Jaime Williams, the Associate Director of the Franklin Community Center in downtown Saratoga Springs resigned the post at the start of the year but planned to stay on until the nonprofit found a replacement. Last week, the organization’s press release announced that Mary Beth McGarrahan has taken over as director of development.
Courtesy Jaime Williams (2021)
Jaime Williams
With that, Williams is leaving. She started in 2003.
She is finishing up work as a part-timer through April, working on the Spring Fling, an online auction that is taking place through Sunday.
In the meantime, she has started with Roohan Realty as a residential real estate agent, she said in an interview this morning.
Blame the happenstance on COVID-19.
"[COVID] made me really take a good look at where I am and where I am with my family and with my life,” Williams said, adding that the pandemic made her look in a way that she might not have. She decided if she were going to try something new, it needed to be now, not in 10 years.
Starting a job in real estate with little pay up front was scary, she said, but "not taking that leap was even scarier."
At the same time, she came to realize that FCC needed a focused head of development and fundraising. FCC is a nonprofit human service agency that has been providing basic necessities and services to less fortunate people in Saratoga Springs for more than 35 years, their website says. With a $1 million donation, FCC purchased 95 Washington St. and started a $3 million fundraising campaign. They have over $2 million raised.
"They need someone who's really going to grow their [FCC's] donor base,” Williams said, adding she thinks they found her in McGarrahan.
Courtesy McGarrahan (2021)
Mary Beth McGarrahan
McGarrahan had been with Universal Preservation Hall, in Saratoga Springs, for 12 years when the pandemic hit and she was laid off, she said. She worked in the private sector for about six months after that at Jaeger and Flynn, the human resources consultancy, overseeing the administrative staff, she said.
"At the end of the day, it just didn't click with me," she said.
Moving back to the nonprofit sector felt like the thing to do, and with her experience in donor relationships, she felt the move to FCC was right.
Where Williams came to FCC from the educational side as a social worker, working with programs like the after-school program Project Lift, McGarrahan was one of just two staffers at UPH, so she had a lot of work with donor relations.
"I'm going to focus more on community engagement, donor stewardship,” McGarrahan said.
In the near term, however, the pandemic still presents a challenge.
"Things in the development world, they're just different,” she said. "We can't gather in one place comfortably."
That shifts how to raise money and reach donors. She said that she plans to emulate what others have done in different nonprofits and to build their own systems at FCC.
"We're just going to have to pivot and move,” she said, believing she’s the right person for the job. “I plan on being here for years to come."