Kim Gennaula

The term "anchor" has taken on a different meaning for Kim Gennaula since she left TV news in 2008; now anchoring is more about bringing stability to Honolulu’s nonprofits, which has been her main aim since taking over the top job at Aloha United Way.

Gennaula, 47, started off volunteering as a public affairs spokesperson for Kapiolani Medical Center — it was where her children, ages 9 and 7, were born, so there was an affinity. But when the execs asked her to head their philanthropy office, she hesitated.

"My first instinct was, ‘No, I don’t know how to ask people for million-dollar checks.’" she said. "But really, the key to being good in that area is just to be able to tell a passionate story, so all of my TV skills actually worked really well for me over there."

It’s been a busy year for Gennaula, who also was tapped to serve on Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s appointed Board of Education. Then in June she became president and chief professional officer at AUW, which soon found itself grappling with a reorganization and a reduction in staff and now is in the midst of the annual workplace pledge drive. Last year it raised a little more than $10 million, when totaled with the AUW share of the Combined Federal Campaign, collecting donations from military and federal employees.

Gennaula now has more time with her kids, both in public school, perhaps a little less for herself and with her husband, weather anchor Guy Hagi of Hawaii News Now. Overall, though, she likes this new perspective on the world.

"I used to tell people, ‘When I was in news, I only got to speak to community leaders if they were indicted,’ she said with a laugh. "Now, in nonprofit and fundraising, you get to speak to people for good causes. It’s a happy conversation, you know?"

QUESTION: What can you tell me about the reorganization recently, which led to layoffs?

ANSWER: Coming into this position … one of the things that came up, over and over again, was the amount of staff and the overhead that AUW had … not only to become more streamlined and lower our overhead, but also so that we could bring some people onto staff that would have a fundraising focus. We didn’t have fundraisers on staff. … So 15 positions in all were eliminated and six positions are being added back that all have fundraising responsibilities.

Q: But AUW’s all about fundraising, isn’t it?

A: Let me just backtrack a little bit. For the last eight or nine years, United Way has sort of thought of itself as a social service agency. They were focused on making a difference in different impact areas, like homelessness, crime and drugs and all that — doing really, really great work. But they were serving as a sort of social service agency and hoping that funding would just come. We say we care about the homeless, so people will give to us. But they weren’t actively going out there and trying to recruit the major gifts or the other funding that they needed to do their programs.

So what we needed to do was make our major focus fundraising, thereby being able to impact the greatest needs of the community. So for example, we didn’t have anybody in planned giving, we didn’t have anybody in leadership gifts. We didn’t have anybody in major gifts. We didn’t have anybody working with grants and foundations.

Q: So they will have a mix of duties, or are they primarily tapped for fundraising?

A: One of the positions is a new business director, so that person will be looking for opportunities to partner with businesses at point-of-sale and other types of partnerships. Another position will be planned giving and leadership giving.

United Way has the really unique benefit of having over 4,000 people in our community who have given for 30 years or more, straight. So there’s a tremendous opportunity in planned giving, in meeting with those people and saying, "Would you consider putting us in your estate plans in the future?" … Another position will be highly engaged in donor thank-yous and donor stewardship, so that we can do a better job of thanking the people who have supported us.

So each of the positions that we will be hiring for has some fundraising focus to them, because the climate of fundraising is changing by the day.

Q: The recession has made that harder and harder?

A: It is harder and harder, but I tell people what I think United Way’s greatest gift is increasing the overall spirit of giving in the community. We can very easily be Philanthropy 101 for somebody who never thought that they had enough money to make a difference.

Aloha United Way right now is running campaigns in 1,400 companies on Oahu alone. Our goal in those campaigns is to encourage people to say, "Hey, if you can just spare $5 or $10 a paycheck, combined with everybody else in your community, we’ll make sure that hundreds of nonprofits don’t go out of business; we’ll help to support them." So what we do is we take that person who never thought they had enough money to even really give back, and we do it in a really easy, painless way. …

So we’re sort of growing donors. … Our goals are twofold. No. 1, we have monetary goals that we want to hit, because that’s important for the nonprofits. But also, when you ask about the spirit of giving in the community right now, if we don’t far surpass the dollars that we raised last year, or let’s say we hold steady, but if we have 10,000 new donors, I will still consider that a great success.

Q: You haven’t been tapping grant money at all?

A: We have been doing it, but it hasn’t been really orchestrated. We have grant money that comes in our impact areas that’s been really helpful. For example, we have grant money that helps us run our 211 (assistance referral) line. We get over 45,000 calls a year to those lines, and that’s people who need everything from, "My grandmother fell down and needs help" to "I’m about to be homeless; what can I do?" to "Where can my kid get a flu shot?" It’s just about everything. … We do have grant money, but there’s a lot more out there we could be going after.

Q: Was this reorganization plan already in place when you came in, or did you have to lead it?

A: I was hired by the board with the understanding that United Way was at a really critical time, that they had to start thinking a little differently about how we did this.

Q: What were the trend lines?

A: The highest fundraising year ever was in 1994, and that is when United Way’s workplace campaign raised $15 million. Since then, the numbers have been going steadily down, so we’re at $9 million. And I will say, $9 million is nothing to be embarrassed about in one year; that’s still great. But the potential for us to reverse the trend is there.

Q: In this bad economy, is there a particular pitch you have to make, to underscore how deep the need is for charity?

A: Sure. What I tell people when we go out to do the rallies is, I share with them that last year the money that we raised supported 300 local nonprofits and made touches on 800,000 lives, through the programs that we supported.

In our messaging this year during the campaign I explained that when you look at the 300 nonprofits that United Way supported, I almost without fail can guarantee that somebody in their family has been helped already, whether it’s YMCA, KCAA Preschools, Heart Association, hospice — it goes on and on.

I tell them that "You can think of United Way as being your safety net, too. … If you can give a little now so that we can ensure that these nonprofits will stay around, the benefit back to the donor, even in tough times, is that if you should ever find yourself out of work, or about to be financially strapped, or you need some help with your health coverage or whatever, this small investment is a guarantee that those agencies will be around for you, too."

The reality of it is, nonprofits are going to start going away very quickly if we don’t all band together and help. Rather than saying, "Oh, there’s a need out there and I drive right by it," what we try to make them realize is, "We’re right here for you, too." And you will, at some point — even if it’s for a happy reason — you’re probably going to use one of our agencies.

Q: Putting on your school-board hat: The issue of advertising in the schools came up recently before the BOE. What’s your take on that?

A: What I said at the meeting was, I recognize the need of the schools to find other sources of funds because the schools are really strapped. But at the same time I’m really against kids being bombarded by ads in school because they get a lot of that already.

What I thought of as a compromise is that the DOE (state Department of Education) develop some really powerful educational messages for use across the whole school system.

If they (companies) want to consider advertising, they can choose one of the messages. We’d have to control how their logo would be used. Then you can turn this into a positive; the DOE doesn’t have any money for messaging now.

Q: And about your past career: Did you like working with your husband?

A: I loved working with him. He’s a really easy guy to get along with. Plus, you can’t see our feet under the anchor desk, so if I’m mad at him I can kick him and you can’t tell.

Q: Did you?

A: (Laughs.) No.