Elena Brito Sifferlin, MSW, LISW: Finding a Vocation in Community Engagement and Philanthropy

By Ann Harrington

When a career coach suggested to Elena Brito Sifferlin that she would make a great nonprofit board member, she resisted. She thought board work was going to be “just a bunch of people sitting around a table in meetings,” and she wanted to do meaningful work. But a connection with the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota proved to be a turning point. After two terms as a trustee on WFM’s board, she has embraced her new vocation of community engagement and philanthropy and established a donor advised fund with the foundation. And now, she says, “They can’t get rid of me!”

Elena and her husband, Mark Sifferlin, say they are committed to WFM because its focus on gender and racial equity mirrors their values.

Elena is a first-generation American, the fourth of seven children. Her parents came from Quito, Ecuador, to Kansas City, Kansas, for her father’s medical residency training in urology, and then moved the growing family to Wichita. Elena’s mother spoke Spanish at home, so she grew up bilingual.

Committed to Giving Back

Giving back to her community and serving others have been constants for Elena since childhood. She attributes Catholic social teachings and her Jesuit education as major influences. She still has her community service club membership card from her Catholic elementary school.

She describes herself as an empath: “I very much feel for others; I feel what they’re feeling.” And she was also always good at numbers, so she majored in business and accounting at the University of Kansas, and her first job out of college was as an accountant at Hallmark Cards in Kansas City.

It was at Hallmark that she met Mark, who started out as an artist for the company and later moved to design and product development. Elena soon transferred out of accounting to financial analysis——“I was missing the people side,” she said, and later became a program officer for the Hallmark Corporate Foundation, reviewing grants for social services and the arts, and exposed to Corporate Social Responsibility. She helped establish The Women’s Foundation of Greater Kansas City and served on the board of the Girl Scouts.

That was a dream job, in many ways, but hard to balance with their growing family. She had hoped to job share or work part-time, but in the late 1980s, “that was not possible,” she said. She left Hallmark when her oldest daughter was three and she was expecting their second and pursued a master’s degree in social work administration. Then Mark got a job offer in the Twin Cities.

So, in the mid-90s, the family moved to Minnesota. Elena had to establish herself in a new career, in a new area, with a six-year-old and a three-year-old, “and a husband that traveled a lot,” she remembers. Mark’s company was later acquired by Party City, and he traveled four days a week “for years,” he says. Elena was able to do some social services work on a contract or part-time basis, but her focus was her daughters.

A Volunteer Leader

“Once both girls were launched in college, my plan and goal was to go back to work full-time,” Elena says, “and I found that it was hard to get that.” Enter the career coach, who encouraged her to consider pro bono opportunities. Because of her interest in serving women and girls, the coach eventually introduced her to someone at the Women’s Foundation, and in 2015 Elena was invited to work on the second phase of WFM’s anti-trafficking campaign, MN Girls Are Not For Sale. Soon she was on the board and discovered that board service at WFM was more than sitting around in meetings. She also became active with the Jeremiah Program and the YWCA.

She served two consecutive terms as a trustee. “It was so heart-wrenching for me when my term was over,” Elena says, “because I gained so much. That organization trained me to truly understand racial equity, but also board work, how to serve your community…. I really feel that I grew and learned more than I gave.”

She continues to do committee work with WFM and service work in their community of Edina, and Mark has gotten involved, too. He is now retired and back to making art but also helps out as a “worker bee” behind the scenes. “I already did the out-front stuff in my career,” he says. Elena served on the City of Edina Race and Equity Task Force and is on the board of the nonprofit Edina Give and Go. “The amount of time it does take to serve your community—it’s a job,” she says.

Establishing a Donor Advised Fund

When Elena and Mark decided to establish a donor advised fund, they had an easy choice: “Hands-down, it was the Women’s Foundation,” Elena said. The mission, of course, aligns well with their priorities. But there were also practical reasons. Elena says it’s a very efficient, organized way for them to donate funds—they’ve done both cash and stock—and then contribute them to the causes they care about. She would have loved to have the resources to establish a family foundation, she says, “but we’re not at that level.” With the donor advised fund, she says, “you have a mini foundation,” and the Women’s Foundation takes care of all the administrative details.

Another important aspect for Elena and Mark is that every donation they make credits the “Elena Brito Sifferlin & Mark Sifferlin Fund of the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota,” reinforcing their support for WFM. Elena says they have been approached by other foundations about setting up a donor advised fund, but their support is unwavering: “I say, ‘No, we’re at the Women’s Foundation. We’re not moving, and we only need one.”

Get Involved

Like Elena and Mark, WFM can help you engage with nonprofits that connect with your passions. DAF holders benefit from the Women’s Foundation’s proximity to community-led organizations and support your discovery of emerging and established organizations making an impact in Minnesota.

To learn more or to start supporting charitable organizations through a donor advised fund, contact Melissa Cuff at 612-236-1803 or melissa@wfmn.org.