Q&A with Kelly Pope

A story of turning adversity into opportunity—for others

With a background in educational technology and building curriculum for teachers and students, SFCF fund advisor Kelly Pope is no stranger to the transformative power of education. "There’s so much work to do here in northern New Mexico and it's exciting to work with change makers who have an aligned vision around helping students and families thrive."

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Please share a bit about where you're from and what inspired your philanthropic journey. Do you have a personal experience or early memory of philanthropy "in action" that influenced you?

I had a lightbulb moment in the mid-80s when I was working in the Silicon Valley, writing software to put music, images, video, and hyperlinks onto a CD-ROM. We were building an authoring system for musicians to create the first music videos. I thought, “Wow, combining all this media together, being engaged and moving from one media form to the other at will…. this is how people learn!” I instantly made a right-turn in my career and focused on building educational technology and curriculum for teachers and students — in the very early days! That was the foundation for my laser focus on education.

What started my philanthropic journey is completely different.

In October of 2003, my husband David's high-tech carbon-fiber bicycle became two independent pieces as three handlebars dislocated at the frame while riding his bike down a steep hill in Palo Alto, California. EMTs arrived shortly and rushed him to Stanford hospital. After a touch-and-go first five hours, not knowing if he would live or die, he was diagnosed with five brain hemorrhages among other serious injuries.

David suffered acute traumatic brain injury as a result of the accident. I put all other activities on hold to work with him on his recovery. It was a grueling 24/7 commitment on both our parts, but, despite the odds and 10 years of hard work, eventually — and miraculously — David made a 100% recovery.

This life changing event made me want to focus on others’ well-being. This, in conjunction with my deep belief in the value of education, launched me on my philanthropic path.

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What causes are you passionate about supporting here in northern New Mexico?

One of the things we love most about New Mexico is the diversity of its people and their varied hopes and dreams for the future. We want everyone in New Mexico to thrive and have the opportunity to achieve their goals. High quality education, starting at a very young age, is foundational to opening doors and breaking down barriers to opportunity.

There’s so much work to do here in northern New Mexico and it's exciting to work with change makers who have an aligned vision around helping students and families thrive.

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How do you decide which educational nonprofits or programs to support? What key factors influence your decision-making process?

Educating a child is a tricky business. There are so many factors at play — their family situation, individual learning needs, quality of their teachers, engaging and relevant curriculum, access to a cadre of caring adults/mentors, and so much more. We work to find organizations that take a holistic approach, authentically working with children and their families to ensure each student has what they need and that parents are thriving and engaged in their child's learning.

David and I try to find organizations working on systemic change that have rock-star leaders with a vision, have positive growth /impact metrics, and are working to improve educational outcomes in New Mexico.

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How has the Santa Fe Community Foundation and its team supported your philanthropy?

The Santa Fe Community Foundation has helped us create our own landscape map of education organizations in northern New Mexico. They have also highlighted organizations we were unfamiliar with, which resulted in us funding after we did our due diligence.

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Are there any stories of success from your giving that you would like to share?

Thankfully, we have many success stories which are a function of great leadership and staff in a number of education focused nonprofits. One experience that stands out is our effort to create a scholarship program for high school graduates that have been part of NM Communities in Schools. We had a vision for this scholarship, but it went forward in fits and starts. It wasn’t until we partnered with the Los Alamos National Lab Foundation (LANL) that we were able to successfully launch our Future Forward scholarship program.

Today, we are pleased to report that we have multiple students each year receiving scholarships and the number of applicants continues to grow. Our advice from this experience is: stick with your vision, but find the right partner!