Fundraiser in Chief A Conversation with Margie Kim Bermeo
By William Poole S
ince joining The Trust for Public Land as Chief Philanthropy Officer in 2010, Margie Kim Bermeo has ramped up fundraising and
worked to spread the culture of philanthropy among TPL staff and volunteers. She recently sat down with Land&People to discuss the role of philanthropy in land-for-people conservation.
William Poole/The Trust for Public Land
You’ve recently celebrated your second anniversary at The Trust for Public Land. Has the experience been what you expected?
Our president, Will Rogers, has an expression that getting to know something new can be like drinking out of a fire- hose, which I think is both accurate and funny—the first year was kind of like that. It took me a little while to learn the way we do business, who does what, and how it is we’re organized. The Trust for Public Land very much has its own culture, which is, of course, to be expected.
In your 20 years as a fundraiser you’ve worked at both The Nature Conservancy and Audubon. How has your work here been different?
Both The Nature Conservancy and Audubon are great organizations. The Conservancy introduced me to con- servation, Audubon cemented that relationship, and The Trust for Public Land has enriched it with its land-for-people mission. The Trust for Public Land is about conservation in our daily lives. It is all about
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creating access to parks, trails, natural areas, gardens— places that matter in our everyday living. For me it’s been very rewarding work. I have a deep appreciation of and fondness for beautiful faraway places, but in the end I was born in a city, live in a city, and will probably retire in a city. I want to know that those places I went to as a young girl, and later as an adult, will still be there later in my life. And what The Trust for Public Land does is protect those places for all of us.
What was your earliest outdoor experience—your introduction to con- servation and nature?
Summer camp—I was a Campfire Girl. My parents came to the United States as graduate students shortly after the Korean War, and I was born and raised in Los Angeles. They were learning about Western culture and did all this research about what American kids were supposed to do, like Campfire Girls, dance classes, and going to sum-