Faces of New Canaan: Cynthia Gorey

The NewCanaanite.com Summer Internship Program is sponsored by Baskin-Robbins, Connecticut Sandwich Co., Joe’s Pizza and Mackenzie’s.

In this installment of “Faces of New Canaan,” we sat down with Cynthia Gorey, executive director of the New Canaan Community Foundation (which has some “I [Heart] New Canaan” magnets left), to learn a little more about everything from how she got to be where she is today to a trip to Spain with her sons that affirmed her beliefs about soccer’s popularity in Europe.

Read all of this and more in our transcribed interview below:

NewCanaanite.com: So, where are you from originally?

Cynthia Gorey: Originally I’m from Massachusetts. I’m from a town called Marblehead which is kind of similar to this area.

Is that near Boston?

Yeah it’s north of Boston. It’s on the North shore so it’s on the water about twenty miles north of Boston?

And where do you live currently?

I live in Darien. I only tell people that when they ask me straight out where I live because people assume I live in New Canaan, I spend so much time here than I do in Darien and for years we’ve used the New Canaan Library, and the New Canaan YMCA. We live right near Woodway Country Club—so, very close to New Canaan.

Have you ever been to the Turkey Bowl?

I have not been to the Turkey Bowl.

Oh OK, because I was going to ask you what side you would root for.

My kids are in the Darien schools so for things like that I would say I root for both teams but I root a little bit harder for Darien. But I have not ever been to the Turkey Bowl and I think probably I shouldn’t go to the Turkey Bowl because I would be conflicted. I’m probably the most conflicted person here. Because I’ve been working here for 12 years and I definitely feel part of this community.

So, do your kids swim here? Or where do they swim?

Two of them used to swim and now one is still swimming at the New Canaan Y. So, she’s very connected to this community too because a lot of her close friends are here in town. We really appreciate this town and this community even though we live half a mile south of the border. And we like Darien too.

How did you first get involved with the NCCF?

It was really by chance. I have a Master’s degree in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health and I had worked in healthcare my whole career after finishing graduate school in 1990. And I had kind of worked my way up the food chain, as I say, in healthcare. I worked—starting at Healthcare Providers—I worked for CineHome Health Agency, then I worked in a hospital, then I worked at an insurance company at Oxford Health Plans in Norwalk when they were there.

And then I went from there to a spin-off company that some folks from Oxford started that was really focused on medical claim analysis and how to use medical claim data to improve healthcare and reduce costs. I was working there when September 11th happened and I was in charge of new product development and the economy—you probably don’t remember because you were just a baby —the economy really stalled. There weren’t a lot of new products or interest in new and creative things because the world really just kind of froze.

So that position was eliminated and I was seven months pregnant with my third child and going through the want ads. Again, this is so long ago that’s actually how you used to look for a job was to look in the newspaper.

But I was collecting unemployment and following the rules of looking for a job and seeing what was out there and I happened to see an ad for a job in the paper that was local and part-time and it looked like something good to look into. I didn’t even know what a community foundation was at the time. Even though there are 750 of them in the country and currently they cover pretty much every corner of this country. But I had never been aware of them before.

Within healthcare I had worked on proposal writing and getting grant funding for projects that the healthcare provider implemented, but I hadn’t been on the side of giving money away which is part of what the Community Foundation does. It just turned out to be a good fit because there was a lot of information that needed to be organized, there was donor data, and grantee data, and I understood the world of nonprofits having worked in healthcare for so long.

So the organization sort of took a chance on me—I was the first executive director—the organization had been in existence for over 25 years and had always had just volunteers running the work and had no office. The Board made the commitment to really become more professional and to have an office, to hire a staff person and that was me.

And here I am 12 years later.

So do you think any of the skills that you learned while in healthcare really carried over to this job? And what are those skills?

I really do. I think that what I learned in my previous career in healthcare is how to organize information—how to really turn data into information and then explain what that information says. I think that’s a really valuable skill to be able to look at a lot of data and say, ‘Well this means that the trend for nonprofits in this community is that they need more operating support, and then we’ll shift our grant-making towards operating support.’ And to just really be able to look at the information that a nonprofit provides on a grant application and say, ‘I see what that means, I see that that means that their revenue is going down and their demand for services is going up so they need additional help.’

So that’s how you decide who gets money and how much they get?

That’s part of how we decide. There are needs in the community that grants from the Community Foundation address and our goal is to make the greatest impact that we can with the grants that we can give away.

So we want to find the best use of that money. So when I was on the nonprofit side I did program development like identifying a need and creating a program to meet the need and then seek grant funding to run the program. Now that I’m on the other side, I can see a good grant proposal where there’s a really clear case for the need of the program and that the program has support that with our grant will succeed.

We never fund a whole organization or a whole program, we’re always a part of something. So it helps us identify the best things to be a part of. Similarly, the other really important thing that we do here is raise money because the money we give away isn’t really our money, it’s the money our donors entrusted to us.

So I think I also learned in my previous career how to explain or how to make a case for whatever it is you’re doing. I used to be explaining why the hospital needed to add another pediatric practice and now I’m explaining really the values of community philanthropy and how we can help donors make a difference in the world in whatever area they’re interested in. And it’s sort of the same kind of compelling story telling that I started doing when I was working in healthcare.

I know you have an undergraduate degree in Human Biology from Brown, so are you still interested in that side of the science field?

I am. I have always had a passion for biology and healthcare but in my sophomore year in college at Brown I was in Bio 41 and we had to prick fingers to get blood for a genetic experiment—I had to sit down with my head between my knees so it was pretty clear to me I wasn’t going to be pre-med. But I’m still fascinated by biology and by medicine and by the healthcare system. So I definitely have a special interest in the health organizations that we support and that we can help. And the supporting services that come with that. I worked for a long time in a home health agency which is clearly a medical service but also a very supportive social service as well to help folks stay in their homes when they’re ill or elderly.

So I definitely would say I still like that I’m in a caring profession even though I’m not doing direct caring. But I love being part of a community that is so caring and I love being part of an organization that can help bring resources to the best caring organizations whether it’s medical or social service or even if it’s a cultural organization, it’s all part of caring for the community and it’s all part of making sure the community has all the pieces that it needs to be a thriving community which New Canaan obviously is.

So when you’re not doing all this and you have some free time, which is probably not very often, what do you like to do?

I definitely love to be in this area. It’s such a beautiful part of the world. I love to garden, I spend a lot of time in my garden in the warm months of the year. I also love to read and I’m in two book clubs. It’s something I’ve always been very passionate about.

Between the three kids and two dogs we always have a lot going on at home but I love walking the dogs in New Canaan. It’s one of my favorite things to do. Last night we were out when the lightning started walking down South Avenue with the two dogs and I was wondering if the concert at Waveny would be moved and it had.

What kind of dogs do you have?

We have two Springer Spaniels.

Are those large dogs?

No they’re medium sized. Like 40 pounds.

I have a Westy so she’s around 15 pounds.

Yeah no they’re medium-sized, they’re good-sized because they look like dog dogs but I can still pick them up if I need to, which is good.

Do you ever go back to Massachusetts to see where you grew up?

I do but more than that we have a house on Lake Sunapee in New Hampshire which is sort of the Massachusetts thing where a lot of people from Massachusetts go to New Hampshire the way people from New York go to Vermont. Whenever we can we go and spend family time up there and as much as we love it here it’s definitely a fast-paced world with New York being right around the corner and so New Hampshire is slower paced which it makes it much easier to have family time together that’s sort of simpler. So we like to do that as well.

Do you also like to travel to other places out west or to other countries?

Yeah I definitely did more traveling before the three kids but my kids are just now getting old enough where this past year my husband and my son got to go to Mexico for his spring break and then I took the two younger kids, who are now 15 and 12, to Spain. So we’re really feeling now we can start to travel to interesting places together as a family.

Where in Spain did you go?

We went to Madrid which was incredible. Have you been there?

I haven’t, but I’ve been to Barcelona.

I went to Barcelona and it’s really cool, it’s different from anything else. Madrid is just what you expect of a European city in that it’s beautiful and there’s a lot to see and do and I really loved it. We spent about five nights there I think and just loved it. We also went to Valencia which is on the Mediterranean coast and down to Alicante which were beautiful.

But what I didn’t realize was that Madrid has palm trees. It’s that far south. It’s almost tropical and absolutely gorgeous. The history is so fascinating with all the different cultures that have come and gone and have left their mark in the architecture and arts, it was really fun.

When you were over there did you ever check out any of the professional soccer games?

Yeah, well actually we were staying in Valencia and the hotel that we were staying at was a block from the big soccer or “football” stadium as they call it, in Valencia. We were there when basically the World Series of soccer was happening(Copa del Rey or literally “The King’s Cup”). So it was Barcelona against Real Madrid a block from our hotel. It was fascinating because first of all my son is a soccer player, he loves soccer.

So when we get back to the hotel it’s all roped off with caution tape and there’s police and TV crews. We don’t speak Spanish, any of us so we’re all like, ‘Well we’re all fine, what’s going on?’ And it turned out that Real Madrid was staying in our hotel. So dozens of people are outside waiting for them which was cool for us to see. I mean you know soccer is big in Europe but this was unbelievable. I mean the people had to be barricaded to keep them safe. And we were sitting in the restaurant in the courtyard of the hotel waiting for them to get there. So my son who actually knows some of the players when up there at the caution tape waiting for them to come in which was so cool.

And then the next night when the game was being played at the stadium we could hear it through the open windows. We actually had to turn the TV on mute because we could hear the crowd through the windows and it was literally a block or more away but it was so loud, it was incredible. So to have that experience was really fascinating.

That was our last night in Valencia and we went to take the train to Madrid the next day. Our hotel in Madrid was right in downtown and when we were checking in, I guess after Madrid won they flew back to Madrid and they had a parade in the streets at like four in the morning and had just wrapped up when we got there. So to be part of that was really cool. So that was a real life experience of a foreign culture.

And like I said it was like the World Series or the Super Bowl, I guess more like the Super Bowl because it was such a big thing. So it was like being next to the stadium when the Super Bowl is happening. The number of people, the passion and the team spirit was just incredible.

I know this is probably a long way away, but when you retire do you see yourself traveling more? Or what do you see yourself doing?

That’s a good question. When I retire I see myself traveling but to me I think being part of a community is one of the best things about having worked here for so long and getting to know this community and so many people in it and what makes it so special.

I think that I want to be part of a community and want to be able to volunteer more and I’ll want to, whether it’s this town or other towns, I could totally see myself in one of those antique houses on Main Street having the garden that everyone wants to come see what’s in it because it looks so great.

I’d also like to keep walking my dogs and maybe walk them into town, which where we live in Darien we can’t walk anywhere, and traveling. But really being part of a community and continuing the connections that we’ve made here. And if we move to some warmer climate I think that the importance of community will stick with me and with my family forever because this job has really changed the way we all look at this place we live and the organizations that we support with our time and our own money.

So hopefully I’ll be able to do more volunteering and keep sharing that message with other folks.