Dynamic Duo
By Barry Teater
When Bill Rudolf works the telephones and reception rooms cultivating new supporters for The Jackson Laboratory, he heeds the advice of a former acquaintance, the late opera diva Beverly Sills.
“I learned so much from her,” Bill recalls. “She was the most wonderful philanthropic person you can imagine. I asked her, ‘How do you do it?’ and she said, ‘Well, you know, I sit with people and I say to them, I’m perfectly willing to take your money, but what I really want is your intelligence, your enthusiasm and your warmth, and people respond.’”
That approach has worked well for Bill in his first year as president and founding member of The National Council, the Laboratory’s network of donors and volunteers. The Council, founded in August 2007, has grown to include five chapters—in Maine, Philadelphia, Boston, New York and Naples, Fla.
“Bill has been a great leader as first president of The National Council because he has fully embraced the difficulty of launching something like this,” says Joanne Bean, the Laboratory’s senior director of development. “No matter what you ask him to do, he’ll say, ‘Sure, I can do that. Tell me what you need, and I’ll do anything.’ I wish I had a dozen more of him.”
