September 2, 2004 | Read Time: 7 minutes
The odds were against Starsky Wilson ever making it this far. As the third of five children growing up in a single-parent household in inner-city Dallas, Mr. Wilson lost an older brother to murder, watched two of his sisters become teenage mothers, and saw many of his childhood friends get wrapped up in drugs and crime.
But Mr. Wilson has taken a decidedly different path than many of those who grew up around him. Instead, he has used what he saw when he was young as motivation to help children and young adults growing up in similar circumstances make their way out of poverty.
In June, the Madison County Urban League in Alton, Ill., hired the 27-year-old as its chief executive officer — a move that makes Mr. Wilson one of the youngest leaders of any Urban League in the country.
The position, which pays $65,000 with the potential for a bonus if he meets certain performance goals, marks a significant career jump for the young nonprofit executive, who most recently worked as a major-gifts fund raiser at the United Way of Greater St. Louis, just south of Madison County.
During his brief professional career, Mr. Wilson has distinguished himself as a successful fund raiser. At the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, for instance, Mr. Wilson was asked to start a new effort to raise gifts of $1,000 or more from black donors, who previously had not been a specific focus for such solicitations. In the first year, Mr. Wilson helped raise $75,000.
In St. Louis, he led a fund-raising staff that brought in more than $18-million a year from donors of $1,000 or more, with $10-million of that amount raised from donors who gave at least $10,000.
When the Madison County Urban League began its search for a new leader to succeed its retiring chief executive, Mr. Wilson’s fund-raising prowess and energy quickly put him at the top of its candidate list, says Bobby Collins Sr., a retired business executive who is the organization’s chairman.
The Urban League of Madison County hopes to double its annual budget from about $1-million to more than $2-million during the next three to five years. And it needs a dynamic fund raiser and leader to spearhead that growth. Mr. Collins says it is clear Mr. Wilson fits that description.
“If you do good things for people and you don’t broadcast it, nobody knows what you do,” says Mr. Collins. “That’s the kind of thing we need. We need to get our message out.”
After only six weeks on the job, Mr. Wilson has already changed the Urban League’s fund-raising profile. The organization recently landed a $25,000 corporate gift from a local bank, a donation that is more than four times larger than its previous record corporate donation of $6,000.
The gift, while significant on its own, is part of a larger plan by Mr. Wilson to raise his organization’s expectations — and its profile.
“This clearly raises the bar much higher,” Mr. Wilson says. “What happens is organizations of various sizes get put into that ‘small organization’ box and are seen by corporate interests as an organization that they give $1,000 to. When you start making announcements about a $25,000 corporate gift or a $50,000 corporate gift, maybe they’re saying ‘now they’re a $10,000 organization.’”
But Mr. Wilson cannot focus solely on raising money. By assuming the role as chief executive of an organization with a broad social agenda that includes helping poor — mostly minority — families with housing, budgeting, family planning, job placement, and managing crises, he is taking on a wide range of new responsibilities.
As a result, he has spent much of his first six weeks on the job getting a crash course in how each of these programs works — and how they relate to the Urban League’s overall mission. He has met individually with his staff members, attended conferences, and reread books on the organization’s history.
Ultimately, though, Mr. Wilson says his training in nonprofit management both during college and at United Way and his experience in urban environments will help him succeed.
Mr. Wilson has been preparing for this type of challenge since he was a student at Xavier University of Louisiana. He originally planned for a career in government when he started college, but he ultimately decided that he would do more good working in the nonprofit world. As a student, he participated in a program run by American Humanics, in Kansas City, Mo., which prepares and certifies young professionals for careers in nonprofit management.
The new position satisfies Mr. Wilson’s desire to use that training to help poor, inner-city youths avoid many of the pitfalls that have traditionally plagued the urban population, and he expects his background in inner-city Dallas and his age to help him connect with the young people his organization serves.
“I want to bring those young men here to this office,” he says. “They don’t get to see a 27-year-old male executive running a company. “
In an interview, Mr. Wilson talked about his background and his goals:
How did you make it on this path while most of those around you didn’t?
I was blessed by God, saved by grace. I realize in our family life there were peaks and valleys. When I was at the critical point of middle school and high school, our family was in the best place financially in our life. But I don’t believe that what’s around you is what you become, because I saw things happen around me that weren’t right and I turned away from them.
Why did you choose the nonprofit world over a career in government?
This is where I should be. I think I have more opportunities to help more people in the nonprofit arena than in government. I appreciate the spirit of what we do here that doesn’t come with the trappings of American government. This is more in line with my spiritual compass.
Do you worry about how you are perceived because of your age?
There are those that will question, though not yet openly, my ability and background. There will be challenges because of my age. But I believe that’s balanced by my passion for this movement. You can’t argue with results. If we achieve results, those questions about my youth will go away.
What is your biggest goal with this organization?
We have to do a better job of telling our story. We’ve been content to do our work and have that work sell itself. But we have to do a better job of telling our story and relaying to the community what we have accomplished. That’s got to happen with external partnerships with companies in our area.
What are your long-term career goals?
When the agency stops growing, it’s time for me to go. I would like to spend the rest of my career in the Urban League movement. With this being one of the smaller Urban League agencies, there is plenty of room for growth.
ABOUT STARSKY WILSON, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF THE MADISON COUNTY URBAN LEAGUE, IN ILLINOIS.
Education: Graduated from Xavier University of Louisiana in 1999 with a degree in political science.
Previous employment: Spent all of his short professional career working for United Ways, most recently as a major-gifts officer at the United Way of Greater St. Louis. He previously worked for the United Way for the Greater New Orleans Area and the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas.
Civic affiliations: Serves as public-relations chairman for the St. Louis Metropolitan Clergy Coalition and as a board member of the St. Louis Black Repertory Company. He is also a member of the development committee of the Eden Theological Seminary.
What he´s been reading: The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels, by Michael Watkins; Blacks in the City: A History of the National Urban League, by Guichard Parris; and Militant Mediator, by Dennis C. Dickerson, a biography of Whitney M. Young Jr., a former National Urban League executive director.
