Falling in Love With Philanthropy
It can be hard to write about money–but it’s easy to write about what you love.
Like many in our profession, philanthropic writing was a career shift for me. I had worked in higher education communications and administration for more than a decade, occasionally helping a development officer find good stories, but philanthropy remained at a distance conceptually. While I enjoyed participating in Give Day and campus crowdfunding opportunities, the concept of naming a building or endowing a scholarship remained almost an abstraction.
Since I started working as a proposal writer, I’ve gained a new lens for seeing the impacts of philanthropy and the people behind it.
A Life-Changing Gift
I moved to Davis, California more than 20 years ago with a toddler in tow and a baby on the way. While Davis has a reputation as an idyllic, family-friendly college town, I worried about what I had left behind in Chicago. How would I expose my kids to music? Davis has its charms, but back then the music scene centered on our infamous marching band and farmer’s market buskers.
Two years later, the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts opened its doors. A stunning sandstone building appeared on a previously undeveloped corner of campus between the Arboretum and the interstate.
Because of the Mondavis and their fellow founding donors, I was able to take my sons to see up-and-coming jazz artists and world-class performers.
Legacy in Action
As a UC Davis staff member, I had the opportunity to serve on an advisory committee that works with Mondavi Center leadership. As the committee chair for two years, I attended the Mondavi Center’s board meetings ex officio. There, I had the chance to interact with sustaining donors who underwrite performances they are passionate about. I got to know them as individuals who generously and thoughtfully supported great programming. Thanks to them, Davis audiences have access to superstars like Renee Fleming and Joshua Bell as well as rising stars of opera and jazz.
Because of the generosity of the Mondavi Center’s donors, my children have grown up with access to great live music. My son Teddy saw Yo-Yo Ma as a fourth-grader learning cello, participated in a high school jazz workshop with Wynton Marsalis, and experienced greats like Ahmad Jamal and Dr. Lonnie Smith. Now a professional living in Chicago, Teddy still goes to live performances–and writes and performs music with his own innovative band.
The View from Here
My new office in Development and Alumni Relations sits facing the Mondavi Center across a beautiful, named quadrangle in a campus district built entirely by philanthropy. Now dubbed the Gateway District, there is a world-class art museum, an institute for wine and food studies—complete with vineyard—a state-of-the art home for our Graduate School of Management, and more. Beyond the Gateway District, the impacts of donors are visible in new centers dedicated to education, research, and the arts all across campus.
Every day, as I walk into work, I am awed by the impacts of philanthropy. I envision the people behind the names and recognize the passion and generosity that went into their gifts.
I’ve been assigned projects that will help preserve an oceanfront marine science laboratory, fund a new academic program, break new ground in neurotherapeutics. I am honored to have a part in every project that crosses my desk—and I’m no longer afraid to write about money. Because I’ve fallen in love with philanthropy and all it can do.
Sharon Campbell Knox is a writer with Proposal Services, UC Davis Development and Alumni Relations. She has lived in Davis for 23 years and seen a lot of great concerts. Her grandmother, husband, and sons are all musicians.