Episode 04: Allison Williams

“When I was at Queen’s, I had a strong sense of gratitude for what being a part of a community provided me” 

What makes someone want to become a student donor? In this episode, Allison Williams, Artsci'09, tells us about her experience at Queen’s that has inspired her extraordinary commitment to philanthropy.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Cause & Effect, Episode 4: Allison Williams, Artsci’09

Host: “You have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.” The immortal words of Theodor Seuss Geisel -- Dr. Seuss. That, of course, was the opening line of a Dr. Seuss classic -- Oh! The Places You’ll Go, always a popular selection at this time of year.

Final exams are wrapping up. Convocation is coming up. And Oh! The Places You’ll Go starts flying up to the top of the bestseller lists. It’s a rite of spring. It happens every year, just as reliably as the snow melting, the birds coming back, and Queen’s students leaving town.

 I’m Deborah Melman-Clement, and this is Cause and Effect, a Queen’s Alumni Review podcast, where we dive into the motivations of philanthropists and explore what they’re passionate about and the impact they have on the world. 

It’s not surprising that Oh! The Places You’ll Go is such a big seller at this time of year. It’s a story with universal appeal. Actually, it’s not really a story at all. It’s just a narrator talking to a young person, giving them a preview of how their life might unfold. It’s the perfect optimistic message for a new graduate with the world at their feet.

Allison Williams had the world at her feet – and her feet in her shoes – when she graduated from high school in the spring of 2005. Her world was pretty narrowly defined at that point:  Emo, Ontario, population: 1,200, a hunting-and-fishing-resort town on the Rainy River, just across the Minnesota border.

Allison: I think we forget now that in recent history, places like that did feel very far away and disconnected from the rest of the world. So, I very much had a rural upbringing in a very isolated place.

Host: Allison was happy in Emo. She was a good student -- active and involved in school. Like the kid in the story, she was “too smart to go down any not-so-good street.” 

And also like that kid, she “couldn’t find any street that she’d like to go down, and in that case, of course, headed straight out of town.” Straight out of town for Allison meant Queen’s, a 21-hour drive from Emo. She’d never seen it, but she’d heard about it – in high school – from Mrs. Briere, her beloved English teacher.

Allison:  And so, when Mrs. Briere mentioned that she had gone to Queen’s and had a very positive experience and she encouraged all of us to consider attending Queen’s, I paid attention and I thought, ‘oh, wow, maybe a place like Queen’s would be a very cool place for me to go,’ even though it was so much farther away than the other options that most of my peers were considering.

Host:  When Allison arrived at Queen’s, she experienced a bit of culture shock. Actually, most people experience culture shock when they come to Queen’s, but Allison’s culture shock was a little different.

Allison:  For me, Kingston felt really big and exciting, and I remember finding it kind of a funny contrast to some of the students I met in my first year who were from Toronto and larger centres who really felt like they were heading out to a rural and calm and small environment. It was very interesting to contrast those experiences with mine, which is that Kingston is a giant, exciting new place. 

Host: The sense of possibility she felt – it was like Dr. Seuss was writing to her: “It’s opener there, in the wide-open air. Out there, things can happen and frequently do – to people as brainy and footsy as you. And then things start to happen. Don’t worry, don’t stew. Just go right along. You’ll start happening too.”

OK. I promise you that’s the last time you’ll hear me quote Oh! The Places You’ll Go. But, you know, not long after Allison arrived at Queen’s, she did start happening. Or maybe a better way of saying it is she made things happen. A lot of things.

Allison: In my first year I was an intern with the AMS, the Alma Mater Society, so I was really exposed to student government and exposed to all the clubs and all the committees that are supported by the AMS. And I ended up having a pretty significant leadership experience in my second year. I was the Social Issues Commissioner for the AMS. It was kind of early to take on that kind of leadership experience, but I felt like I had a bit of a head start in a way, because I kind of knocked that opportunity off the list.

Host:  And that was just her first two years. She did even more in her next two.

Allison:  I managed the food bank. I also became involved with the Office of Advancement with some of the student leadership opportunities there. In my fourth year I was the inaugural president of the Queen’s Student Alumni Association.

Host: She was also a residence don, and a server at Clark Hall Pub, and she belonged to a group that wrote skits about social issues and performed them at high schools in Kingston. To say that her calendar was full might be an understatement. And at the heart of it all was a desire to belong – to find that community that comes so easily in a small town.

Allison:  I’m this young person who is feeling very, very far away from my family, and the other thing was no one else from my high school came to Queen’s. I didn’t know anyone at all. So, I think because of that I was looking earlier and perhaps more earnestly to find community at Queen’s.

Host:  There was one other thing Allison did while she was at Queen’s: She became a philanthropist. Advancement professionals love to talk about student-donors – because they’re the ones who are most likely to graduate and become alumni donors. But the truth is, they’re not that common, you know -- because most students are on a pretty tight budget. So, what makes someone want to become a student-donor?

Allison:  I think it probably truly is connected to how I threw myself into all that Queen’s had to offer.  Because even when I was at Queen’s, I think I had a strong sense of gratitude for what being a part of that community provided me. 

Host: Gratitude. There it is again. It’s the single biggest motivator for philanthropy, especially at Queen’s.

Allison: Queen’s set me on a path academically and also extracurricularly that basically set me up to launch me onto the career path that I have and that I find really personally satisfying and gratifying. 

Host:  Allison’s career path led her to grad school and eventually to law school. Today she’s a staff lawyer at non-profit clinic that gives free legal representation to vulnerable kids and homeless young people.

Allison   There’s been a social justice thread throughout a lot of the things I did at Queen’s. And Queen’s provided me the basis to continue being involved in social justice. And now I’m a lawyer working in a legal clinic doing that kind of work in my career. I don’t know that I would have ended up in the place that I am now had I not gone to Queen’s. I think things would have been a bit different.

Host: Allison’s gratitude extends a bit further – not just to the university itself, but also to the donors who contributed to the bursaries that helped make it possible for a young woman from Emo, Ontario to study at Queen’s.

Allison:  Knowing that you’re going to have to travel and pay for your accommodations wherever you go, that can be a pretty daunting task. Also, paying for trips back and forth – that’s another expense that students who don’t have the option of attending school locally have. So, I think the financial assistance made attending Queen’s something that might have been out of reach had I not had financial support.

Host:  Today she pays that generosity forward, giving to bursaries that make a Queen’s education available to a new generation of students. Allison’s cause is young people, and her passion is philanthropy. It’s a passion she hopes to keep indulging throughout her lifetime.

Allison:  I don’t know if I’ll ever become one of those people who regularly attends galas and has a ton of money to donate, but I think I will continue to support Queen’s, and as my resources change or increase, it’s my hope that I’ll continue to support Queen’s and increase my giving as resources and circumstances allow and to continue to find causes within the cause that excite me. 

Host: Recently she discovered a new way to indulge her passion.

Allison:  One of the things that I started doing at some point was when I do make a donation, I will typically make a donation in honour of someone. I just saw that on the form, and I thought why not make my donations in honour of people who have had a meaningful impact on me or my choice to make this specific gift. And so typically now when I make a gift to Queen’s, I will make it in honour of someone, and Queen’s will send them a note on my behalf saying, ‘Allison has made a donation on your behalf,’ and I get to write a little note, and people are always very touched.

Host:  To be fair, Allison’s extraordinary commitment to philanthropy is probably a reflection of the time she spent at Queen’s Advancement. You see, in addition to her term as president of the Student Alumni Association, she also spent her first year after graduation working at the Office of Advancement.

Allison:  Having been the first Student Alumni Association President, I got to work closely with some of the staff in the Office of Advancement, and I guess they liked working with me and my enthusiasm for the student-alumni relations, and so they invited me to be put forth as their candidate for the TD Insurance/Meloche Monnex Fellowship, where schools can apply to have a fellow work with them for a year. And so I was Queen’s candidate, and I was selected. So yeah, I got to spend another year at Queen’s working on, I think it was primarily young alumni projects. But it was an amazing opportunity to travel to different cities and meet alumni and just getting a different perspective on the activities of advancement from an insider’s perspective and the importance of fundraising and supporting the mission of the university.

Host:  She continues her relationship with Advancement today – as a member of the Queen’s University Alumni Association’s Board of Directors. Not just any member, mind you. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that Allison is the Director of Giving. And all that experience with the world of advancement uniquely qualifies her to share some insight on how to sustain a great relationship with an enthusiastic young donor when you’re lucky enough to find one.

Allison:  Paying attention to your students: It’s very easy to have a student around and perhaps not really make them feel part of the bigger picture. And I think that’s been a real success with the relationships I’ve had with the staff in Advancement. I’ve always felt really engaged, really welcomed. 

It has a lot to do with the staff making me feel like I was an important part of the community when I was a student – again, not waiting until I was a lady in a ball gown at the Gala Dinner.

Host:   It’s pretty good advice. When you find a donor who clearly cares about your cause, listen to them. Make them feel like they’re part of the family. Because that enthusiasm and commitment – it’s the key to fundraising success. It’s the key to impact. It’s the key to everything. 

You know, I promised I wouldn’t quote Oh! The Places You’ll Go again. So instead, I’ll wrap up with a line from another Dr. Seuss classic, that also seems like it was written for Allison. This is from The Lorax -- …  “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

I want to take one last moment to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our executive producers, Karen Bertrand and Scott Anderson. And also my Advancement colleagues, Michelle Fuko, Sara Franca, Natalie Shearer, Alex Beshara, Callum Linden, Yeshi Dolma, Grace Morton, and Wendy Treverton. And, of course, I want to thank Allison Williams who had such a great story to tell.

Do you have a great philanthropy story that you’re ready to tell? If you do, we so want to hear from you. You can reach out to your relationship manager if you have one, or look for me on the Advancement staff directory at Queen’sU-dot-ca. 

I’m Deborah Melman-Clement, and this was Cause and Effect. If you want more, you can subscribe on Spotify, Apple, Google, or Amazon.