“The fun part of being new is meeting friends you didn’t know were
there.”
Originally from southern Indiana, Anne Morgan is
happily adjusting to life at 7,000 feet.
Anne started at NAU on March 30, 2009, as the
Director of Gift Planning in University Advancement. University
Advancement promotes NAU by fostering relationships that lead to
philanthropic support of NAU colleges, programs and students.
University Advancement raises funds for the university through the
annual fund drive, personal solicitation and planned giving. The
Office of Gift Planning assists NAU’s benefactors by working with
them with their estate plans, trusts, life insurance and life income
gifts to ensure the future of NAU.
“Planned giving is a great balance between the
social and the intellectual. It might be the only profession where
people invite you to parties just to talk about tax law.”
Anne fell into planned giving after graduating from
law school at Valparaiso University in Indiana. After working for a
small settlement house in downtown St. Louis, MO, and then as a
traveling planned giving officer for the Salvation Army, she went
into private practice as an estate planning and tax law attorney for
a boutique firm, McCarter and Greenley. While she was working as an
attorney, she also earned her LLM in tax law from Washington
University, St. Louis.
However, sitting long hours in front of a computer
drafting legal documents was not her idea of a life well spent. “I
found myself drawn to meeting with our clients, creating seminars,
and tackling odd projects, just for the chance to interact with
other human beings.”
So, after several years of private practice, Anne
came back to her first love, planned giving. Last May she moved from
Winona, Minnesota where she had served as the Director of Gift
Planning for a small Catholic college, to Phoenix to work for the
ASU Foundation. However, when the recruiter for the Director of Gift
Planning at NAU contacted her, she knew this was the right move.
“Before I officially applied for the position, I
drove up here with a friend to check out Flagstaff. Then I spent a
few weeks asking almost everyone I met how they felt about NAU.
Every single person I asked burst out with, ‘I LOVE NAU!!’ It’s
impressive when people have a uniformly high regard for a
university.”
While Anne’s current obsessive hobby is playing
tourist in the Flagstaff area and meeting as many people as she can,
in general, she enjoys reading, sewing, dancing and playing the
accordion. She is enjoying learning about Arizona’s culture and
history, as well as taste testing who makes the best pizza!
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