Episode 9: Going from Opera Singer to Fundraising Consultant with Betsy Steward
Join your host Betsy Bush as she speaks with fundraising consultant and former opera singer Betsy Steward. They discuss what made Betsy pursue a path outside of the performing arts, how she got involved in the non-profit space, and how she handles rejection.
Backstage at a recital in 1992
Transcript:
Betsy Bush (00:49):
Some people who have desk jobs, dream of the artistic career, they didn't pursue. There are so many what ifs, but what about the person who pursues and succeeds in the dream and then decides it's time to take another path? Betsy Steward is a consultant with the Heller fundraising group in New York city, but long before SinShe began her important work, helping nonprofit organizations raise money, she was on the opera stage.
Betsy Bush (02:30):
Betsy Steward. Welcome to the latest version. that is gorgeous singing. Absolutely gorgeous. Can you tell me a little bit about that? That little piece we just heard.
Betsy Steward (02:42):
Sure. That was a piece that was part of a show that the public theater produced called on demo day. And the composer wrote that for me. And it was, it fit me like a glove and it's just a beautiful piece of music and I love singing it and they did make a professional recording of it so that when people ask me, do you have recordings? That's usually the one I give them.
Betsy Bush (03:05):
That was in 1988. That was a while ago. And, and I think you, you explained to me that it was around this time that you were reconsidering your career as a professional singer. Is that right?
Betsy Steward (03:21):
Yes, that's right. The, the year the, of that production, I remember looking at my calendar at the end of the year and I realized that I had done 156 performances and I thought to myself, yeah. And on the other days when I wasn't performing, I was either crying or angry because it's a really difficult career. And I had a wonderful time at the beginning of my career and I had some fabulous experiences. But by the time of that production, I was just, I was tired of it. I was tired of sacrificing so much for it. And I just thought, okay, this is enough. You know, it was hard for me to quit singing and because I have geared my whole life to it. And I had a therapist who helped me through that transition. And I remember that she said to me, you know, you're in a midlife crisis. And I was like 36 at the time. And I thought, midlife crisis, what is she telling me? And she said, let me explain what a midlife crisis is. It's when you work and work and work to get to a goal, and then you get there and it's not what you thought it was going to be. And that's exactly what happened to me. The, the work of being a singer was not as, as rewarding and wonderful as I thought it would be.
Betsy Bush (04:37):
That's so interesting because I think there are a lot of people who have that feeling of what could I have done? What might I have been if, if I had pursued those dreams and those passions. I mean, I have a friend who literally became an Oscar winning director from someone I grew up with in Pittsburgh. And his sister became a Tony winning Broadway choreographer and director. And I, you know, we were all in our little musical theater group together. And I, I have thought, gee, what if I had gone on, but I also know people who, who stuck it out for a number of years and you think of all the wonderful, talented people who don't get anywhere, you know, it's, it really is this, this balance of stability and predictability in one's life and pursuing the kinds of life that, you know, maybe you can't do if you're always auditioning, always, maybe traveling for work and that sort of thing.
Betsy Steward (05:44):
Well, you know, one of the things I often say to people is that I really am so grateful that I got to be a singer for as long as I did. And then I'm so grateful that something else opened up when it was time for me to say, I don't want to do this anymore. I wouldn't change anything. I don't have to be the age. I am now smacking my forehead saying what if I had pursued that I did pursue it. And I did very well at it. And I had a great time and I had wonderful experiences out of it. And then I wanted to do something out. It kind of makes me think of an interview. I heard once with Margaret Mead who was married, I think three times. And at least two of those ended in divorce. I'm not sure about the third one, but someone said to her after one of the marriages ended said, well, how do you feel about the fact that your marriage failed? And she said, she looked shocked. And she said, my marriage didn't fail. It was successful. And then it wasn't. And that's how I feel about my singing career, that it was successful. And then it wasn't meaning I loved it for a long time. And then I didn't, and when you find yourself not loving something, it's time to really ask, is it appropriate for me to be making the sacrifices I need to make to do this?
Betsy Bush (06:52):
So after you made that hard decision, did you go into a period of mourning? I mean, when I gave up my broadcasting ambitions, it took me a long time to kind of set that aside.
Betsy Steward (07:05):
I don't know if I would call it mourning. I definitely struggled with it because I had geared my whole life towards this. And as I mentioned, I was in therapy and I remember I had been in therapy probably three years when my therapist said to me, you know, I think you came to me to help get you out of the singing career that you're in. If she had said that to me, the first day I would have turned around and walked out the door because I was not ready at that point, by working with her, she helped me realize this is actually not fulfilling to me. This is, it was, but it's no longer and it's time to move on to something else. But yeah, mourning, I there's there certainly wasn't sadness and there's kind of still is sometimes I think back to how fun it was to sing. And then I remember, yeah, but don't forget. There were hard parts of it too.
Betsy Bush (07:52):
Right. So when you decided to make your, your switch, what did you do? You went through a couple of iterations where you were, you know, figuring things out,
Betsy Steward (08:03):
So this is in the late eighties that I decided that I should stop singing. And I guess my last official professional performance is probably more like 1992 because in the opera world, you do sign contracts that go forward in time. And I didn't renege on any of them, but I had supported myself when singing work wasn't coming through by being an office temp in the eighties. And because of that experience, I ended up learning all sorts of computer skills before most people had them. And I had been an office temp. My temp agency ended up realizing that I did know a lot about the computer and that I would be a good teacher and they trained me to train other temps and to train business people about it. And so when I decided to move up to Westchester, I said to them, listen, I'm moving, send me up to Westchester businesses. Don't send me in the city anymore. And they said, oh, we're not interested in any business outside of, I think they even said Manhattan. They didn't even say the city. They said Manhattan. So I came up to Westchester and I think I wrote one letter and I ended up with a hugely successful computer software training business for about maybe 12 years. It was very, very successful because people didn't know the computer, they were scared of it. And I, I just say, well, I happened to read about cut, copy and paste before anybody else did. And so I knew that stuff. And for 10 or 12 years, that business was thriving. Absolutely. I had to hire people to help me cause I was getting so much business and then the Y2K problem happened. And I don't know if it's, I don't know if it's cause and effect. I don't know what happened, but the whole computer training industry changed in about the year 2000. Nobody wanted to do that anymore. Companies felt like they had invested enough. They didn't want us to train anybody anymore. And now of course it's all trained. It's all changed to online training and all of that stuff. So I found myself at another crossroads, which was okay, so this has dried up, what am I going to do now? And I ended up getting career counseling from someone at NYU. In those days, they offered career counseling to people who were not necessarily connected to the university at all, which I was not. And this person said to me, you know, have you thought about fundraising? Because I think he would be good at that. And then she said, I don't want to push NYU on you. But NYU does offer a certificate in fundraising, which is perfect for someone like me. I already had a master's degree. I didn't need another one. I just needed to know what do you need to know if you're going to be in fundraising? And by this time I was in my early fifties. And so that worked out really well for me. I don't think I would've gotten my first fundraising job if I didn't have that credential because why would they just hire me? So that really worked out. And I have just been so grateful for that whole journey because I love fundraising. It's so rewarding. It's been particularly rewarding during the pandemic because nonprofits are struggling. And so I find myself on the phone kind of talking people off the cliff and really helping them figure out how you're going to do this. And I, I love it. I really do.
Betsy Bush (11:12):
We've met through different nonprofit organization, you know, ties and in Westchester. And it's a world I was in also. And I think when people hear fundraising, they're not quite sure what you mean, except that we it's, it's kind of the pool. We're all swimming in, in American life because we're always being, we always get letters for nonprofits who need money from us. We know our colleges and universities are always asking for money. We know that it's, it's, it's this idea of, we live in the kind of society where we have a non-profits that form to solve our own social problems or start libraries or social service organizations and things like that. So we have all of these nonprofits, no one else in the world really does it like we do. Fundraising is always there in the background somewhere. But what you're doing now you know, a lot of us are used to giving, you know, $10 here, $50 here, you know, to different organizations that we support. But there's another level of fundraising that you're involved with. You're a consultant with the Heller fundraising group. Well, it's a consulting group that works with nonprofits and their boards of directors to help them understand how they can raise money for themselves. And you help give advice. Can you talk a little bit about what you're doing?
Betsy Steward (12:48):
Sure. we specialize in capital campaigns and major gift fundraising, which means that we train people on, how do you actually ask someone for $50,000 or $300,000 or whatever it is that you need. There are deep pockets out there. People who want to do good, who have the resources to do good. And we help nonprofits figure out how to assign them. How do you cultivate them? Which is the word we use in fundraising and how do you get them to join in? And one of the things that I have transferred over from my singing career to my fundraising career is the idea that when you meet with a donor to ask them to support something at a very high level, it's very similar to auditioning. When you audition, you are there, you and your accompanist walk into a room and usually it's a big room. Sometimes you can't even see the one or two people who you're singing for. It's very kind of anonymous sometimes. And you walk in and you present. And the idea is they are going to say yay or nay. And it's the same thing with major gift fundraising. One of the lessons that I learned in singing that I've always taken over to to major gift fundraising. I remember I did one audition once where, as I said, usually at an audition, you walk in, it's very anonymous. It's one or two people that you're singing for this particular audition. I walked in like [ ], I walked in and there were seven people in this not very big room. It was almost like a classroom with a little stage on the end of it. And I walked in, there were seven people and I said, oh my heavens, I just love it. When the audience outnumbers the performers and everybody just cracked up my accompanist, the people I was going to sing for, they just burst out laughing and it made the whole audition so much more relaxed, so much more personable. And I got the role. So it's my favorite audition story. But I always think when you go into a meeting with a major donor, you, the solicitor must set the mood of the meeting, which means everybody in that meeting is nervous too, because the major donor doesn't know what you're going to ask for. And they may have to say no to something that they wish they didn't have to say no to, but they can be nervous too. So if you, if the solicitor set the mood in the room, you can really make it into a, home on, join me. Let's do this together kind of feeling. And it's very, very useful and very effective.
Betsy Bush (15:23):
One of the hardest things about fundraising is that ask moment when you don't know what the response is going to be. Is someone going to turn you down flat to someone going to laugh in your face? Or is someone going to say, sure, you could have asked me for twice as much and I would have given it to you, which is not what you want to have, right?
Betsy Steward (15:47):
No, it's not. But that's another thing that I learned in, in singing was how to handle rejection because you get rejected a lot, you know, in singing, they say, if you get one job out of 10 auditions, you are ahead of the game. And I can tell you that is true. That means that at least nine times you get rejected for every one time you get accepted and you know, you develop sort of a callus for it and you really learn how to not take it. Personally. I used to joke that that one reason for rejection often could be what I referred to as the ex-wife problem. In other words, I'm perfect for the role I sang really well. Absolutely. They should cast me and they didn't. Why, because I must look just like the guy's ex-wife. In other words, there's some reason that I will never know the answer to, but something out of my control and I can't do it. And it's the same thing with major gift fundraising. You don't know when you often may not find out why they declined the offer, but it's not about you. It's about the people that you're serving. So get over it, move on to the next.
Betsy Bush (16:51):
You wrote a blog post for Heller fundraising group that I found on LinkedIn. And it was exactly about this topic about rejection, because so many of us face rejection in our professional lives, particularly in fundraising. But also, you know, how many of us are going out on interviews for jobs and getting rejected and or asking for a raise, a promotion and many other areas in our lives. We're not trained to understand or to accept that process. And so I, I found your analogy to auditioning as a performer and just understanding that that's part of the, part of the biz of showbiz or singing or performing, is this is this understanding that you, that rejection is part of it and you just have to keep going rejection teaches resilience is, is something I took away from your, from your blog post.
Betsy Steward (18:01):
I think that's true. I think that's true. And one of the things I often say to my clients is that you just don't know what happened. So unless a donor actually says to you, I don't like you and I don't like your organization. You should assume that they still do. Just because someone says no does not mean that the relationship is over. I auditioned many times for the same company, there's one company I auditioned for, I think, four years in a row. And the woman who ended up being my roommate when we both got hired by that group, she had to audition for them seven years in a row. I mean, it doesn't no does not necessarily mean no.
Betsy Bush (18:39):
I want to say this about your blog post on, on rejection, because, you know, having been part of the fundraising world and having read a lot of, you know, the articles and the tips and the things like that, I don't think I ever read anything about how to handle rejection in fundraising. And I don't think many other people had either because your blog post got 20,000 views, which is a huge number in, in this, in this field that we're talking about, you know, where it's not, you know, where we're not talking about a celebrity or an influencer or something that if, what you had to say really struck a chord with people,
Betsy Steward (19:25):
I think it did because it is part of it. And I do think people don't talk about it. Yeah.
Betsy Bush (19:30):
And you also had a really nice phrase about finding your courage, find your courage. What do you think that means in in the world of fundraising or even in, in the professional world? Something that you brought over from singing.
Betsy Steward (19:47):
You know, singing is a scary business. You're going to be out on a stage by yourself with no microphone, it's you. And you, you have to do it. But I think that there's a whole lot of trust that goes on. You have to trust that you prepared, trust that you are good at this, trust that you are doing something good and that this is going to work out the way it should work out. And that same thing applies to major, major donor solicitation. You know, you are prepared, you have thought this out, you have a good idea. You're able to explain it, compellingly and concisely. And they're either going to say yes or no, but it's not because you didn't do something. You did everything you were supposed to do.
Betsy Bush (20:28):
Yeah, I also think that if you have an appointment and an interview appointment with a major donor, they pretty much know why you're there, right.
Betsy Steward (20:39):
They probably are not going to take the meeting. If, if, unless they're planning to give you something, they may not say yes to what propose, but I certainly have never had the experience of being in a meeting and having the donor just say a slap. No, not interested. You're not getting anything. Because exactly what you just said when they agree to the appointment, they know that you're coming to ask or something I'm director of development. What do you think I want to talk to you about?
Betsy Bush (21:11):
Right. Um the other blog post you wrote on your transference of skills from the opera career was more about preparation. And I think obviously when you're a singer, your practicing every day, you have you have, you worked with a coach, I would think, or a a teacher. And, and so, and so preparation is you wouldn't step out on that stage unless you really felt like you were absolutely ready to do it. You know, if you had any chance of being professional.
Betsy Steward (21:47):
Absolutely. Um I remember when I decided to quit singing, I remember my husband said to me, well, I don't know what you're going to do next, but whatever you're going to do, it's going to be easier than what you'd been doing. Because in opera singing, you have to be completely memorized in a language that is not your native language, that you have to make sure that you're in tune with everybody else. It's just so many balls in the air that it's, it's really hard, but that transfers over to, to fundraising. I mean, asking a major donor for money does not seem as scary as standing on a stage with 5,000 people in the audience. It's just not as scary. So a little perspective goes a long way, be scarier
Betsy Bush (22:29):
Than that. You know, I, you know, I often think of, you know I remember watching the best years of our lives that movie about the returning soldiers coming back from world war two, not quite sure what life would have in store for them. And it really was made prior to the post-war economic boom. And you think about these guys, it's like, what could be scarier than being in war? You know, you know,
Betsy Steward (22:58):
Yeah. Nobody's shooting at me. So I guess this is okay. You know,
Betsy Bush (23:02):
The industries that, that fuel the the post-war, you know, economic boom, that must've been easy compared to getting shot at, or, you know, flying bomber planes over, you know so what could be scarier in my opinion, to standing on stage and singing a solo, you know, I, I sing in my church choir, but the idea of singing solo just terrifies me. So you you earned my admiration for that. You told me an interesting thing about what your your voice teacher in college told you about your abilities. Do you recall what he said?
Betsy Steward (23:49):
Yes. I think I told you the story about, at the end of my college career I was about to go onto the next steps. And my voice teacher said to me, you know, you have everything that you need for a big career. You have the voice, you have the brain, you have the ear, you have the heart, you have it all, except for one thing. And I said, what's that? And he said, you don't have the ego for it. And at the time I really didn't understand what he meant. I thought what? Cause I don't brag about myself enough, but I don't know what you're talking about. And now at this age, I look back that after the experiences I've had, and I do know what he meant that there is a, a type of ego that a Luciano Pavarotti has that I don't really have. And so sometimes when I think about my whole career, I feel like, yeah, I don't think it was really the right fit for me, even though I was really good at it. You can be good at something and yet it's not the right fit for you. And I think he was right about that, but I couldn't, I couldn't just take his word for it. I had to explore on my own and figure things out. But yeah, he did say that.
Betsy Bush (24:58):
So, so this stereotype we have of the opera diva, who's, you know very upper handed and very protective really of herself and her instrument. And that sort of thing is that, is, is that the type of person who is the ego to succeed in in opera, do you think that's what he was saying? You don't have the diva in you or what
Betsy Steward (25:21):
I, I do think that's what man, I had plenty of ego. I don't mean that I don't have any ego because I do. But there is a type of, of strong ego that allows, you know, there's a famous story about Maria Callas walking off the set because they were going to do something that would not work for her. And she was right to walk off the set because it's her voice and she's totally exposed, but she was so criticized for that. And I think he knew that that would have been difficult for me if I had been slammed for doing that, that, that would've been hard for me.
Betsy Bush (25:59):
You know, at the end of every program, I asked my guests, what are three pieces of advice that you'd have to offer my listener on whatever that my listeners journey might be. Can you share some, some advice for, for my folks?
Betsy Steward (26:17):
Well, first of all, just because you're really good at something and you find it really rewarding doesn't mean you can't be really good at something else and find it just as rewarding. I certainly love fundraising, not exactly the same way I love singing, but I love them both. And you can be good at multiple things. You can enjoy multiple things. And I think that's important to know you don't have to limit yourself to just one thing. The second thing I think that you really do need to face the music. If you're not happy, admit that it didn't really work and move on to the next thing, there's nothing wrong with saying this seemed like a good idea. And it was a good idea for awhile and now it's not now I'm not actually happy. And I think it's a very important to check in and do that with yourself. And the last thing is that whatever you do jump in with both feet, don't give it just half your energy really do it. I would say the thing about all three of my careers that I think most people who know me would probably agree with is that in all three of them, I worked really, really hard. I really made sure I got all the I's dotted and all the T's crossed. And it's just critically important to be very dedicated and focused on whatever it is that you're trying to do. You can't succeed if you just phone it in all the time. So I think that's really important.
Betsy Bush (27:41):
That's great. You know, and I have to ask, do you do any singing at all? Are you involved in a choral group or a choir of some sort, or maybe you sing in the shower? I don't know.
Betsy Steward (27:52):
No, I, I don't, I don't really feel the desire to, you know, I was, I was on the phone a couple of weeks ago with a dear friend of mine who was my accompanist for many years when we were playing together or when, when I was still singing. And he is a concert pianist who was still working. And I said to him, you know, I find, I don't even listen to music anymore. He said, oh, I never listened to music anymore. And I don't know, I don't know what that is cause he still plays. But I feel like I get that. I, it's not that interesting to me to do anymore. I, the singing, one of the things that singers have to face that instrumentalists do not face is the deterioration of your instrument because I'm older now. And guess what your vocal chords are a body part, like any other body part. And they don't act the same, you know, when you're the age that I am as they did when you were 20. And so some of the notes that I used to be able to hit woken up out of a dead sleep in the middle of the night, I can, I, I have no chance of singing those notes. So it's not actually that rewarding to sing for me anymore.
Betsy Bush (29:00):
I don't know if you saw Christa Ludwig.
Betsy Steward (29:03):
Yes. I saw the obituary,
Betsy Bush (29:05):
The great opera soprano passed away just very recently and I was reading her obituary and, and she, I think stopped singing maybe 20 or 30 years ago. And she described the voice, the voice of the opera singer as like an egg yolk. Like once it's broken, it can't be repaired. It's it's that precious and that fragile.
Betsy Steward (29:36):
It is fragile. Yeah. It is a instrument. It's kind of like, if you could imagine your eye lids, that's about the size they are in your throat and they're very delicate. And I mean, one of the reasons that I remember not wanting to sing much anymore was you know, I got to be around 40 and I had my son. And if you're an opera singer, you can't go to a soccer game and scream for your kid. You just can't do that. You can't go to parties. You can't go to, you have to be. So the whole family has to be so aware of the health of the vocal chords that it's just kind of exhausting.
Betsy Bush (30:21):
Well, this has been an incredible conversation and I really appreciate your sharing your, your experiences with us. I don't think I've ever had this kind of conversation with someone who has been a singer on the level that you were, and to really have a heart to heart on, on the evolution that you go through as a singer. And some of us are, you know, kind of ready, like all humans, we're ready to move on to the next thing. As, as much as I know, some people would die to sing the way you did, but you did sing like that. And then it's time to move on.
Betsy Steward (31:04):
It is time to move on, and I'm glad I did. I really have no regrets about, about any of my career choices. I really have had a great time and they all have kind of blended together and given me a great time and I would never have met you Betsy Bush if I had not gone into fundraising. So there we go.
Betsy Bush (31:20):
And I know you're doing some great work with the nonprofit organizations that you're working with. So thank you for that. That's a real service as
Betsy Steward (31:28):
Well. That'll be your welcome and thank you so much for inviting me on this. I think this is a great thing that you're doing. People should have new versions of themselves. I think it's a very healthy thing to do, and I love the idea of exploring it with you.
Betsy Bush (31:40):
Thanks so much, Betsy Steward.