Week in Interviews

On Tuesday I met up with Matt Klein, executive director of Blue Ridge Foundation New York, which funds Groundwork. And today I had a phone interview with Rich Souto, former associate executive director at Groundwork and now executive director at New Heights Youth. Both interviews went well and in fact are a good complement - one the venture philanthropist and the other on the non-profit organization side. Matt and Rich were with Groundwork in the beginning, so they are valuable sources who can talk about what it's like to build up the work of a social entrepreneur. Matt tended to use technical terms more often - saturation and community organization - while Rich gave plenty of colorful anecdotes about the group that started Groundwork. Both had great things to say about Groundwork's co-founder Rich Buery. Matt noted that even if he had not known Buery (they were classmates at Yale Law, but had met before then), Blue Ridge would still have invested in Groundwork because of Rich. Souto talked about how fun it was to work for Buery, especially when it came to kaoroke nights.