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In late May I attended a gathering at the Wisconsin Historical Society in honor of former Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, the longest-serving justice in the history of the state’s highest court. The occasion was to name the historical society’s stately reading room for Abrahamson, who died in December 2020 at age 87.
I met and chatted with Kim Hurtado, an attorney who founded her own law firm, Hurtado Zimmerman, SC, based in Wauwatosa, in 1998. The firm specializes in construction and real estate law. She says she struck out on her own because she wanted community service to be an integral part of the organization. And she didn’t see that level of commitment in most for-profit companies.
Hurtado was interested to hear of my connection to Isthmus and our recent journey from a private company to nonprofit organization. She shared that her firm supports nonprofits in a pretty novel way and said she would be interested in helping Isthmus. I emailed her the next day and she asked me to draft a one-page introduction to Isthmus that the firm would adapt for the law firm’s “Day of Service Program” page on its website. Hurtado’s firm also made a donation to the paper.
You can see the Isthmus page, as well as those from 11 other nonprofits that are being supported this year, on the law firm’s website under the “Community Involvement” dropdown menu. The firm’s support of Isthmus, adds Hurtado, also comes with a “standing offer” to review such things as contracts, leases and insurance policies on a pro-bono basis. That is huge for a small nonprofit with very limited funds.
Hurtado says the importance of giving back to the community is woven into the structure of her law firm; staffers, while on company time, devote at least one day of work a month to a nonprofit and attorneys provide, on average, three days a month. “I just care that it’s a nonprofit of my employees’ choice,” says Hurtado. “I care that we do more than show up and address envelopes for a day. We are looking for meaningful opportunities that improve the quality of people’s lives with our service to others.”
She says it’s a two-way street: “What comes back from the opportunity to give to nonprofits enriches my employees in ways that are beyond measure. Their self- esteem, sense of well-being and balance all benefit from these interactions. If all you are doing is working with your nose to the grindstone and you never take a deep breath and connect to others in the community it’s so easy to burn out as a professional and I didn’t want that. I wanted something different — a better way of being a for-profit entity.”
Hurtado, who is the first person in her family to graduate from college, says she owes a lot to those who helped her, especially through law school. “I don’t think anybody gets through law school without having help from numerous mentors,” including professors and others who provide internships and scholarships to students.
But for those mentorships, she adds, “I would never have had the courage to start my own law firm.”
As for her support of Isthmus, Hurtado says she is a longtime reader and appreciates the paper’s “fierce independence” and factual coverage of government, the arts and science, in particular. She says she knows COVID wreaked havoc on media outlets throughout Wisconsin and admires the “fortitude” it took for Isthmus to strike out on its own as a nonprofit. “We thought it was a brilliant solution to a very difficult problem and wanted to support that.”
Another supporter offering novel assistance is Willa Schlecht. Her involvement grew out of a connection with Isthmus publisher Jason Joyce.
Schlecht and Joyce met about 17 years ago when both were participants in the Leadership Greater Madison program. The group seeks to educate professionals on various aspects of civic life, including nonprofit organizations, and motivate its members to “become engaged in their community and empowered to take an active leadership role.” Participants spend one day each month in intensive study of topics like education and criminal justice, as well as nonprofit leadership. This often involves visits to places like the Dane County Courthouse and Wisconsin State Legislature.
Schlecht at the time was working as a tax manager for a regional CPA firm and had a “need for more purpose.”
After finishing the program, Schlecht left her accounting firm to work at Meriter Hospital, where she became controller after a year, and later Agrace Hospice Care. In 2014, she became a consultant for Numbers 4 Nonprofits. She is now the financial manager for the Wisconsin Public Radio Association, the friends’ fundraising group, and recently became the treasurer for the Madison Public Market Foundation.
Joyce called Schlecht for advice nearly a year ago when we started seeking a replacement for our volunteer bookkeeper, Michael Cummins, who had helped us out for more than two years. Schlecht strongly urged that we hire professionals, though it would be expensive. “Having really good financials is near and dear to my heart so that people in the other aspects of business can do the warm and fuzzy aspects of their mission and then the back office is taken care of,” says Schlecht.
Significantly, she also offered to fund the endeavor.
Kirsten Houghton, one of our newest board members, who is an accountant herself at SVA Certified Public Accountants, recommended Kollath CPA, and Schlecht made good on her offer, covering the costs of Kollath’s services for roughly a year.
Schlecht, like Hurtado, values the role of local media. “To know what’s happening in your community you need people with journalistic standards gathering that information, providing context and sharing it,” she says.
She says she has been “brokenhearted at the loss of local media,” and has come to believe that consumers of information need to consider media funding as part of their monthly budgets. She believes that it has been a mistake for the vast majority of news to be provided for free. “I feel really strongly that the industry, somehow, needs to be communicating that you get what you pay for.”
Schlecht says she sees local journalism as a public utility. “This is a utility you are choosing to pay for.”
Schlecht says she agreed to talk about her role supporting Isthmus in order to encourage others to do the same. “I’m hoping this story helps others think about how they can make such a pivotal difference in an organization so that [the employees] can focus on the things that are more central to their mission.”
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