Open Door Fund: Making the Case for Your Support

“The concept of ‘open doors’ represents an invitation to an unparalleled opportunity to prove my worth and merit.” – Darius Alexander, 2024 Open Door Fellow

The fellows are pictured smiling and standing against an NCBF backdrop. Zi Yi is an Asian woman with brown hair wearing a white blouse and black skirt, April Franklin is a Black woman wearing a black blouse, black blazer and burgundy skirt, Darius Alexander is a Black man with black hair wearing a white shirt, blue tie, and grey suit, and Tavaria Smith is a Black woman with black hair wearing a burgundy blouse and white pants.

The first four Open Door Fellows, from left: Zi Yi Zhou, April Franklin, Darius Alexander and Tavaria Smith.

The 2024 NCBA Annual Meeting featured a special announcement from Caryn McNeill and Mark Holt, founding co-chairs of the Open Door Fund and Fellowship of the North Carolina Bar Foundation. Although both are past presidents of the NCBA and NCBF, their leadership of this endeavor derives from their longstanding involvement with the NCBF Development Committee.

“Over the past year,” Holt announced on June 21 in Charlotte, “a small group of volunteer leaders has worked quietly to build a solid foundation for the Open Door Fund, which will provide perpetual support to the Open Door Fellowship and other diversity, equity and inclusion programs of the North Carolina Bar Association and the North Carolina Bar Foundation.”

“Our Open Door Fund campaign goal is $1 million, and I am very excited to announce to you today that, thanks to the generosity of our founding donors, and a few other donors who couldn’t wait for this public launch today and jumped right in, we have raised over $700,000 in gifts and pledges. We offer these founding donors our deepest gratitude for their leadership and their shared commitment to our values and vision for the North Carolina legal community in our state.”

The focus of the public phase of the campaign will be on securing the final $300,000 in gifts and pledges necessary to fully endow the Open Door Fund and Fellowship. This is no small task, as anyone who has ever engaged in a fundraising campaign will readily attest, but with your help as a member of the North Carolina Bar Association, the finish line is in sight.

The public-facing stage of the campaign is new, but the work itself is not. The campaign is a response to the Report on Relationships Between the NCBA and Systemic Racism, authored by Executive Director Jason Hensley and presented in executive session to the NCBA Board of Governors and NCBF Board of Directors on November 23, 2020.

“The report detailed our organization’s relationships with systemic racism,” stated Holt, who was serving as president when the report was published. “From 1899 until 1965, the door to our organization was open only to white attorneys. For over 60 years, our door was closed to Black attorneys and all attorneys of color. And once the white-only membership requirement was removed, the door to membership opened very slowly.

“We have acknowledged this history. We have lamented this history. But we know we need to do more. True reconciliation requires that we change our words and change our actions to make things better.”

To that end, the Task Force on Recognition and Grant Initiatives was established. Tammy Stringer served as chair of the task force, where she was joined by leadership, staff, and volunteers Jonathan Bogues, Stuart Dorsett, Arnita Dula, Phyllis Pickett, Dick Thigpen and Matt Wolfe.

“At the North Carolina Bar Foundation,” Holt continued in his announcement, “we live by and are guided by mission, vision and values, always striving to be a power of greater good for the people of North Carolina. The task force’s first recommendation, adopted by the Foundation Board of Directors, was a new value for the North Carolina Bar Foundation, adding to the existing values of access to justice, service, education and professionalism, was a new value of diversity, equity and inclusion. It reads:

“We acknowledge and are committed to addressing inequities in access to legal services and participation in the legal profession experienced by historically excluded or disadvantaged individuals and communities in North Carolina.”

“Recognizing that meaningful work in pursuit of this value requires financial commitment, the board adopted another recommendation of the task force to establish a fund within the North Carolina Bar Foundation Endowment to perpetually support this work. The fund became known as the Open Door Fund.”

Eight attorneys are pictured in professional attire and they are smiling.

Commemorating the new Rosemary Gill Kenyon Justice Fund dedication in May, from left, is the Smith Anderson delegation of Taylor Dewberry, Cheryl Baber, Kerry Shad, Rose Kenyon, Mary Pat Kenyon Sullivan, Caryn McNeill, Lauren Davis and Travis Hockaday.

The Open Door Fellowship was launched in 2022-23 as the founding and flagship program of the Open Door Fund. This unique, competitive fellowship offers first-year North Carolina law students from historically excluded or under-resourced backgrounds an opportunity to gain valuable, hands-on legal experience while widening their professional networks into open doors. The Open Door Fellowship will prepare them for the next steps of their legal careers.

Four Open Door Fellows have now completed their internship experiences, which includes participation in the NCBA Annual Meeting.

The 2024 Open Door Fellows are Darius Alexander of the UNC School of Law, who has worked with Craige Jenkins Liipfert & Walker LLP under the guidance of Rebecca Smitherman, and April Franklin of Elon University School of Law, who has worked with The Fresh Market under the guidance of Gerald Walden.

The 2023 Open Door Fellows were Tavaria Smith of North Carolina Central University School of Law, who interned with the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission under the supervision of Lindsey Smith, and Zi Yi Zhou of the UNC School of Law, who worked in the general counsel’s office of The Local Government Federal Credit Union under the supervision of Dayatra Matthews.

“This is personal for me, and my company has been gracious enough to take on my personal mission,” Matthews stated in conjunction with her Open Door experience. “I am wholly committed to providing opportunities to the historically under-served. When I signed on, I knew we would get good work from talented, motivated people, but that would just be the icing on the cake. We are looking to launch people in their careers and to create the type of interpersonal, day-to-day experiential engagement that will help them succeed.”

McNeill concurs wholeheartedly.

“Our vision is that as a profession we would extend this collective welcome,” McNeill said. “We want to help these young people gain a toehold in our profession and make the connections that we know will be useful to them long-term. And we also want to invite them to think of bar associations, including ours, as places that they rightly belong and where we expect that they will plug in.”

“This is really about sending a message on behalf of the profession as a whole, and it will be extra lovely if a large number of people participate in that welcome.”

The Open Door Fellowship, Holt added, also will help the legal profession better represent our state’s diversity.

“When those we serve see lawyers and judges who reflect the rich diversity of North Carolina, it increases their confidence in our profession and in the legal system. In that way, the Open Door Fellowship can significantly benefit not only the law students who participate, but also the people of our state in need of legal services.

“We hope the Open Door Fellowship will help prepare our Fellows not only to be successful in their careers, but also to provide leadership within the legal community.”

And, hopefully, remain in North Carolina.

“We’re purposefully only taking applications from 1Ls at North Carolina law schools,” McNeill said, “and where they’re originally from other states, we try to make sure they have a long-term interest in practicing in North Carolina. Certainly, the fact they’ve come to school here is a good indicator of the potential for that. We hope that our program will help them envision and have a long and successful future here.”

Three categories of lead gifts have been established in support of the campaign: Open Door Champions for Change ($100,000), Open Door Advocates ($50,000), and Open Door Benefactors ($25,000). In addition, a group of NCBA and NCBF Presidents have collaborated to present the Presidents’ Challenge Gift that will match all new gifts and pledges to the NCBF Open Door Fund up to $100,000.

The founding Open Door Advocates are Edwards Kirby, LLP, Hutchinson PLLC, McGuireWoods, and an Anonymous donor. The initial Open Door Benefactors are Catharine Arrowood, Alison Y. Ashe-Card, Duke Energy Foundation, Law Offices of James Scott Farrin, Caryn Coppedge McNeill, James F. Morgan, and Tammy Stringer and Rick Viola.

The initial Open Door Champions for Change are Smith Anderson, where McNeill is a partner, and Mark and Joanna Holt. These gifts are significant not only for the level of support that they provide, but also because these donors have used them to establish new NCBF Endowment Justice Funds.

Charles Becton is a Black man with white hair wearing a white shirt, black tie, and black suit, and he stands with his hand on his wife's shoulder. Brenda Becton is a Black woman with white hair wearing a white shirt and black suit. Mark Holt stands near his wife, Joanna. Mark is a white man with brown hair wearing a white shirt, blue tie and black suit, and Joanna is a white woman with brown glasses wearing a white dress with blue flowers.

Commemorating the new Charles L. Becton Justice Fund dedication in May, from left, are Charles and Brenda Becton and Joanna and Mark Holt.

Dedicated on May 16 at the Bar Center, the Rosemary Gill Justice Fund was established by Smith Anderson in honor of longtime partner Rose Kenyon, and the Charles L. Becton Justice Fund was established by the Holts in honor of NCBA + NCBF Past President Charles Becton. The designations are in keeping with the Task Force on Recognition and Grant Initiatives recommendation to increase the diversity of lawyers honored through the creation of Justice Funds.

The opportunity to name a Justice Fund is available at both the $100,000 level and the $50,000 level.

Pledges to the Open Door Fund can be fulfilled over five years, and gifts of all sizes are being accepted and will be needed to push the campaign over $1 million by the completion of the 2024-25 bar year. The co-chairs welcome the opportunity to call upon anyone who wants to learn more about the Open Door Fund and Fellowship, and are also recruiting a team of ambassadors who are willing to provide introductions to their friends, firms, clients, in-house legal departments, and others in their networks who may be interested in supporting this worthwhile cause.

“We like having these conversations,” McNeill said. “I think it’s hard for people who don’t enjoy raising money to imagine that this could be true, but it’s really kind of fun when you connect up a worthy cause with a donor who is passionate about that cause. When those two things come together, that’s a happy thing all around.”

“When we make a pitch,” Holt added, “we convey how strongly we believe in NCBF’s diversity, equity, and inclusion value and the importance of providing perpetual financial support for it. On one occasion we presented to a firm, including an attorney who had served on the NCBA and NCBF boards which received and responded to the 2020 report on relationships with systemic racism. Her response was quick and strong. She exclaimed ‘Yes!’ and emotionally expressed her gratitude and support for Open Door becoming a reality.”

“I’m so pleased and proud we’re still working in response to the facts reported in 2020. We have to get this right.”

Learn more about the Open Door Fund and Fellowship and make your gift or pledge here. Please note that larger pledges can be fulfilled over five years. If you have any questions, please contact Michael Lowery, NCBF Director of Development, via email or phone: 919-677-0992.

Russell Rawlings is director of external affairs and communications for the North Carolina Bar Association.