Jodi Fournier, president and CEO of Taylor Grey Inc. Recruitment Consultants in Stamford, has generosity built into her business and has made it a fundamental part of her and her ever-interested daughter”™s life.
Fournier grew up north of Providence, R.I.
“It was a heavily concentrated with Italian, Irish and French neighborhoods,” said Fournier. “My mother still lives there; was born and bred and never moved.”
Fournier”™s father was in the service.
“We always had philanthropic interests at home,” said Fournier. “My mom volunteered a lot with the community and doing things within the church. I was exposed to that at a young age.”
After attending a Catholic grade school and a public high school, Fournier went on to University of Rhode Island.
“I was just far enough away that I could live there,” said Fournier.
While Fournier was at URI, she joined a sorority where she had a chance to take part in her first formalized charities.
“It was part of the mission of the sorority,” said Fournier. “We did a couple of really big fundraisers every year and that”™s something I was very involved with.”
Fournier continues to serve the URI community as a board member of the Women’s Development Council at the university.
After graduating from college, she took her first job in Boston and then relocated to New York to work for CBS Educational and Professional Publishing as a strategic planner.
In the late ”™80s, that division of CBS was sold and relocated to Florida.
“So 385 of us were laid off,” said Fournier.
Through a New York Times classified ad Fournier interviewed at the recruiting firm Dante Personnel, which has since merged into other businesses.
“When I went there, I met with the owner of the company and he was able to see that I had what it took to be good at the business,” said Fournier. “I didn”™t have a job and if I was going to make a change in careers, then was the time to do it. If that hadn”™t been my first place, I”™m not sure I”™d be where I am today.”
Fournier said she loved the industry out of the gates.
“I loved making the match,” said Fournier. “I loved talking to candidates everyday and finding that right place for them to go. I was finding people a home.”
Fournier was recruited by another company to manage its New York division.
“After doing that for seven years I decided it was time to go out on my own,” said Fournier.
“While working to plan Taylor Grey, I”™ve tried to design it to be more of a family-oriented place and a place where people of like minds could come and do what I was taught to do,” said Fournier.
In the late ”™90s, Fournier said corporate gift giving was becoming a very popular holiday custom.
“They would buy Tiffany gifts and I thought, ”˜I couldn”™t do that.”™ But it had to be better than that,” said Fournier. “We began to make donations as a gift to Habitat for Humanity on behalf of our clients. It just went to prove the idea that collectively we could do much more.”
Fournier”™s daughter Kyle, 14, brought her deeper into the world of philanthropy.
Fournier and her husband Ted Harrington entered with their daughter when she was just 7. Birthday parties would be focused on a charity organization of her choice.
“We wanted her to have a sense of community,” said Fournier. “More than just a sense that on your birthday you get loads of presents. She”™s very interested in animals so she chose the Heifer International Foundation, which buys livestock for people in less fortunate areas of the world.”
Fournier and her daughter donate to the foundation every year.
“She”™s even gotten into doing it on Christmas,” said Fournier.
Fournier and her family also became involved in helping orphanages through their church, the Fairfield University Chapel. And they travel each year to Chicago where a friend works on the board of a rehab facility to donate their time and effort.
“We feel that we are blessed and giving of that blessing is important,” said Fournier.
With Fournier”™s input, Taylor Grey adds to the giving via holiday meals for Fairfield County families throughout the year.
One of the most recent philanthropic efforts that Fournier and Kyle have had a chance to become a part of is the Ludlowe Corps, an organization founded by two Roger Ludlowe Middle School teachers, Rich Haxhi and Lenny Moitoso, which takes 10 kids and their parents to Senegal each year.
“They”™ve essentially started a middle school version of the peace corps,” said Fournier.
The students and parents help to raise money and in its third year have raised enough to buy 1,000 mosquito nets and a year”™s expenses for a new grade school building in a poor section of Dakar.
Realizing the need and support network was greater than one school, the Ludlowe Corps has grown into a community organization called Humanity Now.
“It”™s growing exponentially,” said Fournier. “We all help raise money for the groups who are going the next year. It”™s not just the student and the parent that goes; it”™s really the whole community that”™s behind it. It”™s in our blood now.”
