Adele Wang wants to change the world. She gets excited at opportunities that are innovative and helpful to our society. She has always had a passion for travelling, meeting new people and learning anything and everything at once. She is a social butterfly who demands presence when she enters a room; which is hard to do when one is so short. Adele gains respect from her peers and colleagues through her intelligent analysis and ability to listen.
Here are some questions I asked Adele.
What are some of your passion when is comes to fundraising and philanthropy?
“I’ve always loved learning about people. There’s that curiosity about where someone’s from, what they do, what shapes what they believe in without fail and what drives the changes in opinions over the difference courses of their lives. I was lucky as a kid, I had a mentor who really instilled this in me.
As I got older, I became interested in issues beyond Canadian borders. This led me to my studies in Political Science with an emphasis on international relations, and drove me to take a life-changing volunteer trip to a small rural community in Guatemala before my fourth year. That was my first taste of meeting people from different places in Canada, and really the entire world. I got to observe different ways of life firsthand. From there I never really looked back – I knew that I wanted to do SOMETHING to connect with other people and help them.”
Do you feel like philanthropy gives meaning to other areas in your life?
“Working alongside and seeking people who see a different picture and potential of what could be, and wholeheartedly believe in their own personal power to change what they envision and see differently is important to me. The sense of community I have found at Evergreen Brickworks and among my friends from the Humber Fundraising and Volunteer Management program can really amplify the moments of empowerment in my daily life.
Anyone who knows me might complain that I go into too much detail about my love for travelling. I think it’s because I consider some of those trips as my most defining experiences to date. I spent two years travelling on and off, trying to figure out what direction I was moving in. I had a strong feeling I wanted to work in the non-profit sector but I wasn’t sure what my game plan was. Watching people connect from different parts of the world; it fascinated me and moves me. I really do think this is where I realized my love of local community development. I brought home the realization that I wanted to invest in my own city and community. Funny enough, it all came full circle. I fell in love with a lot of places where seeing that close sense of community, getting my food at a local market where I got to see and speak with others. This drew me to my internship at Evergreen Brickworks. Evergreen transformed an abandoned brick factory into a beautiful green space for the community to share with while still integrating it’s history.
Also, I have a deep passion for the arts and culture sector in Toronto. Personally, I equate it with quality family time. Growing up, my sister and I would get swept to museums, art shows and the symphony on weekends. Investing in a city that I live in, that’s special and it’s become a passion in my life.”
I think that some people have multiple passions, others have one. I have a few, and with fundraising and philanthropy I can explore them all.
Why do you feel like philanthropy is the right career path for you?
“Right now, I truly believe everyone has a dream, even if it’s not obvious to them, I think people feel strong emotions when something triggers it and they know that what they believe is that something should be different; that something should be changed. Something can be changed and it takes action and guts to do that. People want to be moved and if you can provide them with the moment where they feel it, it makes you feel amazing. I’m at such an early stage in my career that I’m not sure I have been able to do that yet, but I have been lucky enough to be around people who do, see and hear the stories of those affected, and where I have experiences a “wow, I want to be part of that” moment. I want to connect people to organizations that they either don’t know about or have always been connected with.
The thing that attracts me most to philanthropy is being in a position to be a part of helping others be more philanthropic. I want to be an enabler and connect people to opportunities.
Meeting my friends at Humber, experiencing the open culture of fundraising and philanthropy professionals in the non-profit community and the people I have met thus far in my internship have all reconfirmed why I feel as though this is the right place for me to be right now. We have to spend so much time at work that to have a moment of inspiration makes a difference in your productivity and day-to-day life. There is something to be said about finding and connecting with people who get just as passioned as you do about a cause. Imagine what it must be like to mobilize them and then you can’t wait to see what happens!”
(me)volution 