Page 8 - ECF-LIA-June-Summer-2024-flipbook

LOOKING BACK ON A LEGACY
Kathy Hawkesworth spent
more than two decades helping Edmontonians help Edmontonians
BY LISA CATTERALL PHOTOS ERIC BELIVEAU
AFTER MORE THAN two decades at Edmonton Community Foundation (ECF), Kathy Hawkesworth is getting ready for the next chapter in her life’s story: retirement.
“It’s a little like standing in front of this gorgeous vista, and you don’t know what your next step will be, in two feet or 10 feet or going forward from there. It’s very exciting, but there’s a lot of factors unfolding,” she says.
Over the past 23 years, Hawkesworth has worn a number of different hats at ECF, including Director of Donor Services, in-house counsel and Philanthropy Advisor. In every role, her focus remained the same: helping Edmontonians invest in their community for the long term. She played an integral part in the foundation’s success in that time, but remains modest about her personal impact.
“I’m of course delighted that the foundation has grown and blossomed over the years, but it hasn’t been me. It’s been the people I’ve worked with, the foundation and the donors that have made that happen,” she says.
Before joining ECF, Hawkesworth worked as a tax advisor, first at a law firm and then a national accounting firm. The expertise she developed in tax law, coupled
with her passion for charitable giving and community investment, proved to be invaluable when she joined
ECF. Martin Garber-Conrad, ECF’s CEO during much of Hawkesworth’s tenure, remembers the value she brought to the foundation and to donors.
“We used to joke that she’d go to sleep with the Income Tax Act on her nightstand. And there aren’t too many lawyers that do that,” he laughs. “But she knew it extremely
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