GREENFIELD — Rattle off the list of organizations the United Way of Franklin County serves, and you’ll quickly run out of fingers, but there’s one category that Kelly Brigham-Steiner holds particularly close to her heart.
“It’s a commitment in particular to our youngest citizens,” Brigham-Steiner began to say. “It is our future. It’s cliche, but every time I look at these young people and the life tracks taking them a different way as a result of the work we do — it doesn’t get much better than that in life,” she said.
For Brigham-Steiner, 56, of Northfield, it’s the work from early childhood and up that helps to continue driving her passion to work in the nonprofit field. Now, after some 30 years in the field, with the last six as the senior director of impact and investment at the Monadnock United Way in Keene, N.H., she’s moving her passion to her own county.
Beginning June 25, Brigham-Steiner will take over as the next executive director of the United Way of Franklin County, as Sandy Sayers retires at the end of the month following three years in that position and 35 years of fundraising in Franklin County.
“It’s a natural place to be, and particularly in Franklin County, it’s an opportunity for me professionally, but also I bring a set of skills to that location that will help us grow together,” Brigham-Steiner said, who lives in Northfield with her husband, a Franklin County native, who has family in Shelburne, Buckland, Ashfield and Colrain. Their daughter graduated from Mount Holyoke College this past year and is a graduate of Pioneer Valley Regional School.
Thursday, the United Way of Franklin County’s Board of Directors announced its decision, a couple weeks before the organization’s big gala to celebrate its 80th anniversary and to close its annual fundraising campaign.
“I think the organization is ready for some of the changes she will be able to bring,” Sayers said, to help the organization, with its several partner agencies in Greenfield and across the county, take the “next step, to where it needs to go.”
Sayers and Chairman of the Board of Directors Larry Geiser noted the United Way, both here and around the country, is not what it used to be decades ago, but the next director has the opportunity to try to rally some momentum in the community.
While the United Way used to be focused on company campaigns, Gieser said, “the world has changed so much,” in the last 20 to 30 years, which means they have to look for new ways to fundraise. This means tapping into the young professionals, but also the possibility of approaching the whole process differently, Sayers said.
“The United Way is challenged with its campaign, like everyone else, and the issue moving forward is the funding of the organizations, because we need to grow either the income from the campaign or make some decisions about funding fewer agencies,” Sayers said.
The outgoing director suggested articulating to the community better what it does for it, so people understand where the dollars go, why they’re important to give and what’s the value in being a volunteer.
There’s an excitement from Sayers and the board that they found their newest director before Sayers leaves. She announced her upcoming retirement in January of this year.
Since then, Geiser and the board received about 25 to 30 resumes for the executive director position. Five candidates were interviewed and three made it to the second round, he said.
Brigham-Steiner was a particularly attractive choice because of her involvement administratively with the United Way, which Geiser wasn’t sure they’d see from any candidates, and what both he and Sayers described as the future director’s voice and vision.
Geiser said he saw Brigham-Steiner as a “strong personality without being a strong personality,” and someone who is “confident, but did it in a nice way.” He sees her as someone who comes to the table with ideas and with years of experience.
Brigham-Steiner has been at the Monadnock United Way since 2012, where she was the senior director of impact and investment and spent time as the interim president when it had an absence.
“I see it as a strength. You have to understand where you’re coming from, before you can change where you’re going to,” Geiser said about Brigham-Steiner’s familiarity with the United Way. “She understands the hurdles and issues.”
Before coming to the United Way in 2012, she served as the director of the Monadnock Voices for Prevention for five years. She also was the co-founder and director of project design and resource development at High 5 Adventure Learning Center, Inc. in Brattleboro. She received her education at Hartwick College in Oneonta, N.Y.
“My role has really been for the last 30 years in all the work I’ve done, including here in the United Way, to be an agent of change,” Brigham-Steiner said.
She sees her strengths in working with community partners, and working around a vision to accomplish a goal.
“I feel like I’m leaving the organization in good hands. That’s very important to me,” Sayers said. “I think she’ll be able to continue on the success we had and the relationships in the community.”
Reach Joshua Solomon at:
jsolomon@recorder.com
413-772-0261, ext. 264