Maven to Know is weekly series by Indy Maven highlighting a member of our community. Want to be featured? Join us!
Jill Robisch has many jobs in her day-to-day life. In addition to being a wife and a mother, she’s also the vice president, senior business development officer at The National Bank of Indianapolis, where she’s been for more than a decade. Since graduating from Butler University in 2002, the native Hoosier has put her finance degree to work by helping local nonprofits meet their goals through her various positions in banking, including Regions Bank and M&I Bank.
Even in her free time, Robisch works to connect local organizations with strategies to meet their finance goals through the various nonprofits she’s part of in the Circle City. Currently, she’s a board member with Early Learning Indiana, the Arts Council of Indianapolis, and Dove Recovery House for Women.
“I have the privilege of working with so many organizations doing great work in our city,” she says. “I feel blessed to have such a rewarding job and am humbled on a daily basis by the professionals in the organizations that we partner with for the exceptional work that they are doing for their constituents. I enjoy working with organizations to understand their mission and then assist them to meet their financial goals.”
As a mom of two, she’s especially motivated by her work with early learning and ensuring all Indiana children receive quality care regardless of their economic status.
“I have two kiddos that have really benefited from that high quality of care and education and I see the benefit of getting kids off on the right foot,” she says. “I think all kids should have that opportunity.
We squeezed some time on Robisch’s calendar and learned more about how banks and nonprofits collaborate, what interested her in banking, and her favorite family-friendly activity in the city.
Maven superpower: I am energized by people and have a passion for connecting people with purpose. I am also your modern day Heloise — the friend that you come to for restaurant, art, travel, and shopping recommendations!
Tell us about your job as if we’re strangers who just met at a dinner party.
So, my day-to-day duties are meeting with nonprofit organizations and helping them become more efficient. I help them maximize their resources and then also fund their programs and expand. I also help with our community investment strategy and work with organizations to figure out how we can best support them in our community.
What interested you in banking?
I graduated from college in 2002 and I always thought I was going to do marketing instead of finance, but it was post 9/11. There weren’t a lot of marketing jobs post 9/11 when I graduated from Butler, so I used my finance background to go into banking. I interviewed with Merrill Lynch and interned with them and it really took off from there.
Indianapolis has a thriving philanthropic community. Explain the role nonprofits play in the community.
The nonprofits in our city provide a way for people to work together for the common good, transforming shared beliefs and hopes into action. They give shape to our boldest dreams, highest ideals, and noblest causes. Nonprofits in our city feed, heal, shelter, educate, inspire, enlighten, and nurture people of every age, gender, race, and socioeconomic status. They foster civic engagement and leadership, drive economic growth, and strengthen the fabric of our city.
So, how do banks partner with local nonprofits?
By partnering with local nonprofits, banks can create lasting relationships, strengthen their community, and increase both awareness and audiences for their bank and the nonprofit. Nonprofit organizations are driven by their passion and commitment to their cause, but can often benefit from a banking partnership that provides outside guidance and expertise when it comes to managing finances and funding. Nonprofit organizations also benefit from the financial support that banks can offer. Through direct donations and investments, banks are able to provide financial support to the causes that benefit their communities the most.
RELATED: MAVEN TO KNOW: CHARLOTTE SIMPSON
Tell us about your greatest strength.
Connecting people. I truly am passionate about connecting amazing women to other amazing women doing great things. Also, all the organizations I work with, I really like to look at ways where we can maximize how to support the nonprofit organization. So if I see the organization as just one thing similar to another one, I introduce them to see if they can maximize grants by working together. So, really conducting people was one of my greatest strengths.
On any given day, you’re balancing a handful of different roles and responsibilities. How do you balance them all?
I think I would have to give a lot of credit to my husband. In our household, it is very 50/50. If he doesn’t carry his load 50% of the time and I do the other 50% with our children, there’s no way I will be able to do it. It really takes a village. We have been so blessed to have amazing people in our lives that help us balance work and family.
Name a book that has really impacted you and you recommend to everyone.
Radical Candor by Kim Scott. I love that book and it’s hard to take that spot. Sometimes I think I love that because I’m a very black-and-white person and like saying what I feel. Sometimes I think we’re in a society where we are kind of tied or we think we’re doing someone a favor by not being honest about maybe their performance, where that’s really detrimental to them and their growth.
After a long work week, what’s a family-friendly activity you like to indulge in?
We really enjoy First Friday at the Harrison Center.
What’s something surprising about banking that people might not realize?
How rewarding it is to help individuals, businesses, and nonprofits achieve their financial goals. I love my job!
What three things can you not leave home without?
Bright lipstick, iPhone, mascara.
If you could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be and why?
The late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I admire her strength and the work she did advocating for gender equality and women’s rights.
Want to be featured as a Maven to Know? Sign up for our Membership Program—we’d love to have you! See all the Maven to Know features we’ve shared so far.
All of our content—including this article—is completely free. However, we’d love if you would please consider supporting our journalism with an Indy Maven membership.
