Finding $10M in corporate giving
Susan Sarro, executive director, New England American Diabetes Association, New England chapter, Framingham
Susan Sarro took over leadership of the American Diabetes Association in New England at the end of August. In her seven months on the job, she has worked to increase its influence beyond the people who suffer directly from the disease.
Have you mostly done nonprofit work?
I worked for the American Heart Association for 17 years. Then, I had an amazing opportunity to go to a for-profit. I wanted to see what was going on the other side. Philanthropy was changing 10 years ago from the corporate landscape.
I worked for Alex & Ani jewelry company in Rhode Island, and then I worked for Ivory Ella, an online women's fashion line, which gave 10 percent of profits to elephant conservation. In both cases, philanthropy was a big part of their DNA, and I ran their philanthropy programs.
How did you come into your new role?
I got a call in July from somebody I used to work with the American Heart Association, saying she needed me to come to New England. She was working at the American Diabetes Association, and she told me they had a new amazing CEO, Tracey Brown. She's an ex-Walmart executive who took over in June. She's the first CEO to live with diabetes.
One of the reasons I said yes to coming was because I loved the idea of being part of a female-led organization.
There are not a lot of layers in our organization. I am one person away from Tracey, so at any time I have access to her and a strong understanding of her vision.
What is your vision for New England?
The big thing I hope people realize after 3-5 years of my leadership is what it is like to live with diabetes. I don't have diabetes, but to hear my volunteers and families talk about it, the disease is really devastating. It is not a problem; it is a true epidemic.
If you don't have it, you don't understand what people who are affected by it go through on a daily basis.
How do you raise awareness?
In December, the board had its first retreat in many years, and we heard from people who have diabetes.
My plan is to build a new team. When I started here, we had some positions unfilled. We cover all the New England states, and I have a designated staffer in almost every state. I'm at my cap now with nine employees, but I do want to get to 10. Once we get there, I will sit on that for awhile because we have a lot to do.
We only have one staffer who is truly in the office. The rest are in the field.
What is your budget?
Our total operating budget is right around $5 million. We fundraise about $2.6 million of that. That is ridiculously low for this market.
For this market, I'd love to see our ops budget at $10 million. We have so much potential. I see our biggest growth coming from individual and corporate giving.
How do you get to $10 million?
When we are doing fundraising now, the participants are the friends and families of patients. They are the ones driving the fundraising. The biggest area of growth for us will come from working companies with a lot of employees.
One in 10 people have diabetes, so think about how that impacts the workplace. The cost of insulin can be a company's biggest healthcare expense.
What is the corporate cost of diabetes?
Leaders of businesses need to take into account what absenteeism costs. We can have those types of conversations. It is a big issue. The diagnosed diabetes cost in Massachusetts is $7.6 billion. That includes healthcare costs and loss of business productivity. Another 162,000 Massachusetts residents have the disease and haven't been diagnosed.
How do you get that message across?
The people I feel who have carried the organization are the individuals living with diabetes. We are going to make an impact when we have leaders, bigger businesses and those influential people in New England more aware and aligned with us. That is our greatest potential.
We are working on a partnership with TV show “America's Test Kitchen.” When you think about living with diabetes, the biggest challenge is figuring out what to eat. We're trying to come up with a way to teach those with diabetes what to do. We want to do all these exciting things.
When you think about the 79-year history of the organization, it is not the sexiest thing in the world, so if you can get partners like ATK who will raise the level of consciousness, we will do a lot better.
This interview was conducted and edited for length and clarity by WBJ Editor Brad Kane.
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