Thank You for Supporting Give Day
Why do we have a CLA Foundation? Listen as Denny Schleper, CEO, chats with CLA Foundation leaders and a few beneficiaries.
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Transcript
[00:00:04]
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Narrator: Welcome to “Own the Promise,” a CLA podcast created to share what guides every decision we make and every relationship we cultivate.
[00:00:19]
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Denny: Good morning, CLA family. This is Denny Schleper, and I’m coming to you today actually sitting at our CLA Foundation board meeting. I thought, you know, back in June, we had a Give Day, and I sent out a voicemail to all of the people within CLA asking you to consider contributing and participating in the CLA Foundation. I never had an opportunity, really, to thank you for that participation, and I thought today would be a great way to thank everyone, either if it was with your financial support, your time, or simply your interest in the foundation.
[00:00:59]
Give Day was a tremendous success. We had over a half a million dollars raised on that day alone. We had well over 1,000 people participating in Give Day. When you think about the CLA family and know that well over 20% of us were able to participate in some way financially, I think it’s just a tremendous credit to the organization, our people, and really living the promise that we all talk about.
[00:01:32]
I come to you today, obviously, in the midst of the horrific storms in the Texas region, and you get to see live on television the need of people and how fortunate we all are. We complain about a little bit of rain. A little bit of rain has been made relative in these days when you start to see the horrific damage that’s been caused. So again, people that are not as fortunate as all of us, I think it’s a great time to remember that.
[00:02:02]
So I wanted to pass along my thank you to all of you. I also wanted to give the board of directors an opportunity to introduce themselves and also say a few words to all of you. We’ve never really had an opportunity to do that. So with that, I’d like to turn it over to Brian.
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Brian: Good morning, CLA. This is Brian D’Orazio, the treasurer of the foundation, and, again, just wanted to thank everybody for your support for this great cause and organization.
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Sarah: Good morning. This is Sarah Curfman, associate director of the foundation. Thank you for all your participation in giving day, and if you have any questions on the foundation, we can be reached at clafoundation@claconnect.com.
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John: A shameless plug.
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Sarah: Well.
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John: This is John Langan. Many of you know I wear a lot of hats in the firm, so I’m chief industry officer for the public sector, so that’s relevant to the work we do in the foundation. I have the honor of chairing the CLA firm board, and I also am the chair of the program committee for the foundation, and so making the connection between the firm’s strategy of career-building and the career opportunities we’re providing through the money that you’ve given and the time that you’ve given and the grants that we’re able to give to these worthy organizations is really the CLA promise in action, and connecting those dots, so thank you very much.
[00:03:28]
LaChel: Good morning, everyone. This is LaChel Hird, and I’m part of the career-building leadership team here at CLA. Of course, our focus is everything related to career-building, but very excited to be part of an organization that really took that strategy to be the career-building firm and try to make an impact in our communities across the United States. Very excited about the impact we’ve been able to create and the opportunities that we’re able to give to people in our communities, and excited to see where the foundation goes. Thanks again.
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Kira: Hello, this is Kira Sexton, a director from the Indianapolis office, and I just want to thank you for participating and really making an extension of the CLA promise in the way that you guys are contributing to the foundation.
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Steve: Hi, CLA family. This is Steve Rosa, retired principal from the Plymouth meeting office in Pennsylvania. I was a public sector principal when I was with the firm, and now I am the executive director of the foundation, so I’m able to just extend on from some of the things that I was doing while I was working to really give back to the community now. Thank you so much for your participation over the last two years, really, for everything you’ve done financially, time-wise, and look forward to bigger and brighter things as we go forward.
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Sarah: Hi. This is Sarah Johnson from the Charlotte office, and I just want to thank you for help making this dream a reality for so many people across the firm and providing so many opportunities to those within the firm and outside.
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Jan: Good morning, everyone. This is Jan Kruchoski with CLA Search and firm-wide community and civic involvement, and chair of the foundation board, and I am just thrilled to be able to have you hear my voice and how grateful I am, and on behalf of the board, we all are for your incredible commitment to this organization and commitment to the communities that we serve. Wow. All I can say is thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart, and looking forward to our continued work and your continued contributions, both financially and through volunteering. Thanks again, everyone.
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Hello, everyone. My name is Mindy Plewacki. I work in the public sector group out of the Minneapolis office, and I am part of the foundation kind of staff team and help out with some coordination and administrative work. On giving day, I received an email notification after every donation that was made, and my email was going crazy, and it was exciting to see just the momentum and the excitement from everyone, and it was just really inspiring to know that CLA is just full of such generous and thoughtful people that want to continue to help give back to our communities.
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Denny: We also have a new board member this morning that’s joining us by phone, so Linda, by phone, if you’d like to greet the CLA family.
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Linda: Yes, Denny. Thank you so much. This is Linda Saddlemire. I’m a principal with the Glendora, California, office. I’m delighted to be a part of the foundation. It’s exciting to see what’s happening, and as Denny mentioned, there’s all sorts of needs in our society, and so having this vehicle to make a difference is great for all of us, and I thank you deeply for the donations and the attention that the foundation is getting, and I look forward to continuing to help and make a difference and see the CLA promise through. Thank you.
[00:06:56]
Denny: Also this morning, we have a great opportunity. Many of you across the country mentioned the grand recipients, the benefactors of the CLA Foundation. Could we hear from them? Could there be some stories as to where our dollars go and how our mission really impacts the mission of individuals and missions of other organizations? So actually, today, we have Gary Cunningham from MEDA, and we have Sondra Samuels from the Northside Achievement Zone both with us at our board meeting, and I’d love for them just to share a little bit of information on themselves and their organization for all of you in the CLA family. Sondra?
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Sondra: Yeah. Thank you, Denny. Hi. This is Sondra Samuels, and I am president and CEO of the Northside Achievement Zone, and I want to start out by saying thank you, thank you, thank you. We cannot do the work that we’re doing in North Minneapolis without partners like you investing in our work, but most importantly investing in our families and children.
[00:07:57]
Just really quickly, ours is an organization that’s working to end multi-generational poverty using education and whole-family support as a two levers, and we do wrap-around support for all of our families. We have about 1,000 families and 2,200 scholars 0 to 18, and 40 partners: housing, health, career, early-childhood, K-12, after-school, and college, and a whole host of family education classes, and I got to tell you, we’re seeing some amazing results in terms of more of our babies, who are typically behind, because North Minneapolis is the heart of inequity, arguably in our city and in our state, across racial lines, but more of our babies are ready for kindergarten, more gaining growth and proficiency, third through fifth grade, more parents really engaging with their schools and each other and on a leadership track, and going to the capital.
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I mean, I could go on. But we could not do this work with 40 partners providing this wrap-around without all of you, and so thank you. You know, I’m gonna close with Bishop Tutu’s quote. He said, “We absolutely have everything we need, except each other,” and when we get partners like CLA, I get more hopeful that we actually do have each other; we just need to do more of it, so thank you.
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Gary: My name is Gary Cunningham, and I want to first thank CLA for the opportunity to be a partner with you in transforming lives and changing communities. I think the contribution that you’ve made to MEDA shows up as jobs and economic opportunity in communities where those don’t exist as readily. So MEDA is an organization that actually focuses on, “How do we use the market system to transform communities? How do we use the market system to create social good?”
[00:10:01]
It was actually part of the founding of MEDA that actually said that, if we can create minority entrepreneurs, they will hire people in the community, and we will see better outcomes, and that vision that was started 45 years ago actually has happened, meaning people are getting jobs and economic opportunities because we see more and more entrepreneurs make a difference.
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Every time you add an entrepreneur to an African-American family or a Latino family, you actually can increase their income and their wealth by about 600%. This is really making a difference. CLA has been part of my family for many years. I hired CLA back in 1993 at Scott County, where they did a lot of work for me. I then hired CLA when I was vice president of the Northwest Area Foundation to do a lot of work for us, and CLA still works with me to today, so CLA and my whole career has been tied together around success and making a difference for people in this community, so thank you so much.
[00:11:14]
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Denny: Gary and Sondra, thank you so much for sharing those stories, and obviously, there’s grant recipients all throughout the country. This was an opportunity, while we were having the board meeting in Minneapolis, to have two of them present. I oftentimes want to make sure that I thank all of you for what you do at CLA. This morning was an opportunity to thank you for what all of you are doing in one way or another for the CLA Foundation. Thank you all. I hope you have a wonderful rest of the week.
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Denny is the chief executive officer of CLA. As he goes about his duties related to the oversight of CLA’s direction, operations, expansion, and strategy, he is also an enthusiastic ambassador for the CLA Promise. He is fully committed to the firm’s position as a professional services firm that delivers integrated wealth advisory, outsourcing, and audit, tax, and consulting capabilities to help our clients succeed professionally and personally.
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