Renana Kehoe

Director of Development
Bellforge Arts Center

Medfield, Massachusetts

Renana Greenberg Kehoe joins "People in Fundraising" for Episode #19. She and I joked that this episode should be called "Field of Dreams," since we discuss her work at the beautiful, relatively new Bellforge Arts Center - and I get briefly emotional at the 15-min. mark when Renana asks me about my family's summer visit to the "Field of Dreams" movie ballfield in Iowa.

 

Renana begins by sharing two foundational parts of her life: her love of arts, and the sense of being part of a bigger community. She has held many roles across fundraising in her career, and is the immediate past president of NEDRA (New England Development Research Assoc), where she and the board created a DEI Scholarship. In its inaugural summer, Bellforge has hosted outdoor concerts and other programs, and Renana discusses current and future partnerships.

 

Given its newness, Renana has been able to build DEI into the development work from the get-go, and dreams of it serving as a hub for equitable access to the arts. We discuss the original Native American ownership of the land and its later use as a cottage-style psychiatric hospital.

 

Throughout her discussion of Bellforge, Renana's enthusiasm for its future is palpable. Listen to the on-the-spot painting Renana creates at the 28-min. mark when I ask her what she envisions for the future of Bellforge. "The key to all of this," Renana sums up, "is being passionate about what you are doing. When you really believe in doing something that will be here long after we all will be, you find the time and energy.”