Lynne Ryan, United Way of CNY

*Note: The following text is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Bill Berthel:

On today’s episode of Driving Leadership, Lynne Ryan, CFO of the United Way of Central New York is joining me as my guest. We’re going to take a little ride through the community that United Way serves. We’re going to check out a really cool mural and discuss Lynn’s interesting pathway to leadership. So Lynn, thank you for joining us today on Driving Leadership. I’m really excited about this conversation with you. The United Way, I think is pretty well understood in the community. You make an amazing impact here. I’d like to learn more about the United Way with you.

Lynne Ryan:

Sure. The United Way is a funding source for our community. All United Ways are part of a bigger picture. We are part of the United Way worldwide, but we are each our own nonprofit. So we have the flexibility to do whatever our community needs, which is fantastic. We currently fund approximately 70 programs at 26 different nonprofits, and we’ve implemented something we call support grants, which is for the grassroots organizations who don’t necessarily have the experience to meet our requirements for permanent funding, but they get these one-time grants, one-time grants for innovative new ideas that they’re trying to do in the community.

Bill Berthel:

So that’s a way that the organization is really innovating in the community.

Lynne Ryan:

Yes, yes. And we are partnering with groups like Micron groups, obviously coming to the area support.

Bill Berthel:

Yeah. Good.

Lynne Ryan:

We also have started a new program last year called Book Buddies. We recruit volunteers and we work on the reading levels for the youngsters in elementary school within the Syracuse School district.

Bill Berthel:

That is fantastic.

Lynne Ryan:

Yeah. Last year we were in three schools. This year we’ve been expanded into six, which is great.

Bill Berthel:

That’s really fantastic. Yeah. So you’re the C F O I am. And I think you play an IT role here right now as well.

Lynne Ryan:

I Do.

Bill Berthel:

So many hats. Yes, many

Lynne Ryan:

Hats. I’m also HR and facilities. Okay.

Bill Berthel:

Alright. So many, many

Lynne Ryan:

Hats. We call myself the queen of admin, but that’s

Bill Berthel:

Awesome. That’s awesome. So what got you in this role? Well, this multiple role, right? Yeah. And what drives you every day? Why do you get up in the morning?

Lynne Ryan:

Well, I’ve always wanted to use my accounting degree for some greater good, and I am a people oriented person. I care about relationships. I care about making our community better. I’ve raised a child with special needs and I’ve always worked in, since I moved to Syracuse, I came right after college and have been here ever since.

Bill Berthel:

So holding relationships as a core value, not just in your position, but in this organization, must be so critical. Yes. Tell me about some of the most important relationships you have here at the United Way.

Lynne Ryan:

Well, there’s quite a few. It’s really hard to limit and pick which ones are the best. Yeah, that’s good. However, I’m going to take it from a leadership perspective. Really what I do here is team build. My job was to come in and unify the team. That’s great. And we have a culture here that is very unique and different. Everyone is thrilled to come to work every day. And we all have days where we drag out of bed and you don’t want to go to work. That’s

Bill Berthel:

Part of being a person. Right?

Lynne Ryan:

Absolutely. That’s called being a human being. But for the most part, when we come together, we’re so excited about the work that we do in our community and so excited about the team and the environment here, that it’s a positive prism experience every

Bill Berthel:

Day. Well, it’s such an important mission, right?

Lynne Ryan:

We’re all valued. Every single one from the top to the bottom and no position is greater than another.

Bill Berthel:

It’s great. Speaking of the community, part of our show’s formula is to drive, get in the car, and take a little ride through the community and have conversation. You ready to go for a ride?

Lynne Ryan:

I would love to go for a ride. Can I show you a new mural that was created? Yes. On our day of Caring,

Bill Berthel:

Please. Yeah. So Lynn, tell me about this mural that we’re driving to.

Lynne Ryan:

So we did our annual day of Caring, and this was our second annual day of caring in the first week of August. And there is a local artist who is just fantastic and he loves the kids, and we actually gave him an award for this. He wrote a proposal to the city to do a mural at Huntington Family Centers. Great. And the kids who attend the program actually helped to

Bill Berthel:

Paint it. Oh, that’s so cool.

Lynne Ryan:

And it’s a take on Angry Birds only, we call it Happy Birds.

Bill Berthel:

That’s fun. That’s

Lynne Ryan:

Fun. Yeah, it’s cute. It’s really cute. And it’s all pink and purple and bright and vibrant. I actually took my daughter, who is a senior this year and did senior portraits in

Bill Berthel:

Front of it. Oh, nice.

Lynne Ryan:

Yeah, because it’s a touch of home and it’s a touch of United

Bill Berthel:

Way. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So tell me more about the day of Caring.

Lynne Ryan:

So Day of Caring is an effort that we put together. We used to do it years ago, and then prior to our team coming to United Way had stopped and we revived it and brought it back. We had over 800 volunteers come together the first year that we did it. And this year we had over 1200 volunteers and basically nonprofits would put in a need and then we would match people to go and fill the

Bill Berthel:

Need to go help out whatever those needs are. What’s a typical need? Or is it very,

Lynne Ryan:

A lot of it was painting fences or weeding outside of their buildings, that type of stuff. So this project was run by one of our staff members, Katie Hanlon. And it was just fantastic to see how the community came together and did this whole project.

Bill Berthel:

Oh, how fun. How fun. Yeah.

Lynne Ryan:

And the cool thing about this mural is one of the young ladies who helped paint it is actually living in the apartment across the street. So when she looks out her bedroom window, she gets to see it.

Bill Berthel:

So Lynn, tell me about your path to leadership. How did you become an executive of the United Way?

Lynne Ryan:

Well, it’s an interesting story. I’ve always been a nonprofit. I have always wanted to use my accounting degree to make a difference. And when I moved to Syracuse, I started working for hospice and I was pregnant with my daughter and had to write my own obituary and really realized how fragile life was. And as you start to come through, you really realize different things. You start to realize what goes on in life and all of the problems and issues that people face. As I kept proceeding in my career, I left hospice and I went to a nonprofit called Center for Community Alternatives. They’re the only agency of its kind in Syracuse. It’s an alternative to incarceration agency. Oh, wow. I was hired as their assistant finance manager, and I stayed for 20 years. I absolutely loved the work that we did, and I learned many, many valuable lessons there. But the most important, I think the way to sum it up and the most important piece of it is to capture it in one phrase. And that is nobody wants to be remembered for the worst thing they’ve ever

Bill Berthel:

Done. I love that.

Lynne Ryan:

And society has a way of not allowing that. So coming from an organization like that, we were helping people to reenter society after being incarcerated or helping those kids who had incarcerated parents to not follow in their parents’

Bill Berthel:

Footsteps. So employment opportunities, mentoring. Yeah. Great.

Lynne Ryan:

An afterschool program at the alternative school. Awesome. All kinds of stuff like that. And it was phenomenal when I started there. They were a small company that had approximately nine programs. When I left, we had over 66.

Bill Berthel:

Holy cow. Wow. That’s great growth. Yeah. Yeah. What

Either life experiences

Or

Role models, what inspiration was there for you to be on this path in your career and your leadership?

Lynne Ryan:

I had a fantastic high school teacher. Her name was Linda Gannon, and she was my accounting professor. And she took an interest in me. I was a troubled kid. I was in foster care and really struggling and didn’t have self-worth. And she helped me with that. She helped me to find it. In fact, she’s still a dear friend’s

Bill Berthel:

Thing. That’s awesome. Wow. Yeah.

Lynne Ryan:

Yep. There it is. So you’re going to turn left at this stop sign. You

Bill Berthel:

Cannot Beautiful be it. That is so cool.

Lynne Ryan:

Yeah. Really cool and unique. And the person who did it is just incredible.

Bill Berthel:

We can pull in.

Lynne Ryan:

You can pull in. Yeah. Yeah.

Bill Berthel:

Awesome.

So Lynn, what does a tight community mean? And who are all these names?

Lynne Ryan:

So a tight community is the painter’s idea of bringing together the kids who help to paint this along with himself. So as you can see, all of the names on the wall are the kids who painted it.

Bill Berthel:

Oh, that’s great. We’re going to walk right around and look at the mural. But that is such a lovely way to include them, not just in the process, but as part of the finished artwork here too.

Lynne Ryan:

So all of the children who are listed there are part of the program and here at Huntington Family Centers. And the artists thought it would be great to have them help paint their

Bill Berthel:

Mural. The scale is huge up close. It’s so different.

Lynne Ryan:

Yeah. It is very, very unique and very different. It’s a take on Angry Birds, but we’re happy birds in this

Bill Berthel:

Community.

Lynne Ryan:

Yeah.

Bill Berthel:

Oh, it’s so colorful and so fun.

Lynne Ryan:

Some of them are singing. You can see the music notes.

Bill Berthel:

Yeah.

Lynne Ryan:

Yeah.

Bill Berthel:

Pretty cool. I didn’t tell you this, my previous career was actually in artist paints. Oh really? And so we worked with a lot of mural artists and there’s an amazing challenge to getting a mural to scale to the building. And this is just stunning. I know.

Lynne Ryan:

This is just beautiful. I think it’s fantastic. It really is. How fun. He did a great job.

Bill Berthel:

How fun. Oh, Lynn, thank you so much.

Lynne Ryan:

You’re welcome.

Bill Berthel:

Fun. It’s been really wonderful to get to know you. Thank you.