Let's Talk UNLV

Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a Kun V studios original program. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Dr. Sammie Scales 0:20
Okay, welcome to another episode of Let's Talk UNLV. And today we have a special guest, and I'm excited to have him here. We have Justin Griffin. And Justin, could you please introduce yourself and give us your title, and what do you do here at UNLV?

Justin Griffin 0:34
Yeah, absolutely. I'm Justin Griffin. I am the Director of Development for the Lee Business School here at UNLV. Okay,

Dr. Sammie Scales 0:40
so can you tell just like how I like to start all the shows, can you please give us, like a background on yourself? How did you end up here at UNLV, once you go to high school, college, all of your degrees? How did you end up here of all places? Yeah.

Justin Griffin 0:53
So I am originally from Tallahassee, Florida, born and raised there. I went to Charles High School in Tallahassee. I took a football scholarship my freshman year to point University in West Point, Georgia once found a bigger stage, so I started kind of looking around of institutions to transfer to, and I ended up just going back home and attending Florida, A and M University, FAMU and played there for a year, had some medical things happen, and just decided to focus on school. I wasn't going to NFL. Wasn't big enough, wasn't wasn't going to, going to make it, but just decide just to focus on school. Undergrad was in business administration, marketing, and my master's is in sports management. I was trying to determine if I was going to go get an MBA or just go sports management route. But I knew that my passion was within athletics and playing football, and so if I couldn't make an impact on the field, I wanted to make an impact in some capacity within athletics and college athletics. Growing up in Tallahassee, you have Florida State University. You have Florida and M University, Tallahassee State College, now, which was then Tallahassee Community College. And so, you know, huge college town, and you know, so I grew up in that, in that realm, so I knew that going into collegiate athletics was my best bet. And so decided to pursue being a collegiate athletic director through some mentorships. I have a plethora of different mentors, but speaking to actually Jay Vickers, who actually went to high school with my older brother, who played college ball, they played high school ball together, but you know, he kind of pushed me and told me that fundraising is going to be your best avenue to get into collegiate fundraising and to be a collegiate athletic director. And with that, you know, I went ahead and got my masters in sports management and continued on. I was doing two internships while I was in school, one with the Seminole boosters in their athletic club and also with the athletic department at Florida A and M under their Associate Athletic Director for Development, and had an opportunity to move to Jefferson City, Missouri, where I worked as the director of advancement at Lincoln University. I was there for about a year and a half, had a great time. There a lot of experiences, a lot of learning opportunities. Kevin Wilson gave me that opportunity, and I'm very grateful for him, another mentor of mine. But then an opportunity presented itself for me to move out here to Las Vegas, and I saw the writing on the wall, there was just a lot more resources. I think that meeting with Craig Jackson and building that relationship, making me feel comfortable, really pushed me to want to move here. And I just saw the opportunity. And so here I am at UNLV, serving this role. It'll be two years, next month, in February, that I've been living in Las Vegas and working in this role, and really grateful for the opportunity and really appreciative of everyone, and just excited to be here and make an impact for the business school. Wow,

Dr. Sammie Scales 4:19
that is excellent, man. That's a really good background. So let's kind of step really lightly into this conversation here. Can you and that you've given a lot of background on yourself, especially in education and in sports and in athletics. So what are some of your personal hobbies and interests, and what are you passionate about outside of work?

Justin Griffin 4:37
Again, athletics. I love sports, so I'm always trying to stay active in one way, shape or form, playing pickup basketball games or doing the corporate Cup Challenge for flag football, things of that nature. Even though I don't play sports anymore, I love to go to the gym. Love to work out. Since moving out here, I've found a. Passion for hiking. We don't have that in Florida. So hiking the mountains and taking on, taking on the different views that you know Nevada has to offer and Arizona has to offer even it's just been, for me, being a Florida kid, it's just, I mean, mind blowing, to be honest. Never growing up with the mountains in the distance. But besides those things, I love going to church. Was raised, born and raised in the church. Play the drums. My younger brother, he's a pianist, he's a licensed minister. So it's, you know, we besides being active and going in the church, those are, those are my things. Are you PK, I am not a PK. I'm a PB, but not a

Dr. Sammie Scales 5:47
PK. Okay, okay, so since being in the role as a director over in Lee's Business School of of development, can you tell me what's some of the most interesting things that you find out about your job so far?

Justin Griffin 6:01
Yeah, it's, for me, it's just being able to relate and just talk to different people. That's the fact the most fascinating piece about the job is, especially, you know, being new to the area, not knowing anyone here, not just in Las Vegas, but on the West Coast. I have one cousin that lives, or used to live in Los Angeles, but now I'm kind of over here by myself, but just having those opportunities to do outreach to alumni, different different donors that love the University, and hearing their story, hearing their background, and their time at UNLV, and just the different experiences I hear a lot of stories about the 90s, when when TARC was here and the basketball program was so prominent and the city was on fire, and no hearing about, you know, the donors living or these alums living in their dorms, and the friendships and sororities and fraternities that they were a part of, and the relationships that they still have to this day. I mean, it just speaks volumes. And for me, it's I came in with a positive vibe about UNLV, but being able to interact with all of these different alumni, it's just been making the experience even more and so I'm growing to love UNLV more and more and more each day, and so I pride myself in just being able to have those interactions and building these relationships here, here in Las Vegas, it's been great.

Dr. Sammie Scales 7:33
That's excellent. So being in this role with you being new two years ago has led to you building friendships and getting to know absolutely different capacity,

Justin Griffin 7:41
absolutely, yeah, it's the, it's the thing about the job is, you know, I have duties that I have to do, you know, with fundraising and bringing in dollars for scholarships and programmatic support needs. But the biggest thing about my job is, you're building a relationship first. That's, that's sole purpose. I mean, the if the dollars come, the dollars come, you know, we do a lot of outreach, so in one way or another, I will do my job and, you know, bring in the money for a scholarships and programmatic support needs, just, not just for the business school, but for the university. But it's important to do outreach, and it's important to build those relationships. That's, yeah, wow,

Dr. Sammie Scales 8:22
that's excellent. So can you tell us about because of the bulk of your job is bringing in those funds with fundraising, right? So how does, how does that work? From start to finish, from the time you decide, okay, I need to get funds for a particular project. Let me look at some of these donors and see how this aligns with how the mission statement aligns with what we're trying to do. Can you walk us through how that work, that part work? Yeah,

Justin Griffin 8:49
of course, of course. So to start off, there's, there's kind of two ways you can go about it. You can go about it with a lead from, you know, a colleague. So for example, someone may know someone that you would be be a good fit for to have a conversation, and so you do a joint visit with this alumni to have a conversation. The other way is just doing call, cold calls or cold emails. So kind of going with the cold email scenario, you send your email just introducing yourself, hey, I'm new to the area. I'm new in this role. Would love to just have coffee or lunch with you, just to learn more about you, chit chat things of that nature. It works pretty well. And so you have those conversations. You meet up and you get to know these these individuals again. You hear their stories, what they're passionate about, what their funding priorities are, things of that nature. Of course, I share my background as well, but when they're sharing a lot of these different things, what they're passionate about, their family dynamics, where. Their funding priorities are in my head, I'm now starting to think, okay, how can we align what their passions are with, you know, some of the initiatives that we have going on within the business school, any projects that are going on within the university, if they're saying that they, you know, love education, then okay, well, this is a great conversation I'm having with him, but let me pass him on to my colleague Kareem, and introduce those two so then that way they can help fund for a new building or a program within the education department, but just trying to identify how we can align with one another and help each other out. And at that point we were going from that conversation to making an action plan of how we can support where the dollars may come in, or volunteering opportunities, getting agreements all created, and of course, sending that over to the foundation, allowing them to review our legal team reviews all of our different agreements, and at that point, signatures happen, and then we just wait for the dollars to excuse me, for the dollars to come in. Wow, excellent.

Dr. Sammie Scales 11:08
So what advice would you offer a student that's getting ready to graduate and want to take on a role similar to what you do, or whether it's in fundraising, or, you know, how what advice would you offer that student? I am

Justin Griffin 11:22
a huge advocate for experiential learning opportunities. There is a lot that you can learn in the classroom, with your books, with your professors, all that great all those great things, but you have to seek out an internship. I grew up in an era where paid internships, where you may get one you may not. All of my internships were unpaid internships. I think at this point in time, internships are, for the most part, mandatory, as in paid internships, but having the opportunity to do an internship, getting the real world experience is a huge, huge piece to getting into my role. A lot of people aren't going to take that chance on you. I was very blessed and fortunate that the person that I was doing one of my internships with while doing my Masters was the person that I followed to Jefferson City, Missouri, and gave me my first opportunity. And, you know, I made the best of that opportunity. And, I mean, I'm sitting in a seat now that I didn't think I was going to be able to sit in, and I'm still growing, I'm still learning, I'm still trying to be the better version of myself. But to be in my position, you want to surround your people. You want to surround yourself with individuals that are going to push you into the right direction. But just having those conversations with people that are in my position, having a conversation with me, doing things like this, listening into this, this podcast, and just having the conversations about, you know, what it takes to be a fundraiser, to sit in the seat is very important, because fundraising, you're not necessarily going to learn that in the classroom. So

Dr. Sammie Scales 13:08
okay, so it's critical, then it seems to be that you would need to know budgeting as well.

Justin Griffin 13:15
Yeah, that's a piece of it, to be honest. Personally, I don't necessarily deal with the budgeting piece of it at all. We have a team that oversees our budgets. We have a business manager within the business school does a phenomenal job of making sure that we stay on track. We have someone that oversees our procurement cards, making sure that we're up to date on everything and that we're justifying all of the different purchases that we that we've made while we're out having lunch with a donor or a prospective donor. But that's a small piece of it, just depending on the institution,

Dr. Sammie Scales 13:50
right? Yeah, yeah. And that, you know, when you bring up P cards, that's why I'm sitting here thinking there must be tons of coffee, you know? Oh, absolutely on your PC. Oh absolutely for coffee for this, or you pay for lunch for that. Yeah, that's pretty cool, yeah. So what actually, you know, I know you say you was at down at FAMU, going to school, and you decided that you was going to pursue something you want to make a more a greater impact, so you decide to go with the fundraising role. So what really inspired you to stay in this particular direction? Versus, okay, I have a master's degree now, let me go and teach in higher ed. So what kept you in that versus, you going to teach? Or something like,

Justin Griffin 14:35
Yeah, I think for me again, my passion is with athletics. I love sports. I love playing the game when I can. So for me, it was, it was easy that this was, this was the route that I wanted to go. I think my my biggest question is, or was, at the time, how can I get into this world of. The athletic department with within a higher institution. And again, I go back to the conversation that I had with Jay, and I apologize to him if this was supposed to be a private conversation, but I was kind of considering going into the I'm drawing a blank line right now, like operations, Route, compliance, route, but he suggested, Why not look at fundraising? Because that's a huge component to being an athletic director. You're going to need those those skills to be an athletic director, and also it just helps with networking and being a people person, and just being able to have a conversation, whether you're talking about providing dollars or just talking about going and get a drink after the game or, you know, let's go have dinner. And so for me, I think with his guidance, it really helped me and pushed me into the direction that I wanted to go. One of the other things that he mentioned was everyone looks for from a fundraiser. So regardless if you want to be in collegiate athletics or not, I could go work for a nonprofit and be a director of development or whatever the case may be. And I think for me, that was phenomenal advice. It's a it's a job that everyone needs to have on their side. And so if I ever decide to go the nonprofit route, I could do that and go and find a job and still feel very secure and have love and passion for what I'm doing. So wow,

Dr. Sammie Scales 16:33
this is good man. So you have to be a people person also to be in this particular

Justin Griffin 16:38
role. It definitely helps. Yeah, it definitely helps is, you know, you because to get the money or to build the relationships more, so it's, it's important to be able to talk to people, and if you're shy, then it may not be the best profession for you, because it's going to be a little bit tougher to do the job, but the job can still be done. Yeah,

Dr. Sammie Scales 17:03
yeah. So how did you transfer, or make the transition from your previous role over at Lincoln, I think yes, from Lincoln to UNLV. How did you hear about the position? Or did someone you know call you and say, hey, look, there's a position open here. So how did that happen for you? Yeah,

Justin Griffin 17:20
so I actually went to a conference in Atlanta, and I met another FAMU alumni, and he told me that he thinks that there would be someone that would be a good mentor for me here at UNLV. And so connected with with him, and from that point on it was, you know, the relationship being built, and saying, Hey, I think you'll be a great position. You'll be a great person for this role. Let's, you know, I want you to apply. And, you know, I did the interview, and, you know, was gracious and blessed enough to be gifted this, this role. So, yeah, yeah,

Dr. Sammie Scales 18:02
okay, so what experiences or skill have been most valuable to you in your career so far?

Justin Griffin 18:10
Oh, man, I think again, just being able to not have a fear of approaching someone and just asking them about themselves, asking them how their day is going, and just starting a conversation. That's the for me, that's the biggest piece about this role, is just again, building a relationship with someone. You have to learn how to do that. And for me, that's the biggest piece of it. So that's for that's the that's the biggest skill.

Dr. Sammie Scales 18:44
So a lot of the fundraising that you do, it trickles back to students. I'm pretty sure,

Justin Griffin 18:49
absolutely,

Dr. Sammie Scales 18:50
absolutely. We talk about that. How does that?

Justin Griffin 18:53
Yeah, so we definitely keep that in mind, because without the students, essentially, I wouldn't have a job. So but yeah, I mean, the students are main priority. We have a lot of non traditional students, first generation students, that attend UNLV, and I've never worked for, been to or visit an institution of this caliber that is, you know, has this kind of presence on campus, and I coming to campus and starting to work here and learning about UNLV in the in the way the student population is kind of just resonated with me. It was something that I just took very much pride in. And I wanted to support the students in a lot of different ways, with scholarships and providing them with, you know, state of state of the art facilities and the different learning opportunities we have, a global entrepreneurship experience pro. Program that allows our students to travel overseas once per year and just learn about the different businesses and how business is done in different countries. But also they're able to, you know, do a live once in a lifetime trip where they can also visit those areas and learn different cultures. And I, you know, I that's amazing to me. I love that, and so I stand behind everything that you will be is, and what the business with the Business School is trying to do with with the students. And again, just very grateful to be here. The students are everything. They're they're brilliant. They are, you know, striving to be the best version of themselves, and I'm just truly excited to be here to help them through that process, through the four or five years that they're here.

Dr. Sammie Scales 20:49
Wow. So Lee business school actually is offering these students really a chance of a lifetime, absolutely, with the fundraising that they're doing and sending them on these trips so they can actually get this experience to put on the road. Absolutely, man, that is fantastic. So in your role, what does success look like in your role?

Justin Griffin 21:08
For me, personally, again, relationships, it's all about again, how we can support our students in many different ways, not just the business school, but just the university campus wide, we want to continue to grow enrollment. We want to continue to provide whatever experiential learning opportunities there may be scholarships to help them with not being in a financial bind once they graduate. So we need that support. So if I can provide more scholarships for these experiential learning opportunities, or provide extra dollars for us to build a building or to know, provide more scholarships for me that success, because at the end of the day, we're helping the students and we're helping them. We're helping them grow. We're helping them succeed, and getting them ready for the real world. Las Vegas is is continuously growing. I've only been here for two years, but my two years being here, I've seen more buildings go up in my entire lifetime living in Florida. And by that, I mean we have your your job market right here on this campus. So why? Why not? Why not support these students? Why not support the university so one day you can hire these students to know be in the position that you need them to be. Wow.

Dr. Sammie Scales 22:34
So boiling it down to like success, meaning your students are succeeding absolutely rose. Excellent, excellent. So when it comes to collaborations here on campus, like, what are some of the departments or organizations here on campus that you've collaborated with? Oh,

Justin Griffin 22:51
man, yeah, we the foundation. So I'm, I'm kind of 5050, with the foundation in the in the My unit, as as is a lot of our other development officers on campus, but we do a lot of collaboration, and the foundation really harks on and really promotes our collaborative efforts with the different units and with the different departments within the foundation. I'll say that one of the collaboration opportunities that I did was with the planned giving team. Eric Schindler is a is an amazing planned giving officer, and we work with each other on just different initiatives, with alumni donors that may want to give an estate gift or gifts give a gift with through their trust or through stock gifts or things of that nature. So if I encounter someone who is of age to provide such provide such a gift in that fashion, I definitely reach out and tap on Eric and say, hey, I want you to come with me on this meeting, because I obviously don't know all the ins and outs of planned giving. And he comes in with his expertise, and he's able to, you know, talk about all of these different things with our alumni, with this donor, and just make it, make it seamless and easy, and from there, we just knock out the paperwork and go forward.

Dr. Sammie Scales 24:17
Wow, that's fantastic. So are there any big events that you have coming up, or are there any big events you know throughout the year that you that comes around every year that what brings in a lot of money,

Justin Griffin 24:29
right? Yeah, our biggest event that we're doing, we haven't done this event in about seven to eight years, but it's our Nevada Business Hall of Fame. It'll be on May 8 this year, we're still finalizing some of the details, so there's some things that I can't speak on, but we're looking to honor potentially three just prominent individuals within the community, and just to say thank you and for not just supporting you and of. But supporting Las Vegas and helping Las Vegas grow last year was fantastic. Years, our first year bringing it back, we held that event last spring, and it was, it was, it was phenomenal. We had about 450, 500 people in attendance. And you know, we cherish that, and we're looking forward to doing that again this year. Is that a ticketed event? It is a ticketed event. You can purchase a table at there's various different levels for table purchasing, or you can buy individual ticket as well. So yeah, we would encourage anyone that's that's willing and able to come, please come out.

Dr. Sammie Scales 25:43
Okay, fantastic. So tell us. How do you stay motivated through all of this

Justin Griffin 25:48
self motivation? I just I know where I want to be in life, and that's being the collegiate athletic director. I want to make a positive impact on on not just the student athletes, but just students in general, supporting the university with, you know, successful athletic programs that generate no millions of dollars to the university to help support the infrastructure and help support the student experience for their four, four to five years while they're in college. That's those are the most important years of of a person's life, if they're able to and have the opportunity to attend colleges those four to five years that they're here. And so my motivation is just to be able to bring that the best experience possible for for the student, for the students, and grow the university to be, you know, one of, if not the best in the country.

Dr. Sammie Scales 26:44
Wow, great. So if, let's say, if money was not an issue at all, right, what would you like to see for your department, for lead business for lead business school and for the university, what would you like to

Justin Griffin 26:56
say money is not an object? First, because I'm in the business school, a state of the art business building, of course, is top on that list. But also a new building for fine arts, a new building for education, you know, building up the infrastructure to make it to have a more prominent presence within Las Vegas. With that, you know, we can recruit more students. We're in a space right now. The Business School is in a space right now where we're we've outgrown our building, and so the university is growing in a in a record fashion. But we just need the infrastructures to be able to hold our students. And so by doing that, we can grow our student population, be able to get some of the top professors and researchers, because we are our one institution, have them here on our campus, and just being able to support and provide for for you know our campus. Okay,

Dr. Sammie Scales 27:55
so if someone wanted to contact you, let's say if a student had questions that they wanted to ask, or if someone wanted to make a donation, how would they contact you? If they wanted to contact you? Yeah,

Justin Griffin 28:08
they can shoot me an email. It's Justin, J, U, S, T, I N, dot Griffin, G, R, I f, f, i n, at, U, n, l, v.org, or I'm sorry.edu. I'm sorry. Okay,

Dr. Sammie Scales 28:23
okay. So last, last, last question is, what would be a good piece of advice that you can offer to any student listening that would be interested in fundraising or going into the type of business that you're in? What What would be your best advice for that student? Again,

Justin Griffin 28:40
surround yourself with with people that are in the profession. Don't do not be afraid to ask questions. Step out of your comfort zone. Once you step out of your comfort zone enough times. I mean, you're, you're going to be comfortable with it at that point. That's one thing that I had to teach myself. But surround yourself with those people. Don't be afraid to network. Ask questions at the end of the day. We're all human. So we make mistakes. We all look goofy at times, but where it's human nature. So yeah,

Dr. Sammie Scales 29:12
okay, fantastic. Again. My guest today is Justin Griffin. He's the director of development over in the Lee's business school, and you definitely have an open invitation anytime you want to come back to talk, just let us know.

Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. So much. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely thank you, right, and that's a wrap.

Dr. Renee Watson 29:34
For more. Let's talk. UNLV, be sure to follow us on social media, where you can get the latest updates on the show, plus great behind the scenes content we're on Facebook at, let's talk UNLV podcast. Twitter at, let's talk UNLV and Instagram. At, let's talk UNLV pod. You.