The Latino Professionals Association Celebrates Yo Soy: Communicating Need
Karen Burch, vice-president. Community Engagement & Marketing at United Way has been with United Way of Dane County for almost six years.
by Jonathan Gramling
One could say that Karen Burch, the Communications, Marketing and Outreach manager for United Way of Dane County, searched far and wide looking for the place she wanted to be before landing in Madison, Wisconsin. Burch grew up on military bases.
“I’m a military child, so I have grown up all over the world,” Burch said. “My mom is a Salvadorian immigrant. And my dad is from Louisiana. So I am half and half. We had pretty much traveled as a military family until I was a high schooler. I call that home because that’s where my parents ended up retiring. After we got to Florida, it was our last military duty station.”
There was something gained and something lost being a military kid.
“The good thing was the exposure to all of the different places that you lived in. But with that also came reestablishing at school and friendships and starting over again. That’s the good and the bad. It was exciting to move to new places. It was a little hard to settle in and be a young kid and have the ability to go and make new friends. The wonderful thing was that I went to all schools on military bases. All of the kids were in the same scenario. That was a really welcoming experience. It made you be a little bit more of an extrovert. All of us were in the same situation. At one point or another, you weren’t the only child experiencing that.”
After graduating from high school, one could say that Burch went back to the familiar. She enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps.
“I’ve always been into science,” Burch said. “I thought perhaps I was going to pursue a medical career. In the Marine Corps, I did marketing, communications and public affairs.”
When Burch left the Marine Corps, she enrolled at the University of South Florida in Tampa. While she still had her eye on entering medicine, her career goals began to change.
“My undergrad is in biomedical sciences,” Burch said. “At USF, I started to work on my marketing skills, particular in the health industry. And that’s how this took off. And I kind of thought like maybe it was a sign and I accepted it. And here I am working in marketing at United Way, running the marketing, communications and outreach area.
Being a military kid, Burch learned to roll with whatever life presented her. While she has lived in Madison for 15 years, she also considers Florida home. It’s where her parents and sister still live and where she met her husband. Her husband is from Madison and they would visit Madison during the summer. And their move to Madison was all about family
“We moved here almost 15 years ago when my son was four-months old. When my husband was like, ‘Hey how about moving our kids to Madison?’ I was like, ‘No worries.’ I thought it would be good and I thought it had a little unique DC vibe. I thought it would be great. I had never lived in the Midwest. So I thought it would be a great place to raise a family and at that point, we were ready to be full-time parents and raise our children with grandparents. I think that is very important. I think that is part of our culture to have grandparents around. That is very important for me. Personally my parents are very young, so they were still working and then they had more time to travel. So we ended moving here.”
Now, Burch and her children visit Tampa, Florida during the summer.
“Last fall, the kids and I came to Florida,” Burch said. “And we ended up getting stuck in a hurricane and we missed our friend’s wedding. And so my husband had to go and represent the family. It was horrible. When you live in Florida, you kind of get used to that. But it was really bad. Tampa completely shut down.”
While in Madison, Burch earned her MBA through the UW-Madison School of Business’ Executive MBA program. And about 5-6 years ago, Burch landed her position at United Way.
While Burch isn’t the public face of United Way — that’s Renee Moe’s job — Burch and her team are very much involved in the community.
“We make everything happen,” Burch said with a smile about her team. “We stay behind the scenes a little. But our work is very external. We lead the volunteering engagement at the community level and the corporate level. That really exposes my team to do that personal outreach and bring impact into the community as well as companies. While there is an element of being behind the scenes, the outreach component of my team involves public facing on the job.”
And her work at United Way is all about community.
“I lead all of the marketing, communications and outreach efforts,” Burch said. “So really, it’s looking at the public facing and the internal facing messaging of United Way, showcasing and bringing awareness to the community of the work that we do and being able to lift the non-profit ecosystem as the entity that upholds well-being in our community, being able to engage individuals to participate not just by giving monetarily, but also by being able to give their time volunteering. And we also ensure that our teams are able to be ready and nimble when things happen so we implement community resilience work. For example, it could be a flood, tragic incidents like the shooting, but being able to provide those immediate services to the community such as 211.”
Burch has come to really appreciate her adopted home of Madison.
“With the ecosystem of the non-profits, they work really great together,” Burch said. “It’s also a sense of community within that non-profit ecosystem. And we’re fortunate to have all the different entities that support the community. And we are also fortunate to have the support from the community to make sure that individual families and children have access to the resources they need. I think our community is incredible when it comes to being there for each other. And I think that together, we can overcome some of those long-time related problems that occur and hopefully even if it is one hour of your time or a $10 donation, every bit counts. So we really encourage individuals to participate with us at United Way.”
And in spite of the very giving nature of the Dane County community, the need is always greater than the available resources.
“Obviously the need is greater than what the possibilities are as far as the giving landscape and the monetary donations go,” Burch observed. “The need is really great. Every non-profit is experiencing those hardships. It’s really the purpose and the drive behind pushing for a strong campaigns year after year and then being able to facilitate and be that source and bringing individuals together to understand the community’s greatest needs. And then of course, those needs are the ones that really emphasize the long-term work and then of course being able to facilitate the immediate need through services like 211. It is difficult. Time and time again, we always start with our campaign. And the community is great. The community for sure doesn’t let us down. So we appreciate that. Our tagline is ‘The Power of Caring: Working for All.’ That really always comes through here in Dane County. And we are really fortunate to be able to have that kind of community.”
And being involved in the community — especially during campaign season — means there is never a dull moment.
There’s never a down time at United Way,” Burch emphasized. When things start to lull, it’s more because it is the cyclical cycle in the work. But there is always opportunities of engaging individuals or companies. And of course, there is the need to help others. You can never take a break from that. So I would say no. This is campaign season as you know. The United Way Community Campaign launches in August. And this year, we have done something a little different. We are actually going to go back to the celebration of the campaign in November. Prior to me coming to United Way in 2020 just before COVID and then after COVID, we were coming back to doing in-person events. We had switched the celebration to be in March. And now we’re going back to the original way, which has always been at the end of the year. So this year, we’re going to be having the celebration event in November. Between now and November, it’s pretty busy and engaging. We’re encouraging individuals to participate. And then we kind of go a little bit on a down time. But we are really working behind the scenes on preparing all of the content and everything for the following year. We’re starting to prep for January and then what that looks like for the next year. And then we begin the campaign again the following August.”
When Burch is not with her United Way family, she is involved with her own. And sometimes they come together.
“My volunteering revolves around all of the needs of the kids, whether it’s their schools, their sports or church,” Burch said. “In my mom era, I’m doing a lot. And of course, when there is an opportunity to bring them along to like a kickoff event, which we now call The Day of Caring, where there is an opportunity where they can volunteer themselves, I bring them along. Or Toys for Tots when they are beginning to collect donations of toys for other children, I make sure that I bring them into the fold so they can experience opportunities that United Way offers. With me being in marketing, they pretty much know the campaign cycle at United Way.”
Karen Burch has traveled the world and found everything she needs here in Madison: family, a quality education and her dream job at United Way of Dane County. It has been a very worthwhile journey.