Sheila Edwell Rawlings

I attribute my success to God and my mom. It's probably just top of mind because I just came off of Mother's Day, and one of the things I told my son was that my mother set me up for success. I didn't realize it at the time - of course when you're a kid, you don't realize it - but she did. She set me up for success. She's the one who encouraged me to take a business track in high school when I was growing up in an underserved neighborhood, and that foundation made all the difference in my journey.

As far as my career in fundraising, I had a beautiful friend tell me something that changed everything for me. Obviously, as a fundraiser, one of your goals is always trying to get that million dollar gift, and you wonder how do you do that and how do you not be nervous about it. Her best advice was, you should be nervous. Who wants somebody asking for that size of a gift with not a moment of uncertainty? She asked me, do you want to have the best suave ask in the world, or do you just really want to be a person who speaks out of the need for who you're serving and have that passion come through and convey that to the donor? She said it's not a sales transaction, so you don't have to be perfect at it, you just have to be passionate, you have to be yourself, you have to be honest and authentic. I didn't know how badly I would need that advice, but now, in the world, I realize now that it was great advice. I did have an occasion to have to ask for a very large gift, and I didn't say I was polished at it, but I was successful at it. The donor felt the passion and the need that I was speaking about. If I hadn't gotten that advice, I probably wouldn't have approached it the same way.

I would say that the work that we do is really not about us. If we look at what we're doing not as something that we get to parade ourselves in, but we are more champions for those that we serve - for instance, the boys that I serve here at the school, they're my success, they're the reason for doing what I do. So that's the advice I would give to other young women, which has been passed down to me. It really is about who you serve. It's not about the giver, it's the gift. I think that is something that I see in other women like me who are just in the trenches trying to make a difference. They're not self-motivated by their own desires. They just want to continue to help and make a difference.

The biggest challenge is money, having the resources. I had to speak at an NAACP event two weeks ago, and the thing that resonated across the board - this was for educators from the private sector, which was what I was representing, as well as the public sector - the number one thing is the challenge of having the money to do what you know is good work. All of us sat there and said, if we had the money, we would, and you can fill in the blank however that is. So finding the resources to do the work and to serve - every day we're advocating for more money to be invested in education, more money to be invested in children, more money to build up those who need us. It's not that we don't have the money - the state and the government, they have the money - but where it's being used is the issue. As for opportunities, I think there's opportunities for more advocacy to make the case for why this is important, to make the case for what could happen if we had the resources. I think just galvanizing those of us that are in the industry of service to come with a united voice about the difference we could make if we had just one million of the millions that are spent in other places. The opportunity is really advocacy, getting the message out, and being in the front lines for how we really are making a difference and can make a bigger difference. No teacher wants 30 kids in the classroom. Every teacher that went to college knows a smaller classroom is more effective. But when you're in a situation where you can't get what you know your students need, that's the frustration.

I would say the top of the list is honesty, integrity, commitment, dedication - those things - but top of the list is honesty.