Thank you, 2018! And now, may I present…
By: Miguel Guadalupe
Tags: Careers, Giving, Nonprofit

Everyone’s year in review is a unique and personal one. For me, it was a new start professionally, as I began an unanticipated journey into a vocation that seemed like an obvious fit — obvious to everyone but me, that is. It’s funny how people look at you, not at all surprised, when you tell them that you left the corporate world to raise money for a nonprofit. It was probably the least surprised anyone has been since I made my “clandestine” relationship with my now wife of 17+years known to our friends back in college. They were all very much like, “Congrats! But yeah, no duh.”

What’s funny about that type of non-surprise, is that its only when you make it known, that people tell you what they truly thought. How they always knew you were a great match for that type job, and that you may have even inspired some introspection into their own lives on how they might give back themselves for the blessings they have received. I can’t tell you how humbled I am that people would confide in me those sentiments.

It was a hard move to make, after almost 20+ years pursuing what I thought was the assumed definition of success, the type a boy who grew up in NYC housing projects was expected to have: a steadily increasing W2, and to make a name for himself in places where names like his weren’t normally found. But after a while, I began to realize that I was in a place that wasn’t going to allow further growth to happen, despite my ever increasing sacrifice and effort. The fight for those goals got harder and harder, and the toll it took on the things I truly cared about — my family, my health, and my sense of self — became more and more costly. I had to reassess exactly what I was fighting for, and for whom.

I realized that I was looking at things backwards. I was more concerned with the details of my business card, rather than on the impact I was making in the world. I looked in the mirror, and saw a reflection of myself as yet another replaceable cog in the machine, and despite the many achievements I had made there, the path ahead of me seemed to be that I would wear away at myself until I no longer fit in the machine. I did not want that for myself or my family. So in 2017 I took a risk, and I jumped without a parachute into a void, confident only that I’d learn to fly before I hit the ground. In retrospect, I probably didn’t know what I was doing. I just knew I couldn’t keep doing the same thing, and that I had to force myself to make a change. The only way to do that, I had deduced, was to remove my sense of comfort. I had a millions reasons to keep doing what I was doing, but I knew that if I did, I could not say I made a real impact in the way that I always wanted. So I jumped. And for much of that year, the ground got ever closer, and I had yet to sprout wings. It was perhaps the scariest time of my life.

I’ll never forget a conversation I had with my wife, who, during one of our late night conversations, listened as I worried aloud about how I wasn’t able to find that “thing” that I was looking for. Even scarier, I felt that I had taken myself out of contention for the type of work that I was already familiar with and that I wouldn’t be able to go back, or move forward. She said to me “You know, I’ve known you most of my life, and I have to tell you — I love my job. It’s a tough job, and I hate aspects of it, sometimes. But overall, I love it, I love talking about it, and I have passion for what I do. For most of the time I’ve known you, when you speak about your job, it’s always been about the company you work for, maybe an award you won or some other success, but I never hear you have that same type of passion. Maybe it was the company, or the daily grind, but I always used to wonder if you really enjoyed what you did. On the other side, whenever you talk about raising money for your school, or for your foundation, or organizing an event for Puerto Rico, or fundraising for this cause or that — you are a completely different person. You light up! You get that spark that you had when we were in college — that spark that other people saw, that led you to do great things there. Why don’t you find a way to get paid to do that?”

Funny thing is, I still didn’t know what “that” was. Have a job where your purpose was to help an organization do good things? I wasn’t a social worker, or a trained… anything, really. I was a good salesperson and I had used those skills to help causes I cared about. I willingly did it for free. Why would anyone pay me for that in real life?

Lucky for me, I have friends who are much smarter than I am, who set me straight. I learned, quickly, that nonprofits do great work, but they also need money with which to do it. In an ever more competitive global environment, the old practices of relying on traditional fundraising techniques — the annual gala, a reliable group of large-donors and philanthropists — are quickly becoming obsolete. Nonprofits who wish to stay ahead of the curve and grow, must find new communities of people and institutions who can become passionate for their cause, and not just give, but invest in new and innovative ways of making a positive impact in this ever-changing society. Organizations must find different ways to engage donors, who are now more racially, generationally, and socioeconomically diverse than ever before. They must consider new partnerships between the public, private and nonprofit sectors to get their goals accomplished, and all the while, maintain focus on the mission of helping the community and making the world a better place.

A picture of an amazing challenge was put before me, and while contemplating all the complexity and opportunity there, I felt a fire I had not felt in a long time rise in me like phoenix. I knew that I could make an impact, that I could serve the community, and the world, by connecting people to causes, and finding ways they can be heroes by championing organizations doing great work. But I paused as I did more research on the job — people doing development work had years of experience, and often multiple degrees. Would I have to start from zero? I couldn't afford that option this late in my career. Would I have to go back to school? Who’d give a first break to some ex-corporate guy (who also didn’t come from money), and trust him to not mess this up?

In almost every book of fiction ever written, there is the theme that the opportunity will present itself exactly when one is ready for it. And so in 2018, that opportunity presented itself to me. And I joined my first nonprofit, BRC. BRC is based in New York City, and is one of the leading organizations helping individuals reclaim their lives from homelessness, mental illness and addiction. BRC struck a chord with me. I have family members who have lived in homeless shelters and others who have lost their homes. Very early in my life, my mom and I had to move in with family members ourselves after she survived cancer but couldn’t pay rent and medical bills. My uncle died of an overdose some ten years ago, a death that could have been prevented had Narcan (Naloxone) been available. After a tour of the facility, where I saw the work being done to help those who needed it most, my eyes welled up with tears as I rode the elevator back down to the lobby. I knew I had to be here.

I joined in early 2018, and throughout the year, I ran perhaps one of the steepest learning curves I ever have. I had to refocus many of the skill sets that had made me successful in the past. How I spoke to donors would be quite different than how I “sold” to clients, but I still had to make sure I had the energy and drive to foster and maintain the relationships in order to be effective. I soon found that other skills that I had developed over the years — strategy development, group project coordination, event planning, marketing, business analysis, presentation delivery — were all being used to their fullest here, some even more so than before. Many of my old biases of nonprofit work were quickly dispelled — I work with colleagues here who could easily run whole business units at any of my former employers, and they do it on tighter budgets and for far less pay than many of their corporate counterparts. The year saw me dive straight into trying new things and managing new responsibilities that had a real impact on the work of the organization. For the first time in a long time, I was coming home, eager to share my successes and missteps, and passionately tell everyone I knew about the kind of work I was doing.

Another thing 2018 showed me was that without support, no one can be successful. And to that end, I cannot thank my friends and colleagues enough for the help they have given me, and the support they’ve given to BRC. Family members, school mates, fraternity brothers, former work colleagues, even neighbors, in one way or another, gave, volunteered, and provided me with guidance and advice to help me, and to help BRC have an amazing year.

Perhaps the reason why opportunities present themselves only when the character is ready, is because in order for the character to be ready, they have to have the experiences that lead up to it. You have to meet the people during that journey that will reappear when it is time face the challenge. You have to know what lay behind you so that you have a clearer picture of where you are going.

So thank you, 2018. Thank you to everyone who has ever crossed my path, in all the various worlds I’ve ever inhabited. Thank you especially to those who came together from those different worlds to support me in making such a huge change. The road traveled is as important as the road ahead, and I am super excited to see what lies in front of me in 2019! So I say this to everyone from the bottom of my heart — Happy New Year!

And for those of you interested in learning about where I now work , you can read more — and make a generous donation — here: www.brc.org