Fall 2016 Intersection Quarterly Review 2016 | Page 15

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Interview with Kathy Calvin of the UN Foundation
Kathy was made CEO by the Un Foundation Board in 2009
and President in 2013, which has been instrumental for
advancing support for the UN mission as well as an advocate
for public and private sector partnerships to bring about
solutions to issues plaguing the world. As the President and
CEO of the foundation, Kathy works to bring about the
inclusion of women into all sectors and opportunities across
the globe. To work at the helm of the foundation advocate of
the UN and connects people, ideas and resources from all
over to help the UN on its many humanitarian missions.
George: Kathy, describe if you may citizen, and he wanted to make
the UN Foundation’s unique
that possible.
mission and your work within the
It’s unique and the UN
international community.
calls us at various times to help
them and we take that seriously
Kathy: You know, it is a unique
and we’re honored to be able to
mission and it took a unique guy,
share that name with the UN and
Ted Turner, to recognize that there do that. We try to be like Ted
was a need for a UN Foundation. It Turner, innovative and bold, and
didn’t exist in 1997 when he had
using the power of communication
the bold audacious idea to make a to tell the story about what the UN
billion, with a “b,” dollar
does around the world.
contribution towards the UN.
At the time he did it, it was George: That’s certainly one
before Bill Gates and Warren Buffet incredible commitment and
and audacious philanthropy, Sean certainly Ted Turner’s vision and
Parker and all the people who have boldness is something that I think
come since to make a really big
we all on the planet now appreciate
difference with their philanthropy based on all of the impact you have
by thinking big and impacting a
made in such a relatively short
major institution, and what he
period of time. I do really find it
wanted to do was to help the UN interesting that you say his goal
by ensuring that the U.S. always
was to be innovative and bold, and
paid its dues on time and in full, so so is the UN Foundation. Going off
we do UN lobbying.
of that inspired you to join the UN
He wanted to make sure
Foundation?
that lots of partners from all sectors
could work with the UN and
Kathy: Well, I hadn’t worked in the
enhance the effectiveness around non-profit sector and when Ted
the world. He really believed that
and the former president Tim Wirth
average individuals, whether you’re invited me to join, I thought, “Wow.
a world leader or a billionaire or a 9 What do I know? What could I
year-old kid could get involved with bring?”
making a difference as a global
I’m not a foreign policy

expert, but in the end what inspired
me was that I could see something
big was happening in the non-profit
sector. It was really becoming the
place to be ... lots of innovation, lots
of exciting opportunities to engage
and make a difference. I thought the
UN was the biggest brand around
and would be a really interesting
place to try to promote the
partnership idea which was just
becoming an idea at the time, about
15 years ago.
Lastly, I realized that one of
my strengths and assets is that I’m
pretty good at translating. At AOL I
translated the new internet world to
non-techies. When I was in politics I
translated the candidates views to
voters.
I love that I can help
translate what the UN does on a
daily basis to save lives and keep
girls in school and ensure refugees
have assistance. Those are very
important things to be able to tell
people about, so I love that
opportunity to help change the
world by helping translate what’s
going on and coming up with ideas
and opportunities for people to be
part of it.