Where collaboration begins

By Sue Hafkemeyer / President and CEO

Hello. I’m Sue. And I’m really glad to be a new Quad Citizen.

I’ve spent my first days as president and CEO of the Quad Cities Community Foundation getting to know my new colleagues, my new peers at organizations across the region, and my new friends and neighbors. To say that sparking these connections has been a joy doesn’t do justice to the tremendous enthusiasm I share with everyone I’ve met for what we can all do together.

After all, despite everything that’s new and fresh about my welcome to the Community Foundation, collaboration has been a constant throughout my career. As I look eagerly ahead to the region-wide collaboration I can support as the leader of this organization, I’m taking the opportunity, at this early juncture, to dwell in the place where I believe collaboration begins: active listening. With each new Quad Citizen I meet, I’m learning more and more about what it will mean to be an advocate for the community—what its needs and opportunities are and how the Community Foundation can best position itself to help address them.

We have always invested in listening and learning so we can act to amplify goodness in the region. Sitting down with each member of our talented team, I’m struck by how deeply embedded listening is to how we carry out our mission. Take, for example, our development team’s incredible ability to pinpoint the intersection of what donors care about and what their community needs. That type of connectivity only happens when we take the time to listen to and understand; when we do that, we can act with an impact that truly is transformational.

Or consider our grantmaking team’s recent evaluation of our Nonprofit Capacity Building Grants program. Through a rigorous process, the team heard how critical this type of funding is to our community’s nonprofits. And they didn’t just hear it—they gathered the actual data necessary to support enhancements to the program, including an increase in its annual budget from $215,000 to $300,000, meaning our region’s nonprofits will have more resources to do the things we know advance their missions. (If you haven’t read the recent write-up on the evaluation, I encourage you to take a look here!)

These are just the types of collaborative actions I hope to lay the groundwork for by spending this time listening. I’d like to thank everyone who has so generously shared their hopes for the Quad Cities with me. I welcome you to email me to share your thoughts or call the office at 563/326-2840 to set up some time to talk.

And I invite you to join me in listening with fresh ears to what your fellow community-members have to say so that you can act together effectively. It is only by listening—and then truly collaborating—that we can make a difference that’s much bigger than if we were to try to go it alone.