Volunteer Spotlight
Mary Kate Morr ’12
By Eliott Grover
Mary Kate Morr ’12 credits her parents with instilling her sense of civic responsibility. “When I was pretty young, maybe 6 or 7, I can remember sitting in my neighbor’s basement putting stamps on envelopes that were going to be sent out as political mailers,” she says.
It wasn’t uncommon for Morr to witness her parents attend community meetings, donate blood, write letters to editors, and call state representatives. “There were just everyday things like that,” Morr says. “In and of themselves, they weren’t a big deal, but they reinforced this idea that it’s good to give back and to think about what ways you can contribute to your community.”
Morr carried this ethos to Trinity College. She majored in public policy and law, seizing the unique opportunities the College’s curriculum offered to merge theory with practice. As part of her community action minor, Morr worked with a number of Hartford-area nonprofits such as a youth development organization and a commission focused on influencing legislative policymaking.
“It really connected the dots between learning about concepts and policies at this very high level and then being out in the community and seeing what that looks like on the ground and how communities are actually impacted by decisions being made by lawmakers,” Morr says.
After graduating as the class valedictorian, Morr earned an M.S.W. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison before returning to her home city of Denver. She currently is the director of community engagement and strategic partnerships at the Rocky Mountain MicroFinance Institute, an organization that supports low-income entrepreneurs as they start and grow their businesses. There Morr wears many hats, as is typical of life at a small nonprofit. She leads marketing efforts, oversees the volunteer program, and spearheads community outreach initiatives.
Despite her demanding schedule, Morr has consistently donated her time to Trinity. She has served the College in a number of capacities, including as a class agent, class secretary, and admissions volunteer.
“We love Mary Kate,” says Allison Grebe, senior associate director of annual giving. “If we could clone her a thousand times, we still might not have enough of her. She’s simply so willing to raise her hand and do anything we ask her to do. We try not to ask for too much or too often because we know she’ll say yes.”
When the Advancement Office rolled out a new volunteer management system to improve peer-to-peer fundraising efforts, Morr was instrumental in helping the team maximize its effectiveness. “Mary Kate was one of the first to jump on the platform and figure out how to use it and suggest tweaks and additions that made the user’s experience even better,” says Grebe. “She really helped us hone some of the processes and procedures that we wanted to put into place.”
Morr received a full scholarship to attend Trinity, which she cites as an important motivator to her fundraising work. “I feel very lucky that somebody out there donated some money that allowed Trinity to be a possibility for me,” she says. “Knowing that I’m helping raise money that will make it possible for other students to have the experience of attending Trinity feels very important to me.”
As a class agent, Morr contacts classmates in support of various fundraising initiatives. Her genuine passion and gratitude for Trinity imbue these interactions with sincerity. “Anytime she speaks of Trinity, she speaks well of it,” Grebe says. “Her classmates get the best of her and they get to hear the best of Trinity because she can share her experiences with them. Her name is known in her class, so when alumni get emails from Mary Kate, they know her and they know she’s worth her salt.”
