New LV foundation CEO aims to make community difference
The Lehigh Valley Community Foundation board picked Valley native Erika Riddle Petrozelli to be its next CEO, effective Jan. 1.
She will succeed Bernie Story, who will continue to serve as president through June 30. Story will then stay on as an adviser to one of the leading area philanthropic organizations, which helps support education, economic development, the arts and more.
Petrozelli grew up in the Bethlehem area, graduated from Bethlehem Catholic High School and Lehigh University, and spent about a decade away from the Valley. As a certified public accountant, she achieved executive roles, including vice president of investor relations at a New York City hedge fund.
She returned to the Valley about eight years ago and became director of donor services, and later vice president of philanthropy at the Community Foundation, which in recent years has averaged about $7 million annually in grants given in Lehigh, Northampton and Upper Bucks counties. In its 53 years, the foundation has granted more than $50 million to 675 nonprofits.
It might seem incompatible: someone moving from hedge funds — which make use of risk-management techniques, among others, to improve a fund’s performance — to a nonprofit whose mission is to advise and help people who wish to make charitable donations to improve a region. But Petrozelli broke down the similarities and touched on philanthropy in an era of the coronavirus pandemic with The Morning Call.
Here are excerpts from the recent online interview:
Q: How did you end up at the Community Foundation?
A: I moved back to the Lehigh Valley (in 2013) from New York City. I had to think hard and have a bit of reflection as to what I wanted to do with my career. I started talking to everybody I knew here and meeting as many people as I could. While I was looking, a few people sent me the job description for director of donor services, and it often was accompanied by a note from people about how Bernie (Story) and Trisha (Higgins, the foundation’s chief financial officer) are doing good work, with a really great team.
Q: You worked with a companythatmanagedhedge funds. You went from something that is potentially risky investing to a nonprofit. Isn’t that a bit of a career change?
A: When you think about the two industries, on the surface, they are very different. But I was actually at a fund of hedge funds, which invested in other hedge funds. The purpose of that is truly to be a connector between investors and individual hedge fund strategies by pooling those assets together. This may seem like a stretch, but it really isn’t. When I started learning about the Community Foundation, we’re doing something similar. We are a connector to individuals’ charitable dollars and connecting them to nonprofit and grant-making strategies. There was a skill set transfer that I was able to lean on. Q: How would you characterize the state of philanthropy in the Valley? A: There are a lot of generous donors here. We’re really lucky to have such a supportive region. We saw that in the wake of COVID-19. There was a regional collaborative vehicle, where $678,000 was contributed. So it’s really fantastic how generous our region can be. (The foundation was one of the founders, along with United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley, of the Greater Lehigh Valley COVID-19 Response Fund. To date, the fund has provided $435,000 to 65 organizations, with additional grants earmarked for later.)
Q: Andyet, it seems, there’s
never enough. Is there enough to go around, and are the dollars getting out there quickly enough, such as during a pandemic?
A: There’s never enough, unfortunately. And with a crisis this deep, there won’t be. But I think that’s why deploying dollars in a smart and effective way is so important, targeting those organizations that have boots on the ground, and giving them the support they need.
Q: Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce has offered grants to small businesses. Was this something different?
A. Yes. Some 25 funding partners and donors worked together and pooled our resources so we can deploy those resources quickly and in a very informed way. There was a team advising the group on how to make grants in the wake of this crisis, primarily focused first on safety-net organizations, access to food, housing, health care. And then looking forward, there were grants for mental health and substance abuse disorder and then child care. So we were really able to make a difference because of working together. I would add that’s another piece about the state of philanthropy in the Lehigh Valley. There is a collaborative movement, and COVID-19 highlighted and accelerated it, really.
Q: Since you’re a certified public accountant, do you do your family’s tax returns?
A: My dad does. [Thomas Riddle founded a tax and investment advisory business, Valley National Financial Advisors.] He has since stepped down from his president post, and my husband, Matthew, took over leadership of the organization, which is one of the reasons we moved back to the Lehigh Valley.