Her Story
About Isabel
I have been in my current role at Friendship Circle of Los Angeles for almost four years now, serving as both Director of Development and Volunteer Manager. As Director of Development, I work on fundraising for our $2.3 million annual budget. Since we're a nonprofit, basically all of our money comes from fundraising or from grants, so I do outreach to our donors, grant writing and applying to different grants from the Jewish Federation, the Jewish Foundation, and various other sources. I also run our yearly charity campaign where we try to raise half a million, do outreach before all our different events, and focus on donor engagement. As Volunteer Manager, I oversee all volunteer engagement for our organization, which provides friendship for kids, teens, and young adults with special needs. Our volunteers, who are generally high schoolers volunteering for free as community service, are the friends. I go to all the different schools to recruit, run monthly orientations to get them into the mix, and lead volunteer workshops a couple times a year that are fun parties for the volunteers but also teach them key lessons to help them be stronger volunteers and better friends to the participants with special needs. Before this, I worked in the art world for nearly seven years as a sales director at an art gallery and at Sotheby's, but I was at a crossroad looking for more meaning. I had always volunteered with kids with special needs on the side since my bat mitzvah, so when I reached out to Friendship Circle of LA just to volunteer, they mentioned they had this role available, and I literally started working there a week later. I thought maybe I'd do this for a year, and now it's been four years.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Isabel
01What do you attribute your success to?
I'm definitely a people person, and I'm very friendly, and I think being friendly and easy to connect to helps with these kind of people-facing roles, both with volunteers, kind of bonding with teams and being open and chill and easy to bond with them and hang out with them, and also talking to more high-level net worth professionals for donor engagement. It's just being able to speak to other people and meet people where they are.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
I guess to network and to put yourself out there. I don't think I took it so close to heart until when I was looking for a new job, and I happened upon Friendship Circle. It was really just through networking, through using a connection, the Friendship Circle of New York, to connect me to here. If I didn't do that, I definitely would be in a different position. I was in the art world for nearly a decade, like seven years, so it was a very, very big change, and I'm very happy that I leveraged my connections to get here, because it's a really nice place to be. Another idea I would say is to not be so pigeonholed, because I was - I went to Barnard, I did art history, I worked at Sotheby's, and I worked at galleries in New York and here, and I was moving up along the ranks of what could be a career in the art world. I think I felt it's very intimidating to completely change career paths, especially a few years in, but you have a long life, and you can change at any point. You can always go back, you can always move around, but it's worth it to try new things.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I think there are so, so many nonprofits, thank goodness, and you have to figure out what need you really care so much about, because to work at a nonprofit, it's not just a job, it's like you're really - it's like a life. I live and breathe this, and I've always been passionate about the special needs community, but maybe for you, it's cleaning up the oceans, or the homeless situation, or food insecurity, so find out what speaks to you, and then apply to jobs in that field, because there's just so much out there.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Fundraising is not an easy job. Thank God there are a lot of different organizations that people can give to. Asking for money is always uncomfortable. I hate getting on the phone with a stranger and asking for money, so I think it's a challenge of putting yourself out there and realizing you're giving someone an opportunity to give back. A lot of the time, people appreciate it and try to give. In my community, in my world, in the Jewish world, we give 10% of our earnings to charity every year, no matter what. You set it aside, it's not even a question. So a lot of people are looking for places to give that 10% to, so I'm giving them the opportunity, even if it's awkward and sometimes feels uncomfortable to make a call.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
For sure, family. That's my top value. I think having a strong sense of community outside of family, like our friends, really, really grounds us. And for me, personally, it's my religion, being in the Jewish world. It's being able to go to synagogue every single week and see my friends. It's not just a place to pray, it's a place to connect, and it's kind of like a weekly coming home, and seeing friends, having dinners and lunches with them on Saturday. Those things are really important to me. My whole family, community, religion, all those things are basically my top priorities.
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