Kellie Magnus, Executive Director of Caribbean Culture Fund

 

110. Kellie Magnus

SPEAKERS

Will Bachman, Kellie Magnus

 

Will Bachman  00:02

Will Hello and welcome to the 92 report conversations with members of the Harvard and Radcliffe class of 1992 I’m your host, will Bachman, and I’m excited to be here today with Kelly. Magnus Kelly, welcome to the show.

 

Kellie Magnus  00:19

Thank you. It’s nice to be here.

 

Will Bachman  00:22

So Kelly, tell me about your journey since graduating from Harvard.

 

Kellie Magnus  00:27

All right, well, let’s see how fast I can get through what 30 plus years after Harvard, I came back to Jamaica, which is where I’m from, and I worked here for about three years, then went back to the US for grad schools. I went to Colombia, I did the ed school and the business school, and then I stayed in the US for about 10 years, working in consulting, then came back to Jamaica, and I’ve been back here for almost 20 years now, working mostly in nonprofits or with the with international development partners, but typically working on development related issues, and now I now run a fund. So I’m now the executive director of the Caribbean Culture Fund, which is a new entity to raise money for arts and culture in the Caribbean.

 

01:14

Amazing. Let’s maybe we tell us, you know, tell us a little bit about your time in New York and in the US, and then, and then we can move on to go through some of your experiences in in Jamaica, since you’ve been back the last 20 years. Yeah, sure. Well, New York. New York was great. I mean, I was at the Ed School and the business school there, which I guess is sort of me ping ponging through both sides of my brain like a more structured side, and then the side that has, like, more of a save the world

 

Kellie Magnus  01:47

focus. So I did grad school there for three years, and then stayed person consulting and then freelancing, working on a wide variety of creative and entertainment and media projects. And then since I’ve I’ve come back to Jamaica, kind of continued doing that, but as I said, more with a development focus. So those my my areas of interest have kind of stayed the same over the years. I’m always interested in doing something arts related and something that can, you know, improve outcomes for a wide cross section of people. Okay, well, let’s get into some of the, you know, just, let’s go through kind of step by step. Once you got back to Jamaica, tell me about your first role when you got back and how you, you know, decided to go back to Jamaica, and what was the role that you, that you took. So it’s funny, I was supposed to come out for a year. I thought I was going to be here for a year, and then it’s been almost 20 so the first role I took was working at the University of the West Indies, which is the big the big university in Jamaica, and I was working in the Media and Communication Department at the time, they wanted to do two things. They wanted to create an independent school of communication, and they also wanted to try to figure out a way to monetize the assets of the department. And so I created a business unit for them, and ran that for a few years. We did all kinds of things, you know, short term programs. We took on consulting projects from industry, from development partners. We did all kinds of really fun projects, and really had that department to make its own money. And then, you know, in being here for three years, I kind of got hooked into all sorts of projects. I joined boards of government entities or other industry associations, and just kind of got sucked back into life in Jamaica. So I didn’t come back here intending to stay permanently, but that’s just how it happened. Okay,

 

Will Bachman  03:52

so tell us about some of the boards you got involved in and some of the different organizations you got involved in while you were there at the

 

Kellie Magnus  04:02

organization closest to my heart was the book industrial association of Jamaica. So I joined that board fairly early when I got back here, and then from there, just got involved in all kinds of book related activities. So whether it was lobbying the government for the removal of of consumption tax on books, to planning an annual book festival in Kingston, to doing literacy initiatives in schools that serving on that board, I think has been one of the highlights of my being back here, because it was, it was such a great way to get connected to something I’m very passionate about, which is reading and literacy, but to address that one issue from so many different pressure points, so I really loved my service on that board. I haven’t been active on it for the last decade or so because I was running another NGO that really took up a lot of time. But. That that activity stands out to me as a highlighter of the time that I’ve been back in Jamaica and tell us about that NGO that you were running. Oh, Lord, so for about eight years, I ran an NGO called fight for peace, which was a it is a global NGO focused on Youth Violence Prevention. It started in Brazil, and then it opened a branch in England, and then an Alliance Network in about 20 countries around the world, and they wanted to start a program to test out ways to catalyze collaboration between NGOs and state agencies and the private sector around reductions in youth violence, and Jamaica and South Africa were the sites that they had they had chosen to test this thing. And at the time, I was running a project for the World Bank here, also focused on Youth Violence Prevention and just mouthing off to anybody who would listen about how, you know, how that the design of this project was not going to address the root causes of violence. And I think, I think I said that over and over again, so much that I almost manifested this role with fight for peace, because it really was a it was a challenge to try to pull together partnership of all different kinds of agencies to address youth violence from all the appropriate angles of intervention. And so I that, again, was a three year project. I ended up doing it for eight years, and it was truly interesting and unnecessary work that I’m proud of. But yeah, I ended that about a couple of years ago, and then moved on to the protege and Culture Fund. Okay, I’m curious. Tell us a bit about the root causes of violence. You suggested that the, oh Lord, for another, that’s a whole other show. Yeah? And, you know, I’m, I’m, as I said, I’m happy for the work I’ve done, but I think I spent eight years thinking about root causes of ads every day. So that’s not a path that I kind of wanted on very easily today. All right, well, one will go past that one then, yeah.

 

Will Bachman  07:18

So tell us about the Caribbean Culture Fund that you are running today.

 

Kellie Magnus  07:23

Um, it’s, you know, in our wordly, it’s like, it’s the perfect confluence of of so many of my different interests. So one of the first jobs I had coming out of undergrad, I think somehow I skipped, I skipped past that when I when I was giving the summer, since graduation, after graduation, I went to work at the Harvard Development Office for about a year, and that was, I tell people, that was my year of getting a degree in fundraising, because Harvard, as I’m sure, you know, is one of the, you know, as a fundraising machine. And so what I learned there was fascinating to me, and the whole time I was there, I just, you know, I was so curious about, like, how this could be applied to to my, my country, and coincidentally, my my mother’s boss at the time, was friends with the person who was the head of the university in Jamaica. And so I think I might have met him at a cocktail party or or my mother’s boss might have mentioned to him what I was doing. And so I ended up having a meeting with the head of this university, and he invited me to come back to Jamaica and work on a US fundraising plan for the University of the West Indies. And so I did that for three years. So the funny thing about this job is, like it’s sort of going full circle back to those roots, because now I’m fundraising for a regional entity, this time focused on arts and culture. So what this fund is meant to do is to just create a focal point for Caribbean fundraising about arts and culture. So we raise the money internationally and then we distribute it through calls for proposals to artists and cultural organizations based in the region.

 

Will Bachman  09:07

I gotta hear a little bit more about your degree in fundraising. Tell us. What did you learn in that year working for the Harvard fundraising office behind the scenes,

 

Kellie Magnus  09:17

if people talk about Harvard has such like a really well structured fundraising entity, and the part of it that I went to work for was called the part the Harvard Partners Program. And this is in 92 right, or 93 so I’m sure a lot of it has changed since then, but at the time, it was the part of the unit, the universe’s fundraising machine, that tried to raise money from entities that had no other affiliation to the university. So they is not alumni, not foundations that are previously given, not corporate fundraising, just cold calling, straight up bring new money into the university at the level of a million dollar gift or more. And so I was the researcher in this little unit. I’m sure it’s a mass. Of unit. Now, at the time, it was only three or four people when I was a researcher, and so it was just fascinating to me to learn about how, how you encourage people to support your cause. And I think the key thing I learned is that fundraising is, is relationship building, and it’s, it’s about helping to see, helping a prospective donor to see the world that they want to see in the program that you’re supporting. That’s something that I’ve never I’ve never forgotten. We spent a lot of time really trying to understand the people we were trying to get to donate to the university. What, what motivated them, what, you know, what change did they really want to see in the world. How could we get access to them? Who did they know? What you know? What did they like to do? What was their favorite color? Just like little things like that, so that we could try to create a relationship with them. And those are things that I’ve taken with me into the other fundraising initiatives that I’ve been a part of that is so interesting. What were some of the ways that you worked to build relationships with people or help them show that? Would you like invite those donors to campus and have them meet with a professor or go out like, what? What were the we did a lot of that, and at the time, you know, I worked directly for the head of the program, and she just spent a lot of time with the prospective donors, either inviting them to campus, or she would go out and meet with people. I remember there just being a lot of listening, like a lot of artists, trying to understand what motivated this perspective donor. You know, a lot of times I can think of one time in particular we we had brought a prospective daughter to campus and and I ended up taking his wife on a tour. And I think that the thing, the gift that they ended up making, was related to something that the wife had seen during that tour. It wasn’t what we had thought the we were, we were reaching out to them for to begin with, but, yeah, it was just really about, like it was slow money, you know? It was really about listening and creating a relationship and really trying to to connect the prospective donor with the program in the school that that we thought most mashed our interests. So you were just cold calling people who were not Harvard alumni, not Harvard students. No relation. Just yeah, no relation. And as I said, this is, this is 30 odd years ago, so I don’t know how they do it now, but at the time, this was, you know, that was my job, just like I my boss would bring in these names, and my job would be to find out as much as I can about them and sort of help to draft a profile of what these persons might be interested in. That’s pretty funny,

 

Will Bachman  12:47

so I’d love to hear a little bit more. So in the Caribbean Culture Fund, like, what are the sorts of donors that you are going after? Are you Is it primarily people in the West, Indies? Are you going to donors in North America, Europe, like, what sorts of profiles? Yeah, you know, we’re that’s what we’re trying to work on now, right? We’re trying to figure out what is the best fundraising strategy for us. We’ve been very lucky that we’ve had seed financing from

 

Kellie Magnus  13:15

OSF in, in in the US, and we’ve just got another grant in from the melon foundation. So our the first tier of our fundraising strategy is is major international foundations, but we do intend to launch a Wahida fundraising campaign as we move forward. But as I said, we’re brand new. We just got off the ground this year. Our registration is coming through, I believe, at the end of of next month. So yeah, we we are just in the thick of it, just getting set up and but I’m looking forward to to taking some of the lessons I learned from raising money for Harvard and raising money for the University of the West Indies, and applying that to the arts and culture space, because Caribbean arts and culture is so vibrant, right? So we know there’s a lot of people out there who support the arts here and are interested in Caribbean arts, and I think that will that will really help us to to create a very diverse pool of funders.

 

Will Bachman  14:11

Now, once you raise the funds, how do you go about figuring out who are the most worthy, you know, groups and artists and musicians and performers to fund. Like, how do you prioritize across that’s the challenge, right? So, so we decided to

 

Kellie Magnus  14:33

to kind of start testing that, that process, even though we’re not fully operational. So we, we did a round of funds this this year through the fiscal sponsor that we’re working with. And you know, we thought we’re just going to put this out there. We’re going to see how it goes. We were we set ourselves up to make 16 grants, and we ended up getting 477 applications. Chance far more than we expected to because we thought nobody, nobody really had heard of us yet. So, so what we did was we created a jury of really respected, informed people in the Caribbean, arts and culture space. We wanted to make sure that the governance of the fund and the selection are completely separate. So we put together this jury, and God bless them, they assessed these applications, and they decided on the applications just based on merit. We did create our call with themes, so alignment with themes was one of the key factors of eligibility. But you know, we were very lucky to have this strong jury to assess the applications for our center, to determine the final 16 grantees.

 

Will Bachman  15:50

And what is, sort of the objective function that the jury is selecting people based on what like? What are you trying to accomplish?

 

Kellie Magnus  15:59

I think, for this round. You know, we were really focused on alignment with the theme, but also replicability and scalability. I think, because this was our first cohort, we really wanted to have a pool of projects that look like what the fund is trying to do. So we wanted projects that we felt like we could learn from, that could potentially be be created in other parts of the Caribbean. One of our themes is, this time around, was Caribbean collaboration, because the fund has a really clear mandate for trying to improve connections between the different parts of the Caribbean. So it’s something that people who live outside the Caribbean don’t often understand, is that the Caribbean is kind of a high concept idea, but geographically, it’s very complicated. So we’re looking at 17 different jurisdictions, four or five different linguistic groups, just really different culturally oriented countries. And so in a lot of ways, the Caribbean isn’t a singular concept, and sort of the fund really wants to support efforts that bring the region together. So that was one of the key factors that we were looking at in the selection. Like, how, you know, how much does this project strengthen that ability to connect us as a people?

 

Will Bachman  17:14

Can you can you share any examples that come to mind from the from the people who are awarded grants of, you know, examples of

 

Kellie Magnus  17:25

arts and culture. I think that the favorite, you know, my favorite thing about this cohort is that it’s so diverse, you know, we’ve got everything from our project that looks at comparing and connecting to stilt walker traditions in two different countries, which which I love because it’s such a small but resonant part of culture here, to a children’s book project that brings different aspects of Caribbean folklore to Life, to a project that creates safe spaces for LGBTQ people in the Caribbean to tell their stories. To a digital project that brings together chefs from different countries in the Caribbean to look at synergies in culturally informed recipes, to another project that is archiving, creating digital archives of historical records and monuments across the Caribbean. So, I mean, no two projects are the same, but they all are so important and rich in their own right. And I think as a cohort, they really, they really have to tell the story of why the fund is necessary and the kinds of things that we can support. You know, when the fund is is fully up and running,

 

Will Bachman  18:49

and what motivates that, that,

 

Kellie Magnus  18:55

that goal of uniting across the Caribbean, you could imagine a fund that would be like, let’s focus on just Jamaica arts and culture, um, and what, what’s the kind of driver around uniting these disparate 17? Yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s a great question. And I think for me, it’s, um, it’s one of the things that attracted me to the role, because that mandate is coming clearly from the the the artists, who’s who had the idea for the fund in the first place. And I think there are two drivers for it. One is just our shared history, like, even though there are different countries separated by by these bodies of of water, the our roots are the same, right and and so in many ways, some of the challenges, some of the

 

19:43

the the

 

Kellie Magnus  19:47

the challenges, like I said, artist fees, are very, very similar. I think there are always going to be need for funds that support independent whether it’s geographies or independent sectors. But from. It’s the common, the commonality in the needs and how much opportunity there is when we collaborate, that makes the case for a single Culture Fund across the Caribbean.

 

Will Bachman  20:15

I’m curious to hear you’ve been back in Jamaica for two decades and you know, involved in the book Association and at the University of West Indies, and then in this fight for peace. And you know, you know, involved in multiple organizations. Tell me a little bit about just the kind of social milieu of your kind of personal and social network in the in Jamaica, I’m, I’m curious if it’s a in a relatively known, defined world where you know a lot of the people in the arts and culture space after you know being in different aspects of it for two decades. So that I imagine that you’re you know as you go about these funding things, probably a lot of the jurors you may have met before, or some of the artists who are applying you might know as a friend of a friend, tell us just about your kind of social network in that in that world. Yeah, it’s a great question. I think one of the reasons I really like this job is that the now my professional life syncs up perfectly with my personal life. So this, you know, my brother joked and I got this job that like I would have done this for free, because

 

Kellie Magnus  21:31

going to whether it’s art exhibits or book festivals or film festivals or pottery festivals or anything in the creative sector is my jam, right? So I would do this all day, every day, even if it wasn’t my job. But what has been really interesting to me in this role is realizing just how much I don’t know and how much work there is in terms of understanding what’s actually happening within each vertical in the arts and cultural space, and then multiplying that across the diversity in the in the different territories. So for everything I just said about our common common roots and common challenges, there are so many intricacies involved in just trying to understand what is happening, what is happening in the film sector in the Dominican Republic, what is happening in theater in Barbados. So, you know, we spent a good chunk of time at the start of the year just trying to, trying to understand that so that we could, we could try to have an informed strategy for how we were going to do our first call for proposals. And in the end, we gave up and just went with cross cross sectoral themes, because a lot of that information isn’t recorded anywhere. So that’s actually what we’re trying to do now over the next year or so, is to is to really take a deep dive into each sector in each country, so that we can better understand what is happening in terms of the personal networking side. I’ve been really lucky. So while, while each sector is is, you know, we have to be mindful in mapping each sector. The good thing about the Caribbean is that if you don’t know somebody, you know somebody who knows that, somebody, or you know somebody who knows that, some who knows somebody who knows that, somebody. So I’ve been able to to expand the network needed for the fund fairly quickly by building off the networks of of people who are involved, whether on a steering committee or in other ways, if they were part of the feasibility study that led to the creation of the fund, and to just slowly build out the network using those existing connections.

 

Will Bachman  23:39

Tell me about bit about more about networks across jurisdictions in the Caribbean.

 

Kellie Magnus  23:49

Do you find that, and let’s call it, you know, the you know, the professional class, right? Do you find that people tend to be relatively well connected with, you know, professionals in other countries, in other jurisdictions, in the Caribbean, is that pretty common? Well, I’ll answer that into it is very, very much so, right? Because, again, part of the challenge of living in a small island or living in a small country is that you, you know, for your own survival, you have to have a network that’s bigger than your your the territory that you live in, right? And so the the professionals in the arts and culture sector tend to be well connected. In some sectors, though they’re well connected both internationally and intra regionally. So if you look at what’s going on in previous literature, for example, you know those those networks are thriving because you’ve got a strong network again, of of literary festivals across the region. In film, that’s also getting stronger. But in some of the other sectors, you know, dance, for instance, theater, visual arts to. Some degree those intra regional connections are weaker, and you tend to find that the professionals have better connections outside of the region, either with their their you know, their colonial parent, or with the United States and Canada, than they do within the region. And so again, that’s one of the things that the fund really wants to to try to help, like, can we make it easier for artists to connect with each other within the region, so that the you know, the US or the UK or the you know, Canada doesn’t always have to be the the first port of call if you’re trying to make professional connection with give us a little bit of an entree of you know. So for someone who is fairly ignorant about culture in the Caribbean, what are some of or someone who’s even coming to Jamaica, and they wanted to say, Hey, I I don’t really know much about Jamaica. I’m embarrassed to say what you know, and you is it give me kind of an overview, a download of some of the you know, the key artists, the key cultural you know, things that I should know about, about, but even just about Jamaica, what are some of the writers, musicians, theater, filmmakers, you know, other artists that, that the people Should you know, be, be familiar with and, and how, what, what would some resources be that you’d suggest if someone wants to go, go deeper, because, you know, you’re trying to get me in trouble, right? So that’s such, that’s such a trick question. But, yeah, I’ll start with Jamaica, because I live here, and it’s what I know best. But I’ll see that Caribbean literature is thriving now. We’ve, I mean, the literature coming out of Trinidad at this point is just insane, I think, largely driven by a literary festival that they have there called Bocas list fest, which I would encourage everybody to go to. So boca litfest happens every year in Trinidad in April, um Calabash literary festival happens every other Memorial Day weekend in Jamaica, and that’s also a great place to start for an introduction to Jamaican and Caribbean writers, but also a place to just see brilliant writers from around the world. Every every time Calabash happens, they bring in marquee writers from around the world. It’s the only literary festival that happens on a beach. So that’s A a plug for going to your literary festival in the Caribbean. But in terms of other other aspects of of arts and culture, Jamaica is well known for its music scene. Um, reggae Sun fest happens here every year. It’s a great, great place to come and check out what’s happening in reggae music, and then outside, make a plug for the visual arts space in Jamaica. The National Gallery is is home to our premier collection of visual artists. And so I would encourage anybody who comes to Jamaica to put that on their itinerary.

 

Will Bachman  27:57

Amazing.

 

27:59

Um, in filmmaking, tell us about filmmaking in the region. Does it tend to be very country specific, or is there a lot of sort of cross country collaboration film? You know? No, not, not a lot on film. You know. Film is one of the sectors that I think we we as a fund, really need to spend some time

 

Kellie Magnus  28:17

thinking on how best to support film in in its own right. We did have a couple of film projects in this call, but the budgets that are required for film productions, I think, are, you know, make those projects compare less favorably when it’s an open, multi sectoral call. But yeah, you’re right. The film film production in the region tends to be country specific. There are some countries, like the DR that are doing much better than other countries. Jamaica is is it’s getting better, but the you know, production costs are still prohibitive. Our our government just launched a Jamaica screen development initiative this year, so I’m really optimistic to see what, what impact that has on catalyzing production here.

 

Will Bachman  29:08

Tell us a bit about you know beyond, beyond running the Culture Fund. How else do you occupy your time?

 

Kellie Magnus  29:19

Well, like I said, my at this point, my my work life and and my personal life don’t look so different. So I spent a lot of time going to literary festivals, film festivals, dance festivals, or I mean, I, I am an arts and cultural baby. That’s That’s how I choose to spend most of my time. I try to read a lot. I don’t have as much time as I would like to read, and I still try to run a lot, although my ankles don’t, don’t really support that as much as I would like. And I try to spend as much time as possible seeing Jamaica. It. Know, sometimes it’s easy to forget that you live on a beautiful island, because you get so sucked into the regular routine of your work day. So I try to make a point of, you know, I have to go to the beach at least once a month, because otherwise, what’s the purpose of living here? And just, I try to go out and like, connect with nature here, and just make sure that I’m taking advantage of of living in an incredibly beautiful place for classmates that are thinking about a trip to Jamaica. What are some off the beaten path places you’ve been to that you would recommend? Well, I think sadly, because of Instagram that there are so few off the beaten track places anymore, like everybody seems to know, know about, like, my my favorite spots, but I would, for anybody who’s covering her, I would highly recommend going to Portland. It’s the, it’s the less touristy part of the island, so there aren’t the big box hotels. It just tends to be smaller boutique hotels and Airbnbs. But it’s it’s so lush and so quiet and beautiful, I think it’s well worth anybody’s time. And even though, you know people, when they think of Jamaica, tend to think of the beach, but I would say just go up in the mountains. For me, that’s the most beautiful part of the island. And just any chance that I get, I go up into the hills, because I just it’s, that’s what feels like the real Jamaica to me. You know, you can go up into the hills and see a great view. You get to see all of Kingston, and you can see the beach, but you get to see it. It’s a quieter, softer side of Kingston. And then I should just make a plug for Kingston. Like people don’t think of Kingston as a tourist destination, but it just is such a fun, vibrant, culturally rich city to live in. There’s always something interesting happening here. There’s live music events most nights of the week, and there’s always something you know, interesting and fun to get into, and good restaurants and good nightlife

 

Will Bachman  32:12

amazing. Let’s turn back to college. I’m curious if there are any courses or professors that you had at Harvard that continue to resonate with you?

 

Kellie Magnus  32:25

Yeah? Well, yeah, I think in, you know, in a lot of ways, just my whole, my whole being there, and my whole everything I studied there changed a trajectory of of my life. I moved to Harvard Street from Jamaica. I had grown up in a in a predominantly black country race was not something that I had to think about growing up here. And when I moved to Boston, I just, I just remember being very confused, like American race. Nobody gives you a manual. No one says, Hey, this is going to be very different from how you’ve known things. And I was just so confused, and my my family jokes about it to this day, that whenever I’m confused about something, I go buy a book on that topic. So I was like, Okay, I’m going to take a class in African American Studies, just so I can figure out what is happening here. And I took one class. I think the first class I ever took was Verner solars African American literature class, and I fell in love with the literature, and I ended up, I ended up doing my whole degree in African American Studies and, and, yeah, I think that kind of was responsible, in a lot of ways, for my, you know, my lifelong interest in literature and in In in just literature on culture and like thinking through how those things affect day to day life. So, yeah, yeah, I hadn’t thought about that before, but that that class, and ended up ending up doing that degree, really did set the trajectory of my life.

 

Will Bachman  33:59

Well, if you, if you get in so inspired that actually would be amazing to write that manual that you were looking for when you, when you came to Boston,

 

Kellie Magnus  34:12

I don’t know about it just feels like it’s got a lot more complicated since I was there. I don’t know that I could, I could do that, but, yeah, I did, you know, in in those classes, I think, you know, I that that literature class stands out to me so much because Verna solar has just had such a a love for African American literature, and just taught it with so much passion that that still sits with me to this day. And I think just in the there was, I never did find a manual, but in the in the classes that I took and in the conversations that I had with the professors there and with fellow students and and just digging deeper into African American History and trying to understand, and, you know, understand it in its own right, and understand the differences between African American History and Jamaican and white. Caribbean history. I mean, those, those experiences, were really resonant for me. And I think have have given me a lifelong interest in just, you know, I’m interested in anything that forges those connections and and really strengthens our, you know, our common understanding.

 

Will Bachman  35:20

Amazing. Kelly, for listeners who want to follow up with you or find out what you’re doing at the Caribbean Culture Fund. Where would you point them online? Yeah, so the Caribbean Culture Fund is online at Caribbean Culture fund.org and I’m online at LinkedIn under Kelly. Magnus Kelly with an IE, okay, we will share your link in the show notes. Kelly, thank you so much for joining today. This was amazing to hear about your journey from Harvard to New York and Columbia Business School and the ed school and then back to Jamaica. It’s wonderful speaking with you. Thank you very much, Phil. It was great talking to you too. Thank.