“All the money in the world cannot solve problems unless we work together. And, if we work together, there is no problem in the world that can stop us, as we seek to develop people to their highest and best potential.” Ewing Marion Kauffman
Gloria Jackson-Leathers, senior advisor to the president, community engagement, retires this summer after 28-plus years with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and this is one of her favorite quotes.
“It just resonated with who I am as a person,” she said. Who that person is was shaped early as she grew up in a loving family in the south; a family that instilled values built on serving people and community that she carried into how she lives her life, and did her work.
That work started in banking where she engaged both banking and community leaders in conversations to learn what each needed from the other, and for banks, to also come to understand how those needs differ from neighborhood to neighborhood. It was on a site visit to Beacon Hill as a community reinvestment officer where she learned about the program officer position at the Kauffman Foundation. That opened the door to her career in philanthropy.
“I had a lot to learn about philanthropy,” Jackson-Leathers said. “However, one thing is the same in banking and philanthropy – relationships are foundational. How you navigate a community is often more important than the dollar, which goes away in time but meaningful relationships last forever”
Jackson-Leathers’ relationship with Community Builders of Kansas City stretches back to CBKC founder Chuck Gatson’s era and continued to the present day. She calls CBKC a “critical organization.”
“Not enough leaders in the community understand the role CBKC plays,” she said. “CBKC touches everything in our underserved communities, taking on challenges and roles that sometimes put them in spaces and places that cost the organization more than they can hope to earn back.”
She said CBKC presents an opportunity for philanthropy, not just the Kauffman Foundation, but the broader philanthropic community, to recognize critical institutions like CBKC and come alongside them to assure their mission is sustainable.
“CBKC takes on so many things for this community that is not even in their mission,” she added. “When you ask the two questions we did when I was leading the Kauffman Foundation’s Civic Team – what would Kansas City be without CBKC and what problem is CBKC solving – you see its critical nature.”
Jackson-Leathers got a close look at our critical institutions after she established the Foundation’s Kansas City Civic department earlier in her career. Its scope was to support community assets that bring organizations together around shared goals. Beyond funding, its work centered on convening leaders, building partnerships and helping community organizations find common ground. The department reflected Jackson-Leathers’ belief that lasting progress comes through relationships and collaboration, with philanthropy serving as a catalyst for communities to solve problems and create opportunity together.
This belief was manifest in two other initiatives that stand out for Jackson-Leathers. One was running one of the Foundation’s largest initiatives, the Kansas City Freedom Schools. A summer enrichment program that teaches students the value of reading with comprehension, Kansas City at one time had the largest number of Freedom Schools in the country. The other was redevelopment of the 18th & Vine District. “We were able to commit $1 million – a large investment for the Foundation at the time – in a program-related grant to support the Jazz District Redevelopment Corporation in planning the district’s revitalization,” she said
Jackson-Leathers brought the values instilled in her by her family – to understand and help meet the needs of people and community – to her work at the Kauffman Foundation. CBKC is grateful for her decades of leadership, partnership and advocacy for Kansas City’s underserved neighborhoods. She has left a lasting mark on the Foundation and the communities it serves.