Meet Kelli Cooper, lifelong devotee of volunteerism
Kelli Cooper, the longtime creative brains behind the nonprofit Albuquerque Community Foundation, got her professional start in the highly competitive world of marketing and advertising.
And her route into that world started in 1974 with a work uniform and a greeting for customers at the Lee Galles car dealership, across from the University of New Mexico when she was a student there.
“I was a mini-maid, which was a group of young women who basically were service-repair girls who worked in the service department,” said Cooper, now vice president of the Albuquerque Community Foundation.
“Lee Galles had this great idea of hiring college students,” said Cooper, 61. “It was so great, because the dealership was across the street from the university … I often run into the old ABQ guard who remembers being driven home from the ... dealership by a mini-maid. Lee Galles went on to package and sell the concept to car dealers across the country.”
After Galles started the Competitive Edge advertising agency, Cooper moved over to that business in 1978. She remained there for 18 years until she had two of her three children and no longer wanted to travel as much as was required.
Eventually, the world of nonprofits and volunteerism came calling. It was deeply rooted in Cooper’s blood; when she was in second grade, her mother — whom she described as a “professional volunteer” — signed her up to work with the Mothers March, an annual fundraiser for the March of Dimes.
Cooper started at the Albuquerque Community Foundation as a volunteer, which turned into a part-time job, which resulted in a full-time gig.
Now, Cooper is vice president of the Albuquerque Community Foundation, which has 400 funds with nearly $90 million in assets under management.
Where did you go to high school?
Del Norte. I was really involved. I was on the dance team. I was the girl that never missed a game or an event and had a really good group of girlfriends that were born and raised and lived in the same neighborhood.
Are you still friends with them today?
Yes. I think that’s one of the beautiful things about growing up in a town this small is that you run into people, and intersections and collisions happen every single day. Just today, well it’s ironic, Randy (Royster), the CEO here, and I actually went to Monroe Junior High School together, and today a lady called to set up an endowment fund, and she said, “I think I knew you guys from Monroe Junior High School.” So it’s just Albuquerque, and as we’ve hired some people that are transplants, I realized how valuable that is — to live in a town that you can go anywhere and know somebody.
Did you have a professional mentor?
I guess it would be Lee Galles. He was a genius and so far ahead of his time. My mother has also been extremely important in my life. She was 22 when she had me, so we’ve always been more like best friends than mother and daughter, and she was always the biggest community volunteer that there ever was. She had me out doing stuff with her when I was 5 or 6 years old and has been a huge part of my life and probably this field that I wound up being in.
Explain that.
(After the Mothers March of Dimes work) … It kind of never stopped after that. She was asked to be the chairman of the grand opening of the Albuquerque Convention Center in 1973. She immediately formed a teenage volunteer committee, which I was the chair of. I was a junior at Del Norte High School. We ended up going to every single high school and getting participation from all of them, so when the grand opening of the original convention center happened, there was my mom as the big chair. There was me as the teenage volunteer committee chair, and it was phenomenal. It was such a great community intersection.
Did you try to pass that along to your kids?
Yes, I absolutely have. I have a daughter right now who is 22 and just graduated from college, and she’s now living in Harlem, teaching in the South Bronx … And though it is the toughest of the tough environments — she calls me crying every single night — but she loves it, she absolutely loves it.
What do you like to do on your days off?
I am an avid hot yoga person. Yes, I go and sweat. I love to cook and that comes from my mother, my family and the whole event-planning thing. I love to have parties. I have these two big old standard poodles that are a full-time job … They have to be walked and run and all of those types of things, so I do that.
What do you like to cook?
I’ve totally changed my cooking skills over the years. I’ve gone from a piece of meat, a piece of starch and a vegetable, and a piece of bread on every plate, to things that are more current, more modern. We’re having more bowl things. I now have containers of every kind of seed, every kind of legume.… I’ve gotten a lot less afraid to be creative. And maybe that’s because I’m no longer feeding three kids. I have a little more room to play.
Hobbies?
Skiing, I bike. I live pretty close to the mountain; I love to be on that bike trail. I think that mountain is one of the most beautiful and energizing things that I’ve ever known. Because I’ve always known it.
What is your biggest regret?
Not having children younger.
How old were you?
I was 29 when I had my first, but 39 when I had my last. So there was a pretty big gap, and I would have loved to have had my kids younger so that there would be more time, after your last kid is out of the home, to start thinking about bigger ideas and new ideas. My kids have all been very active in sports, and I’ve spent my life sitting in bleachers, and I’m only one year out of that.
What is something about you that people don’t know?
I think that I’m not nearly as outgoing as people think I am. I am perfectly happy sitting at my desk here, doing the back-end work. That’s really what I did for my first 10 years here. I’m really more of a one-onone introvert. That’s what I think about myself.
What was the best moment of being a parent?
I can think of one, just recently. I got a text message from my daughter. She texted, “Mom and dad, I just wanted to tell you thank you for everything that you did for me and Casey and Corey growing up.” And she went into this story about this kid she was with that day in school, and she said, “You don’t know the hell that a lot of kids in our country are exposed to every day. We had a beautiful childhood, and you supported us in everything we tried to do, and I just wanted to say thank you.”
Pet peeves?
I’m not big on elitism, I really think of everybody as an equal, and it offends me when somebody starts thinking that they’re better than somebody else.
If you were giving out advice to a young woman just starting out, what would it be?
It would be to communicate well. To be honest. To be open and not afraid to ask questions.