Empower By Example
Jake Goodman, Executive Director of The Opportunity Fund Part 2
In today’s episode:
Jake Goodman, Executive Director of The Opportunity Fund.
In our second episode with Jake Goodman from The Opportunity Fund, Jake and I talk openly about our personal struggle with imposter syndrome. As Jake states, in almost everything that we fund, people are going to do even if they don’t have access to the funds. We realize that the founders of these amazing programs and initiatives will run their programs without paying themselves. We become close with the people and programs we fund.
When Jake asks me what I have learned by coming back to Pittsburgh after 13 years, we begin discussing the disparities between the haves and the have nots in Pittsburgh. We frankly question the existence of foundations and ask if Pittsburgh is one of the most philanthropic regions in the nation, why are the disparities still so profound?
The Rock Family Foundation and The Opportunity Fund work together and parallel to each other in many ways. Our partnership is important because we amplify our impact and our message when we support the same programs and funding areas. We are both currently working on the renovations for Downtown Pittsburgh’s low barrier winter homeless shelter. If you have questions about where we fund and how we decide which projects to back, please email Laura at rockfamilyfoundation@gmail.com.
Laura Rock With a background in software and sales and marketing, Empower by Example host Laura Rock found that those skills did not translate easily to being a stay at home mom of two little kids. She tried network marketing, writing a blog and volunteering, but those endeavors did not fulfill her part time. In 2017 Laura founded The Rock Family Foundation to serve young women of color who are exiting foster care and other county run services. Going from for-profit sales to non-profit management was a huge switch, and Laura found ways to pull in the strategies and benchmarks from her past career into the private foundation. With an emphasis on collaboration and synergy The Rock Family Foundation attempts to build relationships between traditional funders and unconventional programming. And a central awareness campaign focusing on nonprofit leaders in urban PA became important to showcase those relationships, as did telling the stories of the young women transitioning to the next phases of their lives.
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