By Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Staff

The Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Livingston Fellowship Program provides advanced learning opportunities to promising nonprofit leaders who hold significant leadership roles in Colorado’s nonprofit sector.

We spoke to Livingston Fellow alum (Class of 2011), Alyssa Kopf, who is currently the CEO of Community Shares but just announced that she is soon joining The Denver Foundation to serve as the new Director of Operations.

A couple of things are certain after our interview with Alyssa: 1] She is going to great things at The Denver Foundation, and 2] She had the best career aspirations when she was young.

Read on to learn more:

BSF: How has the Livingston Fellowship shaped your current views on leadership?
AK: The idea to press pause and look around. What is it that you’re looking for as a professional? What do you do best? The more you know yourself as a leader, the better leader you are. Good leaders take time to reflect, participate in real life opportunities, try new things – and confidently move forward with that knowledge.

BSF: You’re leaving Community Shares soon—what are you going to miss the most about the organization?

Alyssa Kopf

(Photo Courtesy: Community Shares)

AK: Without a doubt, I will miss the people that are part of the Community Shares community the most. We have a really interesting giving model. We were founded by nonprofits to create a funding source the way nonprofits would build it themselves. We hold value around transparency, equality and inclusiveness that comes out in everything that we do.

It’s a very unique structure in that, the nonprofits still have a governing role in the fundraising community. Our members get to vote on what kind of nonprofits join our membership model and who will serve as our board of directors.

Over the past 13 years, I’ve been able to work with representatives from our 100 member nonprofits and get to know their work in a meaningful way and learn from them. We are working with 150 businesses in our Workplace Giving Campaign so you get to interact with businesses and business people who are really thinking about corporate philanthropy and community building.

That’s what I’m really going to miss. Being that ambassador for that sentiment. And of course all the people who make Community Shares so successful.

BSF: Do you think Denver has a strong culture of philanthropy? Or is there still work to be done?
AK: I think we do have some work to do, especially in communication around philanthropy. For one, the importance of philanthropy as a specific building component. You see that all around town now with the amazing green belts and parks and libraries. These were made possible when there was this balance of government investment in the city but also the individual philanthropists that have put these in place. So I think it’s really time as the city grows to hope for another round of private and public investment to make the city great.

We need to continue to talk about it: What are our shared goals? What benefits everyone? How can the private, public and non-profit sectors be a part of that?

BSF: What are you going to bring from Community Shares to The Denver Foundation?
AK: What I’m hoping to bring from Community Shares is our perspective on internal management of donor funds and that is the best way to show how we appreciate being trusted with people’s philanthropic dollars – to do our work well and to constantly improve our work every day. So that is something I look forward to bringing over to the Denver Foundation is that perspective that there should be a joy in our work both externally and internally and there is so much we can add every step of the way.

BSF: As a child, what career dreams did you have?
AK: I probably had a unique experience growing up in that my parents were first generation high school attendees and then went on to college and moved to the city from rural Idaho. So the people in my life had all sorts of different careers.

Erik Estrada from

Erik Estrada from “CHiPS”

So when I was little I wanted to be a motorcycle cop. Probably because I liked the TV show, “CHiPs”.  My cousin and I wanted to be the first interstate child motorcycle cops. I think it has always been around – the idea of a civic component, you know, helping people. It has certainly evolved. For a while I wanted to be a high school history teacher, I have a history degree. But then the more I spent in philanthropy, the more interested I was at running really great nonprofits.

I love managing teams. Implementing values into those systems. Your daily work is a reflection of your mission and brand as to who you want to be. That’s where it took me eventually. No little kid says they want to be a fundraiser when they grow up!

BSF: Last but certainly not least: What advice do you give future Livingston Fellows?
AK: The best advice I got when I was making my plan was to remember that I was already awarded the fellowship. Your plan doesn’t have to be an award-winning plan. It is about you. It is about you and taking the time to discover where you want to stretch, not where you think others will be impressed where you stretch. I would suggest slowing down and thinking about experiences you wouldn’t have without this opportunity – and exploring those. Those experiences will shine a light on you as a leader and the path you’re going to choose.