Q1 2020 Texas CEO Magazine

was to surround myself with people smarter than me about
operations, programs, and running a nonprofit. Our board
is very strategic in its thinking, and our staff knows the best
practices out there. We did win the Excellence in Summer
Learning Award from the New York Life Foundation and the
National Summer Learning Association this year, after all.
How has the foundation changed in the years since you founded
it? What surprised you most about its evolution? When we first
started, we did a lot of good things in a bad way, meaning all we
did was act as a pass-through. We raised money and distributed it
to a lot of worthy causes. But beyond that, little impact was seen.
Now, we piloted our program in 2014 with 78 students in one
school and we really focused on providing quality programming,
being strict about what outcomes we wanted to generate, and
how we generate them. We wanted to be intentional about the
results we wanted them. Almost six years later, in 2019, we
had benefited over 7,000 students through our own programs
and other programs we supported with funding and quality
assistance. We see the impact. We are becoming one of the go-to
leaders in the field when it comes to quality, and as such we are
helping other programs also reach that level of high quality.
Have you found that any skills translate from the tennis court
to successfully overseeing a charitable organization? Just
like playing tennis, running the foundation requires focus.
I can’t just do it by ear or by winging it. It requires strategy,
assessment, calculations for improvement. It needs to be very
intentional. In tennis though, when I do it right, I win. When
the foundation does it right, a whole community wins.
Any advice for people who are considering starting their
own foundation? No matter what the cause or mission is,
you have to be focused on what kind of difference you want
to make. There are many ways to get there, but if you don’t
know what your North Star is, it will be difficult to reach it.
66 Texas CEO Magazine Q1 2020