Q&A with Pew’s incoming VP of Philadelphia programs: Donna Frisby-Greenwood

On Oct. 3, Donna Frisby-Greenwood will begin her new position as the Pew Charitable Trusts’ vice president of Philadelphia programs, leading the organization’s portfolio of grant making and programming work in the city.

But the outgoing president and CEO of The Fund for the School District of Philadelphia didn’t start out in the philanthropic sector — she started as a substitute teacher.

Education is a through line in her career. So is Philadelphia.

Frisby-Greenwood answered questions for The Inquirer; responses have been edited for brevity and clarity:

It makes me laugh.

I know it’s a comedy but some of it is based on truth. Teachers work hard and have a lot to contend with, particularly now that children have so many social emotional needs that used to be taken care of by the family. Teachers and other school staff are asked to do a lot.

I laugh at some of the things, but I think some people get offended by it because the School District isn’t that bad.

What I love about the show is it has brought attention to public education and it shows people in school buildings and what they have to go through and how they have to persevere.

One of the lessons I learned from my first job as a long-term substitute teacher for two years, is patience.

The students had been through 10 subs by the time I got there in the first week of October. It was going to be a long-term spot, but I remember the principal telling me that everyone who comes quits after a day or two.

This seventh-grade class, for some reason, was very rambunctious. They were the class with the worst reputation in the school. What I learned is that they needed somebody that they knew was going to stay. They needed consistency and they needed love.

The other lesson I took with me is that if you are honest and transparent with people, they will trust you. Once you build that trust, a lot can happen.

Building trust is what I have tried to do with any team I have gone on to lead.

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(I was working as an Urban 4-H agent in Philadelphia then, but) I wanted to do more developing young people around leadership.

We started Children’s First on sweat equity, and when we raised enough money to afford my salary, I resigned from 4-H.

I was starting an organization from scratch.

I learned I could do anything.

The vice president of communities for Knight Foundation at the time, Trabian Shorters, asked me if there was anything we were not doing that we should be doing.

He wasn’t talking about Philly only and I said, I think we should be in the Black male space. I was reading a lot of negative things about Black men, but my experience was different. I told him that what we were reading about Black males was not indicative of all Black males.

We started storytelling by asking who were the Black men in the community doing the great work that we might fund. Also, we wanted to know how to get those stories out there.

The lesson I learned is that grant making is not as easy as I thought it was when I was on the nonprofit side — you must make the case why your idea might work.

I enjoyed the work that we were doing at the Knight Foundation but we weren’t funding in education.

I had been reading these articles about the troubles we were having — and someone told me that former Superintendent (William) Hite was interested in rebuilding the school’s foundation. I agreed to meet Dr. Hite, learn more about the position. My thought was, I have got to help this man and help our public schools.

The Fund went from a database of zero donors to 4,000 donors and we raised over $41 million while I was there.

My takeaway? If you build it, they will come. If there is a way, Philadelphians will give.

Philanthropy can support policies that work. It can do the research and find out about policies that are working in other places. Philanthropy can see ideas and test them and see if they work and then they can get picked up.

I think philanthropy can bring people closer together in helping to address some systemic issues.

(But) philanthropy can’t bring in the money that government does.

Growing up, I loved Philly. I saw no problems with Philly. I could go to any part of the city and have a family member there.

That view changed when I got that seventh-grade class.

I realized that every child didn’t have what I had. That was the first time I realized that every kid can’t be a kid because they are dealing with adult problems and adult issues.

There was poverty in the city when my parents were growing up. Certainly, there were mental health issues and substance abuse issues. I think some of the problems (now) come because people got disconnected from supports and there’s a hopelessness now.

I think part of that is because there is a lack of family-sustaining jobs. Now you see service jobs are starting to pay more but they weren’t always paying family-sustaining wages.

I say this, it took officials too long to recognize the gun violence problem. Maybe not recognize but organize around it and do something about it.

I do think workforce development and preparation and job creation is also critically important in our city.

I am also very concerned about housing. Are we are going to price out the average person?

Oh my goodness, that’s a hard one. Right now, one of my favorites is The Love on Rittenhouse Square. I like South, too.

One of my favorites was Veep with Julia Louis-Dreyfus but it’s no longer on. I like Abbott Elementary.

“Never Stop” by the Brand New Heavies.

These are really hard questions. I love water so I love being on the waterfront whether its Spruce (Street) Harbor Park or Liberty Point, the new restaurant, which has a great deck with a great view of water. I love the view.

I think something I read more recently that everybody should read is Give and Take by Adam Grant. He teaches at Penn. I read it about four or five years ago and he talks about why helping others actually drives success in companies.

You know what one I haven’t been to — the Paul Robeson House.

The one that I’ve been thinking about the most is from Bryan Stevenson: “We cannot create justice without getting close to places where injustices prevail. We have to get proximate.”

Our grantees are proximate, and we have to spend more time with our grantees and work they are doing. I am saying that about philanthropy in general. You can feel like you are not close enough to the work.

One thing I used to do at Knight is bring my grantees together across portfolios. They were learning and sharing best practices, failures, and successes. And I was getting out to visit grantees.