In 2010, we caught up with Colleen Wegman after she was named the chair of the United Way of Greater Rochester’s annual campaign. In a wide-ranging Q&A, she talked about the importance of giving, her time spent away from Rochester, and her own commitment to volunteering.
Wegman, who is married and the mother of two boys, is an experienced marketer with an M.B.A. in finance from the University of Rochester’s Simon School of Business.
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She talked about her ideas for the United Way campaign and about her own connections to Rochester with Jim Memmott, a Democrat and Chronicle columnist and a contributor to Rochester Magazine. Here’s an edited version of their conversation.
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During these tough economic times, the United Way drive will no doubt be challenging. Why are you taking on this task?
It’s very emotional: You recognize the need is so great, and you certainly want to help. But I don’t feel alone in that mission. The strength of the United Way is that the whole community pulls together toward a common goal.
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How do you convince people to give in tough times?
It’s our responsibility to share success stories, to share priorities and to share where the money is going and how it is being put to work.
At Wegmans, we do a lot of storytelling and sharing examples. We have always believed that you get back what you give because we’ve seen so many examples of that. You lead with your heart, you do the right thing and then everything will work out in the long run.
How comfortable are you asking people for money?
(Laughs) We all have things that we like and are good at. That is not one of my favorite things.
But we have a wonderful (campaign) cabinet, and there are many people on that cabinet who love asking people for money. Hopefully, through education, people determine their own level of giving.
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How best does the agency reach younger givers?
Our challenge is to match them with their interests. Young people are asking really good questions: What is United Way? Why do I give? Why should I be connected to that?
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They want to see the results of where their money is going and want to be personally connected to (their) giving. Some young people are forming giving circles around common areas of interest. And a lot of this is tied to their volunteer efforts, where they make immediate impact.
Sometimes people in their 20s are seen as not wanting to help, as being self-involved. Do you sense this?
I don’t believe that. I know for myself at that age, when I wanted to help, I went to Costa Rica when I was in college and spent time there doing social work.
What did you do?
I worked on a banana plantation. I worked with women where I thought I was going to be able to help improve their lives—and they helped improve my life a lot more.
It was an interesting time in my life where I wasn’t necessarily a fan of large corporations and multinational companies. The use of pesticide on bananas was something I was going to stop. That didn’t necessarily happen, but it opened my eyes as a young person to the fact that there are always two sides to every story.
They had wonderful situations down there. They had housing, they had food. It was a great environment; it was good for me to learn and see that.
We still sell bananas, but we sell organic bananas and conventional bananas. We offer customers a choice.
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You went from here to Colorado for college; what was that like?
It was so good for me to do that. Pittsford was a wonderful place to grow up in, but it was good to get away to gain diverse perspectives.
The name “Wegman” probably didn’t resonate in Boulder, did it?
That was a big factor in choosing my university; that was my number one criteria. I loved having to spell my name.
Why did you come back?
Certainly for me, I had the unique opportunity of having Wegmans here and having a job that I loved and am passionate about.
I think that’s got to be a driving factor for young people: the employment opportunity. But I do believe the desire to raise family here is there, and I’m seeing it more and more with young people moving home when they’re ready to raise their family.
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I absolutely believe this is one of the best places in the world to raise a family. I have two young boys—they’re 4 and 6—and I want them to grow up with the ideals and values of this community. It’s a friendly place and people genuinely want to help each other.
Given your busy life, how do you find the time to volunteer?
I think I learned balance when I had kids. It was never one of my strong suits. In the past, I believed the most important thing to do was just to work a lot. I always tried to work harder my whole life, but with my kids I’ve had to work smarter.
It’s been a great experience for me to learn balance, to prioritize what I spend time on in a day. You can’t allow for the things that are the most important to be compromised.
And I’m very lucky to have great people I work with, that I live with at home—a great support system.
Your grandfather gave millions of dollars to local colleges and to local Catholic schools. What did you learn from him about giving?
He lived and led by example and believed so much in giving and that it was a priority to first give to others. He taught that he always got back more than he could give.
His passion was always education and young children and, in particular, kids in the city who had a greater need for help.
Your father led this campaign, didn’t he?
Yes, my dad was chairman 21 years ago, in ’89.He loved it. I watched one of his campaign speeches that someone had saved, and the messaging is very similar to what we’re saying today in talking about how we’ve got to come together and give collectively.
But I think we have become fragmented as a community, and we do need to come together. The campaign total has actually gone down. The needs keep growing; the resources go down, and United Way has had to make their dollars go farther over time and work harder.
This campaign with you leading it also involves other Wegmans people, doesn’t it?
Absolutely. That’s a big part of why I got involved in United Way, because I knew it would not be just me.
We have over 11,000 people who work at Wegmans, who live here with their families. We know many of them use United Way services, and just about all of them support the United Way financially.
So when United Way had a need, we knew this would be the right thing for Wegmans to be involved with.
The Wegmans company has a reputation for generosity, having awarded thousands of scholarships to employees over the years and by giving in other ways. How has the company maintained this kind of giving in a bad economy?
As a community stakeholder, you feel a responsibility to do more, not less. Our people are feeling it, our customers are feeling it, and so we need to step up, not step aside. We’ve had to learn how to do that—we’ve had to make changes as a business. We’ve had to give more help, not less.
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