What is your earliest memory of giving back to your community or engaging in a social cause?
What I explicitly remember is in 7th grade, my mom and I got involved in National Charity League, a mother-daughter organization about volunteering. I don’t think there was a minimum number of hours, but they connected us to volunteer opportunities and I was involved from 7th through 12th grades. One of the first things I remember doing regularly over the summer was Meals on Wheels. My mom would drive, and sometimes we would go into houses together or I would just go in alone. I remember, for me, it exposed me to older, ill, or disabled people who were getting the meals. The living circumstances were often different from what I was used to, which was a typical, comfortable, middle-class suburban neighborhood. I noticed the contrast and knew that we were really helping people by delivering their food. I also remember that one woman was 102 years old and lived in a really cool craftsman style house. She was still living at home but not able to get out much. She really appreciated not only the meals, but also the visits and conversations we had with her. What stuck with me from the whole experience was being exposed to individuals who really needed basic but important help in their day-to-day lives, and feeling like we really were making a difference by simply delivering the food they needed. So, even though it was small commitment on our part, it was a big thing that someone was delivering them the food they were relying on every day to live. The service made it possible for them to maintain a level of independence and live in their own homes.
I like that take-away. It is about collective efforts, and an entity developing a process, in order to create something impactful and bigger. Speaking of leadership and compelling models in the field, who are your philanthropic role models?
A lot of people come to mind, but I’ll start with an example in Los Angeles. Mayor Richard Riordan is one person who I admire and there are several reasons why. One is that he has done a variety of things in his life from business and law to civil service as the Mayor, and now devotes a lot of time to his philanthropy. He is a really great example of someone who isn’t just giving money but is also putting his time and energy behind it. He serves on boards, gets people involved in his causes/organizations he supports, and leverages his connections to benefit the community. It isn’t just about the money but also what he brings to the table in terms of his experience, skills, and connections. It reminds me a lot of the LASVP model. Paul Shoemaker is also someone who I really admire. He was one of the people involved in creating SVP in Seattle 15 years ago, and has been the ED. In terms of being a role model…he is always trying to understand and inspire people. He is a very smart, thoughtful guy. He isn’t just thinking about SVP and how to advance our work, but also about the sector and society as a whole. He is actively changing and influencing the way people think about and participate in effective social change – in part, leveraging the lessons learned through SVP’s new model of philanthropy. He thinks and works at the broader system level—how the system needs to evolve to accelerate or increase the effectiveness of social change.
You are certainly a role model yourself. What advice would you give a recent college graduate on how to make a profound impact on his/her community over a lifetime?
Part of the answer is imbedded in the question which is to think about it over a lifetime. I think each person needs to think about their own strengths, meaning functional or interpersonal skill sets, and then also their passions—what motivates them to be involved and to help increase the quality of life for the community—and then finally their leadership style and skills. And to then think about how to combine strengths in terms of education and training with leadership abilities and the passion—what is the best or most interesting way for you individually to apply that, aligning with opportunities to give back or creating your own opportunities to give back as well. So it may be, like I did it, volunteering and a little bit of giving, focus on career first to build financial stability, and then you feel like you have more flexibility in terms of career choices. After coming out of a corporate life and career path, I was very interested in the issue of improving public education, because I think education is fundamental to creating individual opportunity and self-sufficiency. But how would I do that? I didn’t feel like I was going to go run a school or nonprofit from a content perspective—i.e. be on the delivery side—and I wasn’t interested in working for the school district. About that time I learned about SVP, and thought that I could start by getting involved with others through SVP—and then at EdTec—using my business skills to support educators who were running charter schools. It allowed me to support education reform but do it in a way that my skills were immediately transferrable.
Great advice. Thank you for sharing it. If you could positively change one negative issue facing the Los Angeles community, what would it be and how would you start to approach solving the problem?
Again, the first issue that comes to my mind is education and the state of public education in not only Los Angeles but our country. My point of view is still that this should be an issue that we should have the ability to solve in our lifetime. It was good before when I was going to public school. It is obviously a very complex issue but I think that how I would start to approach it would be everything related to teachers. The system related to teachers—hiring, training, evaluating, rewarding, disciplining or firing —needs to be overhauled. I think the system is very broken, including the laws that keep some of the elements in place. I think tackling that whole system is critical for us to finally getting back on track. It is really not about the money—I have seen this and believe it. I think good teachers should be paid more but I don’t think the big issue is money. It is more about a broken system and the political will to change it. It isn’t about union and non-union. I have relatives who are teachers and in the union. If there is a union and it works, that is fine. From what I have seen and learned over the years, the system itself is extremely complicated and broken, and too many of the incentives are in the wrong place. The incentives and guarantees are misaligned with the best interests of kids. If only I could do this, it would be awesome! The reality is that the charter school movement is putting a lot of pressure on the broken system. It is one angle of what it takes. Not all charters are great schools but many of them are.
I could not agree with you more about the importance of Education in Los Angeles and nationwide. Knowing that you have addressed this and other issues in your work to date, what is your greatest achievement as a philanthropist?
There are three things that are interrelated. One is changing my career as I consider that a decision that was philanthropically motivated. The second is to help establish SVP in LA. I was in the first six months of founding partners, got very involved, and now I am the ED. We’ve continued to grow steadily and help people learn how to become more effective in their philanthropy over time. The total number of people involved with LASVP as Partners over almost 8 years is close to 150. I think through that, one of the cool things we have done is not just get it established here but to help innovate our own model further with the Social Innovation Fast Pitch. The reason I think that is important is that we have been able to reach a broad cross-section of the community and have helped people see that philanthropy can be fun and exciting. To be able to showcase the work and leadership of the nonprofits that go through the program and to have it be inspiring to the audience is really important. The nonprofit leaders see themselves differently after going through the program, and people involved both as volunteers and the audience experience our model of philanthropy and the help and support we give the nonprofits as really energizing and fun.
Congratulations on these accomplishments and for having the guts and passion to make your career shift. I know you have a lot more time and energy to put into the community over the next few years–what do you still hope to accomplish as a philanthropist in your community?
One thing is to motivate more people to be involved in some form of community service or organized philanthropy. Philanthropy is such a limiting word—people’s connotations are millionaires and billionaires and it comes to be associated that way—but we at SVP think about it in a much more expansive way. I’d like to help more of the population to think about philanthropy as being inclusive versus exclusive, coaching people to think about their giving—whether volunteering or more—as being philanthropic.
Last Question–what motivates you to stay involved?
I guess it boils down to optimism. And both seeing through our work at SVP and my individual efforts in the past, how we develop people as leaders, both nonprofit leaders and philanthropic leaders. The results we see from that and believing that because of our work together we really can make change in the community. Helping a number of people have a better life is very rewarding and motivating to me. And I just think there is so much more latent potential for that. So it comes back to being optimistic that despite all of the problems in the community, we can still make our community and the world a better place.
To learn more about Diane and LASVP: 
