CAMEO member Susan Redfield has been instrumental in setting up Assistance League of Long Beach’s endowment program.  We have been fortunate to have her advice, since most of her career has been helping non-profits establish their endowment programs.  She strongly believes in the importance of an endowment to ensure that funds will always be available to carry out an organization’s mission.  And, she practices what she preaches.  Along with her college and church, Assistance League of Long Beach is a beneficiary of her trust.  She says, “These are the organizations that have made a big difference in my life, and I would like to give back to them so they can make a difference in someone else’s life.”

Being involved with organizations that make a difference in people’s lives is second nature to Susan.  Besides CAMEO, she is on the Board of the Library Foundation and this year chaired Long Beach Reads One Book.  Susan credits her mother for her own commitment to volunteerism.  Through her mother’s example, she learned the importance of helping others.  Although her family wasn’t well-off, Susan’s mother was able to organize various activities for children in her community.  Susan fondly remembers a winter ice-skating program and synchronized swimming in the summer.  Volunteering her time and ideas to improve the community was something her mother strongly believed in.

Susan’s interest in working to better the community led her to earn a master’s degree in social work. She then went to law school, but a brief foray into insurance litigation confirmed that her interests lay elsewhere.  Instead, she began to use her legal expertise in the field of development, working first for the Illinois Institute of Technology, then a hospital, and finally the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.  In Southern California, she has been affiliated with the Long Beach Aquarium, the Los Angeles Zoo, and USC.

She had not been living in Long Beach for more than a week before a chance meeting with Peggy Reep at Crescendo led to her involvement with Assistance League of Long Beach.  Peggy invited Susan to tea and introduced her to five or six CAMEO members, and Susan became a member in 1998.  Now semi-retired, she consults with non-profits needing assistance with their development programs.