22 FRONTDOORS MEDIA | JUNE 2018 GENE D’ADAMO 10 QUESTIONS WITH President and CEO of Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust

JUNE 2018 | FRONTDOORS MEDIA 23 1. Has philanthropy always been a part of your life? I was assigned as a loan executive for United Way and remember going on a tour of Sojourner Center, which is a domestic violence shelter that at this time was in downtown Phoenix. That was an epiphany for me. I went back after three months at United Way to the Arizona Republic and said I wanted to move from marketing and sales into community relations. I always volunteered; I always knew there were issues. I just never knew the scope of the issues until I did that. 2. You’ve been on 20 nonprofit boards — what do you look for when you think about joining a board? You have to have a passion for the issue, so the boards where I was most fulfilled and felt I could bring the most to the table were for causes I felt deeply passionate about. I served on boards for the Diabetes Foundation because my daughter is a diabetic, so I think first and foremost you have to have a passion for what the issue is. I feel I have to be able to bring something to the board that they don’t have, whether it’s the ability to fundraise, strategic planning, whatever. I’ve got to bring something to the table and not just put a name on a résumé. 3. How have you seen Phoenix change over the four decades you’ve been in the Valley? If you look back even 22 years ago, we didn’t have the number of private foundations that we have now. Twenty years ago we didn’t have the Piper Trust, didn’t have the Pulliam Trust, didn’t have Helios Foundation, didn’t have BHHS Legacy Foundation. So in the course of X-many years we’ve dramatically increased the pool of funding available. 4. What is something people may not know about the Trust? I would like the public to know that our whole job is to leverage our resources — both financial resources and our social capital and influence — to make a difference in the areas that we focus on: the environment, animals and, obviously, people and education. It’s OK that people don’t know our name off the top of their head. We’re just stewards of our founder’s money. Mrs. Pulliam was a very progressive woman back in her day — the first woman in Indiana to have a private pilot’s license. She and her husband went to Europe after World War II and wrote about that. She was one of the first women admitted to the Society of Professional Journalists. She was a trailblazer back then, so that affords us the ability to be a little bit more innovative in order to do her justice. 5. What makes the ideal grantee for you? The ideal grantee is someone first and foremost that we have a relationship and a partnership with. It’s far more than giving them the check and having them report back. It’s truly got to be a partnership. The best grantee relationships for us are when we look at each other as equal players. There is such a power imbalance between a grantmaker and the nonprofit, and that’s sad, because they’re the people who know what’s going on. They’re in the trenches. They know better than we do how to make things happen. 6. What’s unique about the giving landscape in Phoenix? In the philanthropic world here we work very closely together. It’s extremely collaborative, always. We meet regularly with each other. We pick up the phone and we talk about, “What did you learn and what about this agency?” or “You know, I can’t fund this aspect, but I can do this. Can you do that part of it?” So, there is a tremendous sense of collaboration among the funders and I think that’s actually somewhat unique to metro Phoenix.