199: Finding Your Passion as a Nonprofit Leader (Helena Scott)

199: Finding Your Passion as a Nonprofit Leader (Helena Scott)

SUMMARY

How do you find – and keep - your passion as a nonprofit leader? In episode #199 of Your Path to Nonprofit Leadership, Helena Scott shares her remarkable two-decade journey with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and what sustains her energy and motivation. She discusses challenges, benefits and unique opportunities inherent to being a part of a national chapter organization and her leadership approach to such things as fundraising, board engagement, and talent acquisition and retention. Helena also shares her best advice for finding that proverbial work-life balance.

ABOUT HELENA

Helena Scott is a Regional Advancement Director of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS), covering North Carolina and Virginia. She has been with LLS in a variety of roles over the past 22 years and has worked in the oncology field since graduating from Washington University in St. Louis in 1999. Helena began her career at Memorial Sloan Kettering working in business management before accepting her first position at LLS in its New York office in 2001. During her tenure in NY, Helena oversaw the largest fundraising campaign and market in the country, generating over $8MM in a single year through LLS's flagship sports endurance program Team in Training. In 2011, shortly after the birth of her first son, Helena co-founded LLS’s Moms In Training program, a unique initiative bringing like-minded moms together to achieve their fitness and philanthropic goals. In 2015, Helena accepted a position as the Director of the Charlotte office where she quickly transformed the languishing market. Under her leadership, the Charlotte team increased its flagship campaigns from $900,000 to $5,500,000 in just 4 years, breaking LLS fundraising records, and elevating Charlotte to one of the fastest markets nationally. During her time running the Charlotte office, Helena oversaw the first Man & Woman of the Year campaign to ever break $3 million nationally, and also initiated a multi-million-dollar Students of the Year campaign in Charlotte. She has been a top national fundraiser for the past decade, raising just shy of $1,000,000, a milestone she hopes to break this year.

EPISODE TOPICS & RESOURCES