MJ Smith

MJ embodies our mission to empower communities and ignite generosity. She feels called to that mission through her faith and seeks to inspire individuals, families and businesses with more than enough resources to share boldly with their community. Since joining Nancy on the Community Foundation team in 2007, MJ has accomplished all manner of tasks – from creating our first annual reports to building strong relationships with community leaders across our region. Today, she works with Amanda Diers advising communities participating in the Small-town Dreams Initiative, which she helped launch in 2020.

She first became involved with the Foundation as a donor after a successful career in health care and as a writer. In her role today, she equips and inspires our affiliate staff and board members and together with these leaders, she serves and honors donor intentions to build stronger rural communities. She’s inspired by generosity every day – most currently, by a person with disabilities who is using their time to make phone calls to build a community fund, finding success and making a wonderful impact.  

MJ is an integral member of her own rural community, Guttenberg, where she and her husband Andy raised their two children and now entertain their grandchildren. Andy is a family physician in Guttenberg; their daughter, Liz, Liz's husband TJ, and their son, Cliff, live in Milwaukee, and their son, Fred, and his wife Kate live in St. Paul and are parents of Sam and Mimi. She enjoys photography, cooking and biking.