7513 – Car sales, Naked & Afraid, and hot yoga with Angie Hatfield Marker

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My guest: Angie Hatfield Marker

Angie went from selling vehicles at O’Brien Auto Park in Urbana to the CEO spot with The Community Foundation. In this episode we talk about reality TV, hot yoga, preparing for runs and triathlons, and how The Community Foundation is different from other charitable organizations.

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Episode links

The Community Foundation: https://cfeci.org

Transcript

This is an automated transcript and could contain minor spelling errors.

Angie Marker:
But Danny is super supportive. He’s super excited. He always has been just my biggest cheerleader and, and, you know, I’m the same of him. So I’m lucky in that sense. And he, he loads and unloads the dishwasher and the traps and all these things that I really don’t like doing. I’m pretty lucky to have a partner who will do that and doesn’t complain while doing so. Hey, I’m Angie Hatfield marker. I’m the president and CEO of the community foundation of east central Illinois. I am a wife, a mom, and in my free time, I like to get a little hot yoga or a long run in is hot yoga, still a thing. Well, it is at our house. We converted our little workout space to a hot yoga studio with a few just space heaters. So we kind of BYO bring your own heat.

Steve Holstein:
And why do you like hot yoga versus standard yoga? Because you’re burning more calories?

Angie Marker:
Know, that’s a good question. I kind of sort of come from the school where if you’re not sweating, maybe you’re not working out hard enough. And so that just helps with sweating. And I feel like it makes my muscles a little more flexible and on cold winter mornings, it’s just a lot easier to roll out of bed and go downstairs to a warm workout space than a freezing cold one.

Steve Holstein:
So we live sort of in the general vicinity of each other. And so we see each other out and about on runs and walks and stuff like that. Are you preparing for any runs or walks or anything coming up now that things are getting more back to normal and we can start gathering in groups and run together and swim together and all that. You planning anything coming up?

Angie Marker:
I am. So probably two Julys ago. I broke my heel bone playing with my kids. They had built a blanket for it, and I tried to hurdle the top of the blanket for it. It was never a very good hurdler when I ran track and field, but I had a cast and crutches and a scooter for probably three months. So prior to that, I was running ultra marathons. And so that kind of put a little damper on my training. And I took about a year and a half off from running and just kind of found other things to do, to move my body and clear my mind. And just recently started training. I’m going to do the run to remember that September 11th here in town, it’s an 8K, which is actually a distance that I’ve not run in a competitive way before. So my mom and I are training together for that and really looking forward to it. And then I think you and I talked about, I’ve not done a triathlon yet, and I’d like to try one try a triathlon and you did it and you survived. And so I might, I might think about adding some swimming and some biking to my training too. Yeah.

Steve Holstein:
I signed up for the Run to Remember as soon as it came into my email inbox. I feel like I’m missing that big community thing. As soon as I got done signing up for the 8K. I don’t know if you did this, but I’m like, “8K how many miles is that?”

Angie Marker:
Totally Googled.

Steve Holstein:
I found five miles basically. Is that what you found? Yeah. Yeah. And with regard to the, to the triathlon, are you doing that through the park district?

Angie Marker:
I think I’m going to try the Illini Tri. Isn’t that the one you did?

Steve Holstein:
No, I didn’t. That’s the next step up? Good for you.

Angie Marker:
Oh gosh. Okay. Well maybe I better ease up and start with the mini tri. I don’t know. I need to research that a little bit and see if they’re even holding it.

Steve Holstein:
So you’re a mom. You have two boys. You got Johnny and Dean. How old are those guys?

Angie Marker:
So they’re both nine. Dean just turned nine on the 4th of July and Johnny will turn 10, August 17. So for the next six weeks, I have two, nine year olds,

Steve Holstein:
4Th of July, baby. How cool is that

Angie Marker:
Is, you know, I was just telling someone the other day, I feel like we know a couple of 4th of July babies or kids or adults. And it seems like that holiday is really fitting for them. And Dean is no exception. He is definitely my little firecracker and it makes good sense that he came into the world on that day. Yeah.

Steve Holstein:
So a mom of two boys, nine years old, almost 10 years old, what superheroes are they into?

Angie Marker:
You know, that’s funny. They were really into superheroes when they were little, in fact Dean wore a Batman Cape probably every single day, every minute of the day for two years. And then one day just decided he was done with that. So I would say we’re, we’re kind of much to my chagrin. We’re past the superhero phase. They’ll still watch Spider-Man or you know, different movies, but they’re into, they’re into Legos. Now they’re into video games. My oldest is into archery, so he’s kind of taken that up as a hobby. And my youngest is, you know, my he’s playing baseball and keeping us busy. So they’re, they’re more into like sports figures now, which I guess you could, those are kind of superheroes. Well,

Steve Holstein:
I wanted to talk to you because you are the new CEO of community foundation. You just started as we’re recording this it is July six. So

Angie Marker:
Joan, my boss, my, our boss here of 20 years retired on June 30th. So big shoes to fill there. Yeah.

Steve Holstein:
Congratulations. What is, we hear a lot about charities. We know what feeding our kids is. We’ve heard of United way. Community foundation is a little different. Can you explain what it is?

Angie Marker:
Yeah. So we’re a nonprofit, just like, you know, feeding our kids or United way. And we take donations from individuals or families or corporations. Those folks have passions, so they’re passionate about the arts or their communities or health and human services or education or the environment, and they use their gifts. So they, you know, give us assets or requests or insurance or different trusts to create funds with us. So we hold about 150 funds and about 85% of those funds are endowed funds, which means the principal is invested. And the earnings on that principal, we use to make grants to local nonprofits. So last year we distributed about $1.2 million from our own assets to about 180 nonprofits in east central Illinois. And then we worked with United way to raise and distribute another 1.2 million more to nonprofits and COVID relief funds. So we do this to create healthy communities and strong youth and accessible recreation for our friends and neighbors. We’d love supporting the arts and keeping our seniors safe. And we work really closely with our local nonprofits to help them build good strong boards and help them with their working relationship between their staffs and their board. Just so that we can assure our donors, that we’re stewarding their gifts to well run organization. So

Steve Holstein:
If somebody gives a large sum of money or even a medium sum of money to community foundation and says, manage this, make it grow, but then give the profits essentially to these charities or these types of charities. Is this something that could, could go on for decades and even years after they are gone? I mean, is that the idea where it’s just a in perpetuity?

Angie Marker:
Yeah, so our organization was started in 1972 by a few just devoted community members who wanted to endow the community. So there’s always been United ways and community chests that bring in donations and then distribute them right away. And these community members wanted, you know, some, some canned soup in the pantry, as you say. So they wanted to make sure that there was something there forever to support nonprofits. And so the way our organization is structured is just that, so that our donors, you know, they may be annual donors to their favorite nonprofits. And this just ensures that that annual donation is, is perpetual. So they’re able to support their favorite organizations or their favorite passions forever and ever, and ever and ever, oh, I

Steve Holstein:
Could do the simplest example. I could come to you and let’s say, I want to give $50,000 and say, I really beloved pets. I love dogs. I love cats. I love taking care of them. And so you would help my money grow and then use that money to fund charities that are in alignment with my philosophy of taking care of and rice giving back.

Angie Marker:
Absolutely. And it can be, you know, we have donors who are very specific, so they want their money to go directly to the humane society here in champagne county. Or we have donors who might say just help animals. And we find whatever organizations might need grants that year to help our furry friends. So that’s exactly what it is.

Steve Holstein:
Are there community foundation type organizations in a lot of communities around the country?

Angie Marker:
There are, there are probably 800 across the us. There are probably 30 in Illinois that are that belong to our Alliance of community foundations and we’re geographically based. So we serve certain areas in each state. We serve all of east central Illinois. So we take donations from those nine counties and we also help the nonprofits in those nine counties.

Steve Holstein:
Do people ever come to you and say I’m going to donate X amount of not really donate. I’m going to give you X amount of my money to manage and to donate, but I don’t know what I want to do with it. Do you then guide them or do, do most of the people have some idea of where they want their money to go?

Angie Marker:
It kind of is a 50 50 split. There’s a lot of donors who say, you know, I want you to take this donation. I want you to safeguard it. So invest it, let it grow. And then I want you guys to decide what the you’re going to know, what the most pressing needs are. 50 a hundred, 150 years from now. And we trust you to steward those dollars wisely. And for those types of donations, we have a grants committee that meets on an annual basis where we take applications for nonprofits, for durable goods, and they evaluate those grant applications and then award those grants to some very deserving non-profits. So we have it structured to kind of protect assets and donations, both ways.

Steve Holstein:
That’s a, it’s an interesting charity. I mean again, it’s not the public facing charity, is it? It’s not like the feeding our kids or the humane society or the United way?

Angie Marker:
No. So we always say we are here to help the helpers. So we’re here to provide the non-profits that are providing direct services with funding and with resources and support. So we’re kind of behind the scenes and that’s a good place to be. And we get to see, you know, we get to work with both donors, but also the nonprofits who are making things happen in our community.

Steve Holstein:
I mean, if somebody would like to set up a fund, but what’s the minimum that, that they really should think about bringing. Sure.

Angie Marker:
So we you know, you can start a fund with any amounts, but we’re not able to distribute from a fund until it’s reached a $5,000 level. So for the most part, our, most of our funds are, are started with a gift of $5,000 or more. We do have some initiatives. We just started an aspiring philanthropist giving circle for maybe younger, younger at heart donors who want to want to make an impact, but maybe don’t have $5,000 to start a fund. So you can kind of buy in for $250. All of our members throw their donations into a pot. And we, we identify what we think the pressing needs in the community are. We invite non-profits to apply for our own grant. And the grant funds are made up of that pool of dollars that we all contribute. And we evaluate the grant applications as a group, just like our grants committee does.

Angie Marker:
And then we visit a few of the sites of you have been non-profits and hear from their executive directors. And then we awarded the last two years a $5,000 grant to a couple of really fantastic organizations. So these are, it’s a group of 20 or 25 individuals each year. They learn a lot about what we do as a community foundation, because it is a little complicated, not a lot of people, they may have heard of us, but they don’t really know how, how we do what we do. And then they also learn about the community organizations, you know, that are helping our friends and neighbors. So

Steve Holstein:
As a CEO a typical CEO is, you know, was working with our development director to, you know, find new donations. Hey, we are the humane society and it’s pretty cut and dried. We need X amount a year to keep this place running yours is different because you’re trying to find people who are the givers, as you say, and say, Hey, here’s the cool things that can be done with your money for a, for a long, long time.

Angie Marker:
Yeah. And we work really closely with certainly our board of trustees is a key part of, of our development efforts. We work really closely with accountants in town and estate planners. A lot of our gifts come through bequests. And then, you know, we, we have to be very careful that we are not competing as fundraisers with the nonprofits that we’re supporting. So we don’t run an annual campaign. We’re very careful that we want to set up long-term donations for these organizations. And so that’s really our end game.

Steve Holstein:
So Angie, I think that we first met at O’Brien auto park. Weren’t you in marketing? Isn’t that where we first met? I,

Angie Marker:
You know, I, I know I sold cars that O’Brien’s, I worked there for 15 years. So I worked in Carson ELLs. I worked in the finance and insurance office. And then when we moved to the new location out north of [inaudible], I was our corporate trainer. So I trained the new salespeople and I helped a little bit with the marketing out there as well.

Steve Holstein:
I seem to remember going to the new location, what, and of course it’s not new anymore and it’s no longer O’Brien, but, and then, but, but I could be wrong. But the point I’m trying to get to is, was CEO of a local nonprofit of community foundation. Was that on your, on your radar when you were back selling cars?

Angie Marker:
No, no, not at all. Back then, you know, I wanted to, eventually we were hoping that we’d be able to purchase a Lexis franchise and I wanted to run Alexis dealership. That was kind of my dream in my twenties. And, you know, you work a lot of hours in the car business. It’s a, it was a great profession for me with, you know, that are highly transferable to what I’m doing now. But when we had our two boys, 10 months apart, I quickly realized that I wasn’t going to be able to work 60 hours a week. And then I needed to figure kind of another path, find another path. So I had served on a board, a non-profit board here in town and crisis nursery for many, many years. And I served on their capital campaign committee and they had a position open up. It was part-time and, you know, my, my passions really aligned with their mission and my skillset.

Angie Marker:
You know, it’s just relationships and it’s talking to people and finding people who want to help and that’s I thought I could do that and help them. And so I joined their payroll and I worked there for a couple years, and then I knew, you know, I’m not a social worker by trade. I knew I probably didn’t want to lead a human service organization. I’m, I’m a fundraiser. It’s in my blood. My dad was in fundraising for many years at the U of I. And so when I joined Joan Dickson here at the community foundation, that was sort of my end game was to eventually run a foundation that could support this community, that I’ve lived in my whole life and that I love. And it’s really exciting. It’s, you know, it’s the, it’s the privilege of my lifetime to, to work at this organization that helps this area, where I was born and raised and never left. It’s a lot of responsibility too.

Steve Holstein:
COVID changed things a little bit, but you’re back at the office you’ve taken over as the CEO. What tools do you need to get your job done? Obviously you have a smartphone. Is there an app, a go-to app or program on your phone that that you couldn’t live without as the CEO of community health?

Angie Marker:
Yeah. We use a software that manages our donor database, our accounting, and all of our grants and scholarship applications. And I, you know, we would be lost without that software. That’s for sure. I certainly, you know, I think people say, what, what can you not live without? And you know, you, it’s true. We can’t live without our smartphones. I need to be connected to my email and my phone pretty much all the time. And, and I think that’s a blessing and a curse at times too. I don’t have a ton of apps. You know, the one that I use more than any, every single day is the calm app. I don’t know if you’ve heard of that, but it’s a mindfulness and meditation app. I’m a huge I really like meditating and I do it a couple of times a day, every day. So that’s probably my favorite app that I have on my phone. I’ve

Steve Holstein:
Heard of the calm app. I think I’ve even downloaded it. My mind is always thinking about the next blog post. I’m going to write the next email. I’m going to send him my customers. I just, I find it, but, but an app like that can actually kind of help you shirt shut those things

Angie Marker:
Yeah. Or try to. Right. So I think you and I are a lot alike in that, but just to take 10 minutes to really just try and focus on your breathing and clear your mind, it just does wonders for, for us as humans and for my kids too. And Danny, my husband, you know, we all try to really incorporate mindfulness into our daily lives.

Steve Holstein:
I know Dan I’ve worked with Dan, how, how excited is he for you?

Angie Marker:
So it’s, we were talking about this this weekend with some friends of ours, because they were asking how, how’s it going to change the family dynamic to have, you know, too, my husband is our market president for his bank, that Cree point bank in town. So we have two CEOs in our house now. And, you know, there aren’t a lot of households in town where that’s the case. And so it means, you know, really trying to be organized, really trying to have the kids pretty self-sufficient. So they’re able to kind of clean their own rooms and do their laundry and, you know, they can make dinner. And just things like that, that I normally, when I was done at two o’clock, I had time to kind of take care of, take care of everybody. And now we all kind of have to take care of ourselves, but Danny is super supportive. He’s super excited. He always has been just my biggest cheerleader and, you know, I’m the same of him. So I’m lucky in that sense. And he, he loads and unloads the dishwasher and the traps and all these things that I really don’t like doing. I’m pretty lucky to have a partner who will do that and doesn’t complain while doing so.

Steve Holstein:
I I’m obsessed with quick meetings and efficient meetings or no meetings. I’ve worked under managers in radio, who, who met very, very often. And I’ve worked under managers who just load the meetings, talk to me about, and I know this seems very basic, but everybody has to deal with meetings. Talk to me about your philosophy of meetings and how you make them efficient when you’re meeting a community.

Angie Marker:
Right? So I’m a re I love meetings that are sort of ongoing and just casual. I don’t like you know, set meeting time. So I think with, with our team here, you know, it’s kind of like fill up your coffee and come in here, or let me come into your office and let’s talk through a few things and let’s make a plan to kind of keep going. And I think I learned that philosophy, Jim Turner, my boss, my old boss at O’Brien auto park. He always had kind of an open door policy with his staff and whatever problems we were having. We knew we could go up to his office and talk through them and we’d always leave there with a solution. And that’s really, I think you know, meetings, you want to have a reason to meet and you want to leave with a game plan or a solution. And that’s sort of my philosophy, you know, we certainly have a pretty formal board meeting once a month that we follow an agenda and Robert’s rules. And I think there’s a time and a place for that. But otherwise in our office, they’re going to be pretty, pretty casual in nature.

Steve Holstein:
All right. As I wrap up, you’ve got you, the new CEO of community foundation, Dan, at Hickory point, he’s very busy over, you’ve got two boys, what’s your go-to, you know, busy family. Let’s call in a food order restaurant.

Angie Marker:
Gosh, we have a bunch of favorite.

Steve Holstein:
And, and because you are, you know, trying to be as connected and involved with so many people in the community some, some who you may work with one day, you don’t want to upset anybody.

Angie Marker:
Right? Exactly. So I think our go-to, I’m going to just to keep it safe. I’m, I’m a pretty good cook. And I would say our go-to would be that I have some time to make dinner for all of us, and gosh, are our favorites vary. But right now we are grilling a lot, including like we’ve been grilling peaches and girling watermelon and grilling sweetcorn. And so I think if I could curate the perfect summer dinner right now, where we have all the time in the world to just be together, it would be just some good old fashioned grilled meats and veggies

Steve Holstein:
Completely bailed on my question. You didn’t want him, you didn’t want to mention one restaurant or anything.

Angie Marker:
Oh gosh, no, I really, there are really, we are, you can, we, we frequent quite a few. We like all the local, locally owned restaurants and we try to try to help them as they’ve helped, helped us. So like you said, Danny has a lot of customers that have restaurants and I certainly have a lot of donors that have restaurants and we try to pay it, pay it back and pay it forward as much as we can. I don’t

Steve Holstein:
Know how I am just so impressed with our, our local restaurant tours. I’m impressed with any business owner getting through the pandemic or CEO or, you know, but, but th the restaurants, I, the ones that have, have made it and quite a few did quite a few more made it than I thought did. And I’m just so impressed. Me

Angie Marker:
Too. I think we’re, we’re lucky to live in CU. We’re pretty, I think we’ve proven this last year and a half pretty generous and pretty resilient and innovative community. And I’m, I’m really proud of proud of all of us. So,

Steve Holstein:
All right. And you and Dan, the kids are in bed. You have watched a movie or you have streamed a series on Netflix or HBO max, or something recently that you were telling everybody about what is that? Is there

Angie Marker:
One? So we are huge fans of naked and afraid and alone. There are two sort of survivalists, which is interesting because neither of us like to camp or really are very outdoorsy. So but we love those shows. Our kids actually are pretty into them too, but those are, those are probably our two, they’re not really guilty pleasures, but I just have a lot of respect for people who can be out in the elements without clothes on for long periods of time,

Steve Holstein:
The alone. I think I’ve streamed a few episodes of alone because it’s very simple. It’s okay. You know, there’s a bunch of people, but they go out alone, they go out to separate parts of this, whatever island or whatever. They never see each other. They’re given a camera and they just have to sort of self narrate.

Angie Marker:
Yeah. And it’s really interesting, the majority of them when they do tap out it’s because just being alone gets to them. And so I think that’s a really it’s, it’s a good thing to remember that we need, we need our people and that’s what keeps us healthy and thriving. And it’s, it’s a great show. If, if you aren’t watching, it’s, it’s a good way to kill an hour.

Steve Holstein:
Well, Angie, thanks so much. I know you’re busy. Congratulations on your new position and I’ll see you around town. I’ll see you

Angie Marker:
I’ll see you at the start line of the eight K for runs. Remember, I’m excited.

Steve Holstein:
I cannot wait. I am so ready to do that

Angie Marker:
Race. We’re really excited. You know, Jan Seeley. I mean, she’s, she’s just great for our community. I think there’s nothing better than watching people run in a race. Everybody’s happy. Well, most people are happy. I guess it depends what mile you’re watching. But she’s been fantastic to push this, to get it going for our community. And you know, our community foundation and United way are the two charity organizations for the race. And so we’re going to take the funds that are raised and work together to distribute those to some great. Non-Profits doing good work and Champaign-Urbana too. So it’s a good race for a good cause.

Steve Holstein:
See you at the start line of that and I’ll see you around the neighborhood. Okay. All right. Thank you so much, Steve.