Worcester Business Journal

8 Worcester Business Journal | January 24, 2022 | wbjournal.com New to the community e new CEO of the Greater Worcester Community Foundation sits down with Monica Benevides to lay out his vision for long-term equity and opportunity around the city J im Ayres took the helm as CEO and president at the Greater Worcester Community Foundation at the start of the new year, replac- ing Barbara Fields, who resigned as head of the organization in March aer 19 months in the position. Ayres relocated to Worcester from Western Massachusetts, most recently serving as the founder and principal of the organi- zational development consulting practice Strategies for Collaborative Impact and Justice in Easthampton. Before that, he served as vice president for programs and strategy at Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, and inter- im president and CEO of United Way of Pioneer Valley. He spoke with WBJ about what it is, exactly, that community foundations do, supporting equity at a time of rapid development, and his vision for how GWCF can further support the Greater Worcester community. Can you tell me a bit about yourself and where you're from? So, I originally grew up in Philadel- phia, but have lived in Massachusetts for more than 30 years at this point. So more than half of my life has been spent here in Massachusetts, and I see it as my home. Most of that has been in Western Massachusetts, and I'm excited now to be here in Worcester and engaged in a deep level with this community. You went to school in Massachusetts, exclusively, right? Several times. I did. I did my under- graduate degree at Hampshire College, which is in Amherst. I earned an MBA with a nonprofit focus at UMass Am- herst. And then I did an international affairs degree at Tus University at e Fletcher School. So, through all of those educational venues, what led you to working in the nonprofit and philanthropic spheres? My career has really been almost all in the nonprofit sector. And I'd say the first half of that I spent in direct service organizations, so working in nonprof- its directly working on challenges and opportunities from the community, including family service organizations, as well as leading an organization wel- coming new immigrants and refugees. I really enjoy doing that work. I was always attracted to sort of macro level and system level organizations or issues. So, in addition to doing those works, I served on a lot of statewide boards and committees doing policy work related to economic development, workforce de- velopment, and education. With that, I was excited to step over into the philan- thropy and funding world, which really allows me to work on thinking about how you solve problems on a larger and more macro level. So I did that working with two different United Way organizations, and then most recently doing that work with the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, a neighboring community foundation doing that. Is there any particular cause you've been drawn to more than others over the years? e beauty of this work is getting to be a generalist, so getting to know lots of different needs in the commu- nity, getting to know a lot of different organizations and the different levers we can pull to try to create change. My expertise is related to family issues, economic development, and integrating refugee issues. But I really pride myself on having a deep understanding of a lot of issues that intersect. Can you give a layman's explanation of what a community foundation is? Community foundations are chari- table foundations – so, we're a private, nonprofit foundation raising resources we put to work to make our community the best place that it can be. ere's two components making the foundations unique: one is our place-based focus, so we're specifically focused on the city of Worcester and its surrounding communities. e other unique piece is the dollars we raise are not just from one family or one contri- bution, or one corporation, but rather, they come to us from donors all around the region. A large percentage of the assets we have – and we have about $200 million – are assets focused on the long-term, if not invested in perpetuity. So, not only can we be responsive to short-term challenges when they come up, but we can be very focused on long-term strat- egies that may not pay off until years or decades down the road. Could you point to an example of one of those long-term investments you don't see a return on right away? In any community, one of the best places you can work toward is creating future opportunity. And our foundation believes and has done a lot of work around building opportunity through early childhood, giving families and children support early on so they're starting out in a place where they'll be able to find success down the line. e other piece we're very interest- ed in, with a long-term focus, is the concept of equity. Worcester is in a really exciting place right now with a lot of opportunity, a lot of exciting things going forward, but if we're not careful, those opportunities are going to benefit those who are well-off and leave behind PHOTO | COURTESY OF GREATER WORCESTER COMMUNITY FOUNDATION Jim Ayres, president and CEO of Greater Worcester Community Foundation BY MONICA BENEVIDES WBJ Senior Staff Writer

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