PhilanthropyMiami: Miami is special because…

Rebecca Fishman Lipsey: How much time do you have?! We’re a city that people CHOOSE to live in. A magnet of ideas and creativity from all over the world. We’re diverse. Playful. Warm. And our story is being created NOW by all of us, which has a magical feel to it.

PM: What does our nonprofit community need to be at our best?

RFL: Trust and collaboration.

PM: What’s the biggest thing you are working on right now?

RFL: The Community Recovery Fund at The Miami Foundation. The need is tremendous and we must stand together right now.

PM: What are you reading?

RFL: Darius Daughtry’s delicious poetry collection, “And The Walls Came Tumbling”. Local art. Powerful.

PM: Where is the one place in the world you are dying to go?

RFL: Truthfully? There’s no place sweeter than Grandma’s kitchen right now. Social distancing has kept us apart, but I miss my family.

PM: Who inspires you?

RFL: Jeanne from Showering Love. Kerri from Thumbs up. Vanessa from Bridge To Hppe. Keon from Urban Philanthropies. Valencia. Jenny Lee. Mileyka. People who stand for something with their full selves.

PM: If you could invite any five people, dead or alive, to dinner, who would they be?

RFL: Oooooh what a question. RBG. Michelle Obama. Brene Brown. Barbra Streisand. Meghan Markle.

PM: When you are not working you are…?

RFL: Reading Mo Willems books with my kingergartener. Playing hide and seek with my 3rd grader. Laughing with my husband. On a walking-date with an old friend.

PM: A night on the town is…

RFL: Little bites somewhere delicious, good music, and a long walk around the city that inevitably ends with a slurpee run.

PM: What advice would you give to your younger self?

RFL: All hard things will make you a more compassionate, nuanced leader later. Treat yourself with unconditional love and care, and know that “this too shall pass”.

Rebecca Fishman Lipsey is the new president and ceo of The Miami Foundation.