After a 10-month national search for its next leader, Nadege Souvenir took the helm of the San Antonio Area Foundation in April.
Souvenir, a former corporate attorney, said she’s ready to lead the foundation with a vision of equity.
“One of the biggest issues is equity: Helping those who who need it most,” she said. “It’s really about making sure that your life circumstances … aren’t determinative of your outcome. I’m really passionate about finding ways to infuse that kind of equity across the work that we do.”
Life expectancy, educational attainment and incomes in the North Side of San Antonio, where fewer people of color live, are higher on average than those downtown and on the South, East, and West sides of town. About 20% of the Hispanic or Latino population in San Antonio lives at or below the federal poverty line compared to 10% of white residents and poverty affects more women than men, according to the city’s 2024 Status of Poverty report, which uses U.S. Census Bureau data.
Souvenir, a Chicago native, previously worked for the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation for eight years, serving as its chief operating officer for two years. It was a position she wasn’t actively looking to leave when she was presented with the opportunity to move to San Antonio.
“I believe deeply in the power of community foundations to be a catalyst for change and convening and leadership in a community,” Souvenir said.
Souvenir is the first Black woman to lead the Area Foundation, the first community foundation in Texas and one of the largest in the country that manages more than 600 charitable funds with assets totaling $1.3 billion. The foundation estimates it has awarded $800 million in grants and scholarships since its founding.
As the foundation celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, the San Antonio Report sat down with Souvenir to talk about its future.
The transcript below has been edited for clarity and length.
San Antonio Report: Were you looking for new opportunities when the Area Foundation approached you? Was this something you were searching for?
Nadege Souvenir: They were searching far and wide for the next leader and I’ve been in the community foundation space for just short of a decade. I was open to opportunity, but not desperately seeking anything. This opportunity found its way to me and as I moved through the process and learned more about the foundation and San Antonio, it became really clear that this can be an exciting transitionary moment.
SAR: Where are you from originally?
NS: I grew up in a suburb of Chicago. I’ve been in the Midwest all my life. This is different.
SAR: I’m sure you’ve had the weather conversation about 1,000 times.
NS: 970 times.
My biggest challenge is I have always been addicted to tacos — so this is the worst place for me to be.
SAR: Or best?
NS: Hey, if I’ve gotta fail somewhere, this challenge is OK.
SAR: Minnesota is environmentally and politically very different from Texas. How did you view that when you were considering taking the position here?
NS: The reality is that politics and community are changing everywhere in different ways. For me, going to a new place was about having an opportunity to bring my background, my experience and my skills to make positive change in the community.
SAR: What made you say “yes” to a job hundreds of miles away?
NS: It was the Area Foundation first and San Antonio second. I believe deeply in the power of community foundations to be a catalyst for change and convening and leadership in a community.
At 60 years old, the Area Foundation is in some ways at the precipice of potential.
All of the larger community foundations go through these big moments of change from when they were small and then there’s a catalytic gift or something that changes the trajectory of the organization. I think that’s the moment that we find the Area Foundation; it’s a moment of change and it’s a moment of opportunity for really defining what it can be in San Antonio and what it can be for San Antonio residents.
It’s super exciting to be a part of that.
The John L. Santikos gift [in 2016] was a fundamental change for the foundation, and its asset size — it’s in the top 20 foundations by asset size, but now all it has a different responsibility and perception within the community. I think that it has rightfully taken a little time to sort out all of the pieces. Now we can say: Okay, what are we, who are we, and where do we go from here?
SAR: Have you always wanted to do this work?
NS: As a child, I did think to myself I was going to be a lawyer — and I did do that. I practiced complex commercial litigation for about eight and a half years. While I loved the challenge and the excitement of new clients, I found that I did not have the same passion for the everyday adversarial [attitude] that a litigator needs to have.
A trial is the big game for lawyers, but I had a year with four trials and two months at the city attorney’s office. And my response to that was: It’s OK. And I thought: It’s time for me to look for something else.
I started looking in the nonprofit sector, and specifically at philanthropy, because I really liked the possibility of being at the sort of organization that would be touching so many different issues — kind of similar to being an attorney — and I really stumbled my way into a community foundation at the St. Paul and Minnesota Foundation.
When I joined there, I will be honest, I probably still did not fundamentally understand the organization that I was a part of. But I started on their grants and programs team to do grant-making to nonprofits, lead community initiatives and stand up some of our learning and evaluation. Eventually, I moved my way into the operational side ending up as the chief operating officer.
SAR: It does seem like this field would benefit from an attorney’s skillset.
NS: I use the lawyer side of my brain far more than I might have anticipated when I started. At a community foundation, you are working with donors who are creating funds — those funds have agreements, those are legal documents — they have donor intent and field of interest and things have to be correctly interpreted so that we are meeting their desired legacy going forward.
SAR: Your resume includes bachelor’s degrees in Communications and Liberal Studies with an emphasis in dance from Iowa State University — what kind of dance were you interested in? Is there a parallel universe where your career lands you on a stage?
NS: I was trained in modern dance. As much as I enjoyed dancing, choreography was my true love. Not sure if there’s a parallel universe in which I’m a choreographer, but I honestly feel like I use those skills all the time in strategy work.
SAR: You noted that you enjoy being involved in many issues at once, is there one that lights your fire?
NS: For me, one of the biggest issues is equity: Helping those who who need it most. It’s really about making sure that your life circumstances — be it your zip code, your race, those sorts of things — aren’t determinative of your outcome. I’m really passionate about finding ways to infuse that kind of equity across the work that we do.
SAR: How does the work that you and the Area Foundation do in equity fit into this political moment — when Texas, at least at the state level, has been turning away from diversity, equity and inclusion?
NS: The reality is, I don’t think anyone should have their life prescribed by the things that happened in the first couple of years of their being here — where they literally had no control. I think that’s a message that can resonate with everyone.
If you think about that personally — about yourself, about your family, about your children — you don’t want that either. You want everyone to have an opportunity for a successful path, a productive life, happiness, wellness and community.
SAR: That’s not the definition of equity that some folks are using when they think of equity as a zero-sum game that picks winners based on their racial or economic background and not their merit.
NS: That is unfortunate. I don’t believe that’s how equity shakes out. I fundamentally believe that we all do better if we all do better.
The reality is, we get better outcomes when there are more voices at the table — when we are challenging ourselves in productive ways. And you’re not going to challenge yourself if everybody at the table looks, thinks and acts exactly the same way. Innovation has never come from doing the exact same thing over, and over, and over again.
The reality of equity is not about privileging one person over another. It’s about getting all of us access to the opportunities so that we can chart our own course. Being centered in community and doing things for the beneficial long term good of the community; that is not a political act. That’s just who we are.
SAR: You’ve had a few months to settle in, do you feel you have your bearings?
NS: Well, the delightful thing about community foundations is that they’re deceptively complex. There are probably hundreds of things happening here as we speak. And I can assure you that I don’t know all 100 of them, they’re very quiet.
But what I can already see is how this is a moment to really look at the inner workings to ensure that we can create more space to be out in community to meet with residents, leaders and spending time with donors.
People say AI, artificial intelligence, like they’re afraid of it. I’m not afraid. I’m super curious about it. I think that there are ways to use technology and tools to do some of our work and help leverage opportunities to get us kind of away from the computer and away from paperwork and out in community.
Right now the Area Foundation is in pretty much smack dab in the middle of a five year strategic plan. I think it would be foolish to abandon that without spending time learning and understanding. But I do think that there are always opportunities when you get a fresh set of eyes on a thing to look at: How are we actually working towards those goals? Are the things that we’ve been doing helping us meet those goals? Or is this a good moment in time to pivot?
SAR: Do you think the Area Foundation should be less behind-the-scenes, as many community foundations are?
NS: It has been historic practice that community foundations are kind of like the best kept secret in a community. I love that if you’re an after-hours lounge or something. I don’t love that for community foundations because I think that helping people understand what a community foundation is, and what it’s capable of doing is a benefit to the community across the board.
We’re inherently created to help donors think about their legacies going forward for the benefit of a specific community and to be a grantmaker and provider. So when you think about the inherent reason of our existence, boastfulness doesn’t seem like it should be a part of that. But in order to do that, well, people have to know we’re here.
SAR: I count 28 episodes online of the “I So Appreciate You” podcast you co-hosted with Melanie Hoffert, chief marketing officer for the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation. What did you learn from the folks you interviewed and is that something you think the SA Area Foundation should explore?
NS: The podcast was an opportunity for us to amplify local leaders from a variety of industries and sectors. What was most striking, season after season, is the commonalities that existed regardless of type of leader we were talking to. In the future, I would love for the Area Foundation to explore the possibility of a podcast. It is a lot of work, but when done right, it can be an asset to the foundation and the community.
SAR: Anything else y’all are working on that you’d like to share?
We’re a key partner with Future Ready Bexar County plan, the goal is that by 2030, we will increase post-secondary enrollment of high school graduates in a degree or credential program to 70%, which I think is fantastic.
We recently held a lunch-and-learn on some research that we co-sponsored around the financial wellbeing and wealth gaps of Latinos in San Antonio. It’s really powerful research that looks at the period of 2012 to 2020 and what changes we see over time.
And then we are at the very early stages of our work with Press Forward, which is a national movement to strengthen communities by reinvigorating local news.
I came from a community that had a Press Forward chapter so I’m excited to come here and learn that not only does Texas have a Press Forward Chapter, but it’s in San Antonio and the Area Foundation is the catalyst.
