SePTEMBER Member Spotlight
Meet Amity Schuyler Amity Schuyler is President and CEO of The Consortium of Florida Education Foundations. Her career began with a decade of nonprofit leadership in Charlotte County, where she led sustained reductions in youth substance use through policy, program, and communications work, before returning to the education field. She has since held cabinet-level roles in Florida school districts, served as Tennessee's Deputy Commissioner of Education, and led workforce transformation initiatives in the Greater Memphis Metro Area. |
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What is your involvement with Florida Philanthropic Network? What influenced you to join?
"The Consortium is a member with FPN and as the incoming President & CEO I found the network incredibly valuable as I onboarded into my role a year ago. FPN events, whether online or in person, are incredibly valuable and well attended. They keep me up to speed on what’s happening across the state and I get an opportunity to connect with other like-minded leaders in the sector. A year in, and I am participating in work groups and have also found it valuable to invite FPN leadership to participate in Consortium events where they add great value for our members with their expertise."
Name one thing you find special about the Florida philanthropic community.
" I find the thoughtfulness in programming and the ability to plug into important conversations incredibly valuable."
Are there any partnerships or collaboration efforts you have found most meaningful to you in the last year?
"I am engaging in the Florida Data Alliance conversations right now and I’m not just excited about the difference the Alliance might make, but to repeatedly see a space carved out for multidisciplinary stakeholders to come together on an issue that impacts all of us is of such a high value to not only us, but the state as a whole. A philanthropic and nonprofit network that creates the intentional time to convene and take on collective impact work is unstoppable."
What's the biggest challenge you've faced with your philanthropic efforts? How have you overcome them?
"It’s a challenge to strike the right balance between expected outcomes and reporting with the capacity of our grantees to do the work. The best way to make sure we’re not over engineering the grant process or sacrificing results is to keep listening to our grantees/members. They’re not afraid of hard work and high expectations and when they tell me that something is burdensome or that they’re over-tasked with a grant requirement– I take them at their word."
What fuels your cup - in life and at work?
"My faith, family and Rottweiler, Elvis."
Can you share one piece of advice you would give to someone considering a career in philanthropy?
"Know yourself before you commit. I've seen people go into philanthropy assuming their concrete, sequential, type-A nature would be an asset, and they were miserable within a year. You can have that personality and thrive here, but this work has almost no constants, it lives or dies on relationships, and sometimes people will try to make good work look wrong."