Continuing a legacy of goodness
By Randy Moore / Chairperson
Growing up in a single-parent home taught me a lot about generosity. My mom was always working hard to make sure my siblings and I had everything we needed—clothes, food, you name it. We didn’t have much, but my mom always made us feel like we had the world. And in a sense, we did.
Every Christmas, for example, when I would visit my grandmother Dorothy, she would always give me a brown paper sack full of walnuts. Now, that may not seem like much, but I loved walnuts. I still do. Walnuts were also notoriously difficult for my grandmother to get in Indianapolis—where I grew up—but she still made the effort to get them for me because she knew just how much I loved them.
These experiences helped me understand not just what generosity means, but how to give it to others. I’ve carried those lessons with me throughout life, and they’ve served me well in my 40-year career in the water and wastewater industry, where I was frequently faced with challenging situations that required—pun intended—generous thinking to solve.
Generosity has clearly been a powerful force in my life, and it’s also what drew me to the Quad Cities Community Foundation—which I’ve not only found to be one of the best run organizations I’ve ever encountered, but also one of the most generous. To put it simply, I’m honored to be stepping into the role of board chairperson at the Community Foundation. It’s an organization that I chose to be part of for many reasons, not the least of which because I believe in its mission to transform the community through generosity, and to share a love of humankind. That, for me, is really at the heart of why I do what I do as well.
The Community Foundation has long done the good work of bettering the Quad Cities community, which is partly why my transition into this role has come so easily. Leaders who served before me, like Jean Moran and Jill McLaughlin, have laid incredible groundwork from which I hope to build. My focus as chairperson, however, will be on cultivating new partnerships with the goal of helping marginalized people and organizations across the region.
As a nation, we’ve been faced with major cultural changes over the past year that have brought race to the forefront of everything we do. As individuals, we’ve had to grapple with our place in society, and how we contribute to systemic issues—oftentimes unintentionally. Personally, all that has woken me up to the incredible opportunity we have right here in the Quad Cities to really do some good. I feel compelled to do everything in my power to accomplish that.
That said, one of the many things I’d like to help mobilize as chairperson is a robust diversity, equity, and inclusion program within our community. I not only want to make it robust, but world-class. I want people from both within and beyond the Quad Cities to look to us as an example of diverse, equitable, and inclusive philanthropy. If we keep generosity at the heart of our initiatives, I have no doubt that we can make landmark strides and further inspire people to give back to their community.
Settling into 2021, I’ve continued to think a lot about my grandmother. About my mother. And as continue to work alongside Sherry Ristau, her extraordinary team, and our board of directors, I’ve been hit with clear memories of my family’s selflessness, and all the work they put into sharing their generosity through action. Much like my mother and grandmother, the Community Foundation places generosity at the center of everything it does. Thankfully, I know that I’ll be stepping into this leadership role alongside a legacy of goodness—one that I hope to continue, share, and grow.