Meet Tia Tilson
Q: Let’s start with you. Where did you grow up? What brought you to Watertown and how long have you called it home?
I come from Kansas, just outside Kansas City. I came to Massachusetts for college, by way of California, and I stayed after I graduated.
I chose to live in Watertown nearly 40 years ago because of its great location! As someone who relied on a bike and public transportation to get around, it was the midpoint between the two places I needed to be to finish my course work and complete my certification to teach.
Q: Tell us about your career journey. What have been some of the experiences or people that have shaped the work you do today?
Armed with a degree in Political Science and certified to teach high school social studies, it quickly became clear that teaching high school students was not a good fit. I was a terrible high school teacher!
Yet, I cared deeply about giving people the tools to participate in our democracy and to advocate for change. This led me to community organizing as my first professional job and since fundraising is always part of working in a non-profit, ultimately, I followed a career in communications and fundraising for a host
of non-profits: higher education, health care, global health, academic research and human services.
Along the way, I’ve had the good fortune to work with passionate, talented leaders and fundraisers who thought deeply and carefully about philanthropy and what it means to ask people to give – to give time, share their talents, and donate their “treasure” to the causes they care about.
One of the most important things I learned is that while people give for all sorts of reasons, at the end of the day, people give to people. They give and participate because someone that mattered to them asked them to get involved and make a difference. Across my career, it’s been my profound privilege to connect with folks and think with them about how their resources can make the greatest difference.
Q: You are now the Executive Director of the Watertown Community Foundation. What drew you to this work?
Community foundations are pretty cool ideas. They exist to invest in the lives of people who live and work in a specific area. They are required to have public support or contributions from the public; and then put these funds right back into the community they support through grants to the organizations and programs that make people’s lives better and the community stronger.
There are only 15 community foundations in Massachusetts, including the Watertown Community Foundation, so we are super lucky to have one dedicated to the strength and vibrancy of our four square miles.
As long-time donors to the Watertown Community Foundation, my wife and I had some understanding of how the Foundation delivered on this cool idea for Watertown. When the chance came up to serve the Foundation as its Executive Director, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to bring together my work with non-profits and my background in fundraising and community organizing, and give back to the community that I call home.
Q: What’s happening at the WCF right now that you’re particularly excited about?
We have a ton of things going on! We just released another $41,000 in grants to funding for critical essential needs programs here in Watertown. We know that more people are struggling to get by -- rising costs are relentless and qualified people are losing subsidies and they don’t know why. These grants will extend funding for emergency assistance and housing support through the end of the year for six programs in Watertown.
Applications for our Community Engagement grants are open until September 30.
have a program that welcomes, builds, engages or involves the community and is
connected to a 501(c)3, maybe it’s a fit for a Community Engagement grant.
out at our website!
Watertown’s Got Talent is coming up again on October 7. This is a great event
organized by Arsenal Yards to showcase talent in Watertown. Performers 18 and
or group acts that include youth and adult performers can apply until this Friday,
September 25. Proceeds benefit the work of the Foundation.
And, Trivia Night is coming back on October 23! This event is a ton of fun!
benefit the kids by supporting our education and youth development grants. It’s a
way for friends, family, co-workers and neighbors to come together for a night of
competition for a great cause.
Q: For the people who don’t know the Foundation well, what does your job
actually look like? What fills your days?
Of the 15 community foundations in Massachusetts, The Watertown Community
Foundation is one of the smallest, and we punch well above our weight in terms of
impact. When I look back on what we accomplish in a given year -- awarding roughly a quarter million in grant funds annually to dozens of non-profits to touch the lives of nearly every resident -- I’m humbled.
While my day-to-day job is to figure out and deliver on whatever is needed to make that happen, we deliver this impact as a community and as a team. I have the excellent good fortune to partner with an outstanding board of directors, all of whom live in Watertown, a top-notch team of staff and professional advisors who help administer and manage the grants and get the day-to-day stuff done, and incredible community grant partners who, every day, deliver life changing programs to serve Watertown.
While my days can range from necessary administrivia to managing big one-time initiatives, one of the most important things I do is listen -- to our non-profit grantees, city leaders, business partners, and community supporters and residents about areas of need and opportunity.
Q: Is there a project you’ve accomplished at the Foundation that you’re
particularly proud of?
I am most proud of continuing to lift the profile of the Foundation and keeping our work at the forefront of what Watertown needs and where the community is going.
Long before my tenure, the Foundation has been the “go to” organization when Watertown experiences a crisis that pushes people to the margins. During the Great Recession in 2008 a time of tremendous unemployment, the Foundation started the Fund for the Most Vulnerable to channel contributions from Watertown residents to help those in need.
In the aftermath of the marathon bombings in 2013, we started Watertown Helps
Out (WHO) to bring the community together in common cause to support each
and the institutions that matter to us. We continue to organize WHO every spring,
has grown to a month of community service during the month of May.
During COVID, we provided $1.9M in grant funds for emergency assistance, food and housing support to keep people fed and housed.
And just last year, we led the effort in partnership with the City to run a city-wide food drive and collect funds for our food pantries when SNAP benefits were cut off.
Q: You spend your professional life thinking about community. What does
“community” mean to your personally?
Ah, such a good question! For me, community means service to others and mutual
concern and respect for people we know and people we will never meet.
I have a deep belief in the power of community and take very seriously my responsibility to help strengthen the communities I am lucky enough to be counted in. It has been a profound guiding principle for me in my professional and personal life.
Q: What do you think makes Watertown special?
It comes back to community. People are engaged and are working together to make a difference.
I look at many initiatives that we now take for granted in Watertown -- curbside recycling, the Watertown-Cambridge Greenway, the Mosesian Center for the Arts, public murals, the Refugee Support Group, even the Watertown Community
Foundation -- all of these things (and many more) happened because a small group of residents organized, found community and government partners, and worked for change. Sometimes it took years!
This spirit of engagement has only continued to grow and Watertown benefits every day.
Q: What are your favorite places to go in Watertown?
I have become an early morning Watertown walker. I amble up and down Watertown’s streets and neighborhoods just as people are starting their day. I’ve seen foxes and coyotes. I’ve heard duets of woodpeckers drumming on people’s chimney caps. I’ve considered wearing a hard hat as I tread carefully under walnut trees being stripped by industrious squirrels preparing for winter. I love looking at people’s gardens as they change through the seasons and marveling at the ingenuity of their bunny barriers.
Q: If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about Watertown, what
would you change?
The traffic! It can be painful to move across and around our four
square miles.
Q: What are the things that make you happy or help you recharge?
Time in the garden or on a bike. There isn’t enough time for either!
Q: What’s something about you that people who know you only through your
work might be surprised to learn?
I love to dance. We need more opportunities to dance together, don’t you think?
Q: And finally, what’s one book, podcast, show, hobby, food or place you are
loving right now?
I recently finished the book When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill. It’s a beautiful, fierce metaphor about women’s power, and how difficult and important it is for women to step into all they are and own all they can be.
