimes you have to try a few things. I've changed my career four times since I was young, and sometimes it takes a little bit to find the right piece, the right job, and the right career path for you. My dad gave me some of the best advice, and that advice is you have to find something that gives you joy. Because if it doesn't, work is work and it's horrible. But when you find something that brings you joy, you just keep doing it.

Find women and invest in meeting other women who are doing the jobs that you think you want to be doing. Surround yourself with good cheerleaders. I know that my cheerleading pack and the people who sit at my table, many of them are women, and they are my biggest cheerleaders. No matter how hard you are in your career, having folks at your board table is really important. Find those people to sit at your table to help you make decisions, help you open doors, and help you walk through some things that might be challenging. Finding those beautiful mentors in your existence is so important. You can't do this alone. I just can't do this alone, and that has been key for me as I expand myself into my freelance world. Make sure that I have the right people surrounding me and helping share my story, because I want people to be talking beautifully about me when I'm not inside the room. You're going to have to have folks talking about you when you're not in the room, and creating those relationships to do so is so important. Join associations. When I was in my 30s, I joined Dubuque JCs, which is a young person's organization full of men and women, and that group of young people introduced me to every person I needed to know while moving professionally into my role as a fundraiser. The relationships are key to all of it. Be honest with your mentors and tell them where you want to go, what you think you want to do. When I've spoken to college freshmen, I ask what do you think you want to do that brings you the biggest smile on your face, so you get to do this every day. In hopes that when we're working in a career, 80% of our job is joy. There's still going to be 20% that you're not going to love at all, but 80% of your time is filled with things that bring you joy and that you get to do for the world. Find some folks who will help you do that. Surrounding yourself with good women is key to all of that for me.

I think that fundraising is changing so much. It changes so quickly today. I watched the state as it transitioned through this harsh winter that we had, and the sense of community looked very different than I was anticipating when I moved here seven or eight months ago. I also thought that traditional fundraising was how it was going to work, but it really was just transitional fundraising. In our field, we have to be very quick on our feet. The introduction of AI will never take away relationships that are necessary to fundraise and to build beautiful philanthropic communities, but the need for us to use AI is 100%. It will not take away my job, but it will make me more efficient so I can do more and better work. I think we need to be really fluid in how we're doing all of that. One of the biggest challenges is that we are always facing competition for grant funding and all of those things, which means that building more and better relationships will be key to this. Fundraisers have to work every day to make sure that we're seen as beautiful partners. I will always come back to that building of those ethical, loving, and kind relationships, and that creates a really beautiful synergy.

Integrity is at the top of my list. Family is incredibly important to me, and I will always come back to joy. The hardest part is you need empathy to have joy, so being empathetic in all of it is huge. The value of empathy is huge in the world we live in today, and it's a piece of my everyday to be an empathetic human who works with family and integrity at the top of my list.