(upbeat music) - Recently, along with my colleague Mary Gamba, the co-host we spoke with Kim Guadagno.

She was the former lieutenant governor of New Jersey who heads up an organization called the Mercy Center down in Monmouth County.

Mercy Center is a not-for-profit organization.

They deal with food insecurity, they deal with homelessness, they deal with a whole range of issues and challenged urban communities in Monmouth County.

This is the former Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno over at Mercy Center.

It's an important conversation.

We're honored to be joined by our great friend Kim Guadagno, who is not only the former lieutenant governor of the great state of New Jersey, she's the executive director of Mercy Center.

The website will be up for Mercy Center.

Kim, it's so great to have you on "Lessons in leadership", welcome.

- Well, thank you very much, Steve.

We have a lot to talk about, I think.

- Kim, tell everyone what Mercy Center is so people can find out more and frankly find a way to give back.

- It's very simple.

We just wanna end generational poverty in our lifetime.

It's a very simple mission.

We wanna feed everyone and we wanna make sure that they don't ever have to come back to our food pantry or use our day services, our therapeutical services ever again.

And we do that by feeding their emergency needs.

So we have a free pantry that is open five days a week.

And then we have 13 licensed therapeutic social workers who speak five different languages.

And then finally, we have a school for girls fourth to eighth grade 'cause the idea is get people a great education so they can get out of the generational cycle of poverty.

- Based where, Kim?

Where are you based?

- We're in Monmouth County.

We're in Monmouth County.

We started out about two and a half years ago, just in the greater Asbury Park area.

But with all of our therapeutic services, we are now in four separate counties doing some kind of valuable work to help stabilize people's families.

- Kim, on leadership.

Three years plus into the pandemic, what would you say the most significant change has been in your approach to leadership?

How have you changed as a leader because of COVID?

- Well, I'm much more empathetic, much more empathetic.

The stories I have seen in the last three years... Look, when I was a lieutenant governor, I got all over the state and went through Sandy.

We had some pretty serious disasters, and you learn to love people that way, but you never get to know them.

In the last three years, I can tell you story after story after story that is heartbreaking about the work that we do in the Greater Monmouth County area.

And that is, to me, the greatest change.

I knew there was a need because of my prior job, but now I know there's a need.

And I also know this, Steve, and this is what gives me hope.

We can fix it, we can change it.

It takes a lot of work.

It takes a lot of people both giving and being willing to get help, but we can make this happen.

I'm confident in that.

- Mary.

- Yeah, definitely, Kim.

Can you talk a little bit about women in leadership and the importance of women being mentors, coaches, especially to our young girls today, especially tied to the Sisters Academy?

- Well, the Sisters Academy is a private independent school on the west side of Asbury Park.

I mean, such a tough neighborhood that a month ago, we had a shooting literally on the front steps during school hours.

That's how tough the neighborhood is.

That's why the school is there.

And that's why we need it first, because we wanna create small, strong, independent women.

You get into a good high school and then you're going on to college or a tech school that's gonna get you outta that cycle of coming to the pantry every day.

So to answer your question, what we do with the schools, we bring in women that look like the students.

So all of my students are black Americans, not African Americans, they're black Americans.

They could be Islanders, they could be Haitians, they could be African Americans.

But what we wanna do is bring in successful women.

I'll give you one example.

I'm sure you know Margie Perry, who runs a great construction business.

- She's on our board of trustees.

(clapping) - Oh, there was a- - Here's to Perry.

- There was an accident.

(laughs) - No, she's the best.

- But she came down.

- Marge is the best.

- She is a truth-teller.

She'll tell you the truth, she'll talk to 'em one-on-one and she's not afraid to tell 'em, "Yeah, it's gonna be hard.

Wake up, get a good education and get out there and go get it," and she's been fabulous for us.

Because, you know, I can talk all I want, you know, blah, blah, blah, but I don't live in their world.

Margie comes from their world.

So we like to bring women leaders like that in, Mary, just to make sure these girls have role models, - Who is yours, Kim?

Who is your role model?

- Oh, you know, like- - For being a leader?

- I go back and forth.

My dad and I...

He was a broadcaster, so you can appreciate this.

He moved 25 times before I was 25 years old.

Every time he made his numbers, he moved to a larger market.

- Market, yeah.

- And when he didn't make his numbers, he moved outta that market.

So why was he a leader?

Because he was able to take his five kids and say to them what he believed in, what he thought was the right thing to do.

He was very Catholic, he was very mission-oriented.

He was very centered on getting to a goal.

And that's what I learned from him.

But my mother in later years, I came to appreciate more after I had my own kids, was the one that managed all of it, allowed him to move forward in his career with five kids and move 25 times with five kids.

So I had to say that both of 'em, a one-two punch.

It was always an interesting dinner table conversation.

- As Kim talks about her mom, and it's such a cliche, but it's so true, women running, leading, managing the home and everything that that means and the people in it.

That's leadership.

Go ahead, Mary.

- And going to work.

- And going to work.

- Oh yeah.

- And going to work.

- And going to work.

It doesn't have to...

Right, Mary?

- Oh, that thing.

- We can all that in high heels, skirt, and you know, and went to work, brought home a paycheck.

Sorry, I- - Exactly, exactly.

You got the glue sticks in one side of your pocketbook and the paintbrushes in the other.

It's crazy, definitely.

Talk about we're... We have a nonprofit television production company as well.

Talk about no money, no mission.

We've talked about this offline as well, the importance of building relationships.

We talk about our kids.

I tell my kids all the time, I said, "Listen," I said, "You're not gonna get anywhere in life unless you build relationships.

Do not burn any bridges.

Make sure you understand the importance of connections."

But tie that back to leadership, relationship-building and philanthropy and fundraising.

Why is that important?

- You have an hour?

But- (Mary laughs) Look, kids have it much easier today with social media.

When I grew up, I keep telling my kids, I didn't have a computer.

So you didn't have social media, you didn't have a way to connect with people.

If I wanna ping a big donor and say, Can I get that five minutes?

I promise it won't be more," then I can do that today.

You could not do that 10 years ago.

Now you have to manage it, that people have to understand what you're doing and they have to buy into what you're doing, literally.

I mean, it used to be when I was raising money for a political campaign, they had to buy into the candidate personally.

And lemme tell you how much easier it is to raise money when you talk about sick children or hungry children or getting these children out of this cycle of poverty by getting 'em a good education.

It's so much easier if you tell that story than if you just say, "Hey, I need your five bucks," and walk away.

You have to spend a lot of time, you have to engage.

A one-shot deal isn't gonna help.

You know this already.

It's not gonna help you.

You need long-term sponsors.

You need long-term committed donors, funders, and whether they're engaged writing a check or engaged on my board or engaged in volunteering or engaged in speaking to my kids at the school, all of those things will make them valuable ambassadors for what we do.

Whether it's write a check or do a fund drive, a fundraiser or a, you know, food raiser or go to a golf outing.

All of those things.

There's no single answer, I think.

And you also have to have a really good Rolodex.

- Yeah, you do.

- Yeah.

- Kim, before I let you go, before we let you go- - Yeah.

- We’ve known each other a long time, But I'm curious about this, your level of passion.

You talked about your empathy before and how it's changed you, your level of passion, intensity of your passion and its connection to your leadership style, not an accident.

- Oh no, it's a direct connection.

You have to have a focus or a mission that you believe in.

You have to, like a politician, you have to be authentic.

But when you are in the nonprofit world, you have to believe it.

It has to be in your heart or as I like to say, if you don't cry once a day doing what we do, then you're not connecting with the people that you serve, which are the people coming in off the street needing help.

And to me, if you don't cry once a day, I don't want you in my organization.

You're not gonna be helpful to anybody.

So you need to focus.

You need to be really, really flexible.

So COVID made you very flexible and then you need to have the guts to carry through and follow through on every little thing that comes across your desk.

Kim, thank you so much, we appreciate the work that you're doing with your colleagues at Mercy Center.

We look forward to coming down there and joining the team and working with you.

All the best, Kim.

- Thanks, Steve.

Thank you, Mary.

See you later.

- That's Kim Guadagno, that's Mary Gamba.

We'll be right back.

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