Pat Tillman was a professional American football player in the NFL who gave up his athletic career to enlist in the US Army following the September 11th attacks. He served several tours of combat before being killed in Afghanistan.
Killjan Anderson is the Executive Director of the Pat Tillman Foundation. The organization honors Pat’s legacy by supporting active-duty service members, veterans, and their spouses with academic scholarships, a national network, and professional development opportunities.
READ FULL TRANSCRIPTSo, Killjan, welcome to the Brand Labs Series, I’m thrilled to have you on. Every time we are fortunate enough to spend a few minutes together, I’m inspired, I’m in awe, I’m a little humble and I can’t wait for you to share some of your story and the Pat Tillman Foundation’s story with our audience today. Thanks for joining us. Why don’t we start with just your story, tell our audience a little bit more about yourself.
Okay, before I do, thanks for having us. This is huge for us. I know you’ve had a lot of success with this podcast so congratulations to your team on that as well as your distinction in Inc. 5000. It’s really remarkable and it means a lot you’d spend some time with us so thanks for doing that. Yeah, Killjan Anderson, I’m currently the Executive Director for the Pat Tillman Foundation. I got here after about 22 years of active duty in the United States Air Force which kind of took us all over the place but I learned through that service that I was really interested in continuing to serve kind of in a veteran space and education space with the Tillman Foundation. We relocated out here to Chicago in 2014, my wife and daughter and I we live just up north here in Wrigleyville and I’ve got a son in school at University of Nebraska.
Yeah, it’s going to be an interesting season for the Huskers. I know a lot of people are going to be interested in seeing how the program rebuilds itself. Why don’t we talk a little bit obviously as you mentioned and as the audience knows you’re the Executive Director of the Pat Tillman Foundation. When did you first learn of Pat Tillman, his story and what kind of drew you to the organization?
Sure. Well, I’m a Texan originally, Dallas, Texas so big football fan, was active duty when Pat fell in battle in 2004 so obviously everybody in the service was watching that situation very closely. In 2007, about three years after he passed away, I was embedded in an Army unit in Iraq and I spent most of ’07 training Iraqi police. It was a really pretty wild time, busy and active place in Iraq and on the backend of that deployment when I got back I was stationed in England at the time, I was moved to Arizona where I went to Luke Air Force base. So, right there in the valley where the Pat Tillman Foundation was headquartered at the time. That’s really funny but I actually cold-called the foundation looking for volunteer opportunities. Obviously a lot of folks in our unit were familiar with Pat’s story so we formed a relationship back and around the 2008-2009 timeframe. Ever since then I’ve served on selection committees and ultimately led to me being entrusted with the position here.
So you’re a testament that cold-calling works?
It works at least in this case. I don’t know maybe I’m a little less successful these days. In that case it certainly worked and the organization was looking for some veterans in the Valley to help them with the selection process for their Tillman scholars and we were fortunate to kind of jump in early.
Let’s talk a little bit about the Pat Tillman Foundation itself. Tell the audience a little bit more about it and then what it’s mission is.
Sure. Let me give you the mission statement and then I’ll kind of personalize it a bit, but our mission is to unite and empower remarkable military veterans and spouses as the next generation of public and private sector leaders deeply committed to service beyond themselves. It’s kind of a lot to unpack there but at the end of the day I would tell you our offering is optimism. We find these high-ceiling proven track record military veterans and spouses, they articulate through a series of essays in their application, where they’re going to school, why they feel passionate about the issue that they’ve kind of latched onto, and most importantly, what they want to go do. Our mission is about investing a scholarship in those men and women and ultimately, we’re after that ripple effect associated with investing in high impact people, and we’re already starting to see it kind of take shape.
So we’re actually recording on September 11th, and September 11th was a day that certainly many people certainly our age often don’t forget. It was certainly a pivotal day in the Pat Tillman story, but talk a little bit about how you first became aware of Pat and his story and then what drew you to that?
Sure. I’m a Texan originally, so big football fan, and then obviously in the military, all the military members were really paying close attention to Pat’s kind of trajectory and journey in the service. I found myself in Iraq in 2007, embedded in an Army unit and just really started reading up and following up more on his story. On the heels of that deployment I wound up being stationed at Luke Air Force base in Phoenix, Arizona actually, and so in my interest of Pat’s story cold-called the Tillman Foundation looking for volunteer opportunities for the airmen that were in our unit. We wound up fielding representatives on the Tillman Scholar selection committee process and kind of have a standing volunteer footprint at Pat’s Run which is a large event we host in Tempe every year and then just staying connected with the foundation over the years. Been engaged for about 10 years now but when I retired in ’14, I had the opportunity to join the team in an operations role and then eventually Executive Director in April of last year.
Talk a little bit about Pat’s legacy, some of his values, and what it means then to you to live those values.
Yeah, for sure. So there’s a lot people don’t know about Pat. Clearly, people are aware of his football career and leaving the NFL to go join the Army, but there’s other things that are really, really important about him that this foundation is based on. The first is he’s a lifelong learner. A lot people don’t know it, but he graduated from Arizona State University in three years with a 3.84 GPA. When he played for the Cardinals he was going back and getting a Master’s degree in history. He loved debating. He ran marathons, and half triathlons in the off season to push himself. So when we think about his legacy as a staff and as a foundation, it’s really this notion of kind of lifelong learning, and pushing yourself and being on the look out for challenges and taking them on.
So in our core values are humble leadership, scholarship, service and impact. And so I will tell you it’s a… Every day I walk in and I see the sign on the door and kinda have a big gulp right and it’s like, “Oh man, we better get this right,” because working for an organization that is out to celebrate somebody’s legacy has… It’s serious business, and so it puts a lot of pressure on the staff and on the community. We welcome that pressure, but it is, it’s a lot to live up to that legacy.
Well, that’s also an interesting challenge for a non-profit. I’ve had the opportunity to work with and get to know many executives at non-profits around the country. Some of them running organizations as old as 150 years. Yours isn’t that old, but at the same time, as we’ve talked before, September 11th was a defining moment in many people’s lives, certainly paths. It’s been 14 years since he unfortunately, passed. So when we think about the future and I know we’ve talked about our own daughters there’s a generation that maybe doesn’t even know much at all about Pat. So as a non-profit trying to continue an individual’s legacy how do you do that?
That’s a really good question. To your point, you figure our real demographic that is familiar with Pat’s journey, it’s really in the era by mid-30s and older right. I’m 46, I was very aware of when it occurred but we often are speaking to young people that identify… That don’t know who he was. So storytelling is a big part of that for us. I know you and I’ve talked a lot about that, but storytelling is really huge for us for those that aren’t aware. So sometimes we wind up working backwards. Our mission, obviously is to empower these remarkable military veterans and spouses and to support them in the work they wanna go do.
So in some cases for us now, and speaking to that younger audience, it’s about illuminating those examples of those Tillman scholars doing good work, having them identify as a Tillman scholar, and then working backward. And so we found that younger people will say, “Hey, who was Pat Tillman?” When they hear about a Kim or when they hear about another Tillman scholar doing remarkable work and then we’re able to share about the… At the root of us, what Pat’s legacy was about and how they became a scholar. So sometimes you have to get a little creative to work backwards. Our founders, our board, Pat’s family and friends recognized that very early on.
So we are now on our 10th class of Tillman scholars so there’s 588 people out there kind of living example of Pat’s life. So again, we’re hoping that they catch someone’s eye, people are fascinated about their journey, and then those individuals, those leaders are able to share a little bit more about Pat’s legacy.
Let’s talk a little bit more about the scholars. You mentioned Kim and obviously you and I know who you’re talking about, but ironically Kim Jong was actually on a former episode of the Brand Lab Series.
Right.
Co-founder of Rumi Spice, West Point grad, Harvard Biz grad. Now taking it up a notch to MIT.
Alright.
One thing I didn’t realize is that she was a Tillman scholar or is a Tillman scholar. So talk a little bit about the Tillman scholar program. Who it’s really designed for. I know you’ve touched on a little bit, but just kinda share a little bit more about that process and maybe some of the misperceptions around it.
Okay, yeah, happy to. So every year we convene a scholarship application it’s open for about one month in the February time frame. This year we received 2300 applications, so our spring and late spring is really full of convening a series of initial screening committees, regional selection committees and ultimately a final selection committee that helps whittle that stack of 2300 applications down to 60 Tillman scholars. So we invest in 60 a year. Really, really remarkable folks. So that is kind of how we… That’s kind of how we get there. So we work our way down from 2300 applications to 60 per year. So to an outsider a lot of times we’re viewed as a scholarship organization, and that is really only a really small slice of what we do.
Certainly, we raise money and invest in Tillman scholarships for Tillman scholars, but what we’re after is that ripple effect. So once they’ve completed their studies, we introduce them to networks. We’ve actually had Tillman scholars at the Inc. 5000 Conference for the last few years as part of the military entrepreneurship program.
Yeah, I saw some of them in San Antonio. And…
I know you’ve mentored. You’ve given your time to help mentor that are in the organizations on marketing issues. And so we kinda fortify them with that network, and then we also continue to professionally develop ’em. So it’s not just a scholarship, but people think, “Oh, you apply there and get a scholarship.” But really what you’re doing is you’re joining a community of change makers.
So I’m not gonna ask you to play favorites but obviously we talked a little bit about Kim, but some of the stories that you’ve share and some of these individuals are just remarkable. Can you share one or two maybe with our audience?
Sure. I’ll give you one that’s personally impacted my family. So I have a daughter who’s heading to college here in about a year or so, I love having her around the foundation, she has the opportunity to meet all these Tillman scholars. And what Marie and the founders have really created is this place where you can think really big. So bringing my daughter around is something that selfishly, I really enjoy as a parent. So she came across… We were at Pat’s Run, large event we host in Arizona every spring and she got to meet a couple Tillman scholars that were working in medicine. So D’Onior Felton and Adrienne Kambouris are two of our Tillman scholars. Really, really remarkable women with incredible service records that in fact, D’Onior’s right now a resident, I believe at University of Mississippi.
So they get talking to my daughter. And at this point my daughter didn’t really know what she wanted to do next, and I remember going out, and we had some meetings that evening, and I came back pretty late to our hotel in Arizona, and she popped out of bed, and ran up to me and said, “Dad. I wanna… I wanna get into medicine.” And it was all based on a conversation with those two ladies. So that is certainly like a second and third order effect of investing in these really high ceiling folks. But they inspire. They inspire folks. So whether it’s Jonny Kim, who is a Navy SEAL who went to Harvard Medical School and is now in the recent astronaut class, or Moise Benian who has a remarkable service record is a resident at Emory now, headed to West Texas to deliver medicine to small rural communities. Dan Fein who’s running for Congress in Minnesota right now, or Adrian Perkins, who’s running to be the mayor of Shreveport. We’ve kind of created this community of just these folks that care deeply about the things going on around them, and more importantly are doing something about it.
Well, what I really love about that and I know we’ve talked a little bit offline of both being fathers of daughters but… Of sons as well. I didn’t wanna forget them.
[laughter]
But is the fact that we’re in a very unusual time in our country where there seems to be a lot more of divisiveness than there is togetherness, and one of the things I really like about everything I hear and observe in the Tillman scholars is one, they are as you’ve talked about earlier really continuing the legacy of Pat in the future, but it makes me very optimistic that there are these kinds of people that are seizing on opportunity to really make a difference and in certain parts of the country, and certain careers, and certain endeavors. So I think that that’s a real testament to everything that your organization is doing and continues to do.
And you also mentioned something earlier about kinda thinking big, and one of the other probably big misperceptions about the Tillman Foundation is that you’re not very big.
Right.
I happen to see the ins and outs of it first hand. I know that you’re lean, you’re agile, and it seems to be full of remarkable people as well. So talk a little bit about the organization itself.
For sure.
From the team.
Yeah, so and to your point we’re a very small team, we like it that way. There’s 12 of us total, so nine of us here at our headquarters in Chicago, and then we have three staff members who reside on Arizona State University. So we like… Pat was… Pat lived… Did not live in excess, the guy rode his bike to practice, he played for the Arizona Cardinals, he lived in a very modest home and was not enamored by wealth or people’s celebrity status. He was more about making a difference. So it would be… We would be off task ’cause if we grew to be a staff of hundreds of people with all of these field offices and suits zipping around. Pat wore flip-flops. So we’re more of a kinda beer in the fridge, flip-flop, get stuff done kind of mindset out here. We have a really, really remarkable team of four departments that all are busy year round.
But we’ve learned that while we may make another personnel addition here, there we don’t aspire to be this really, really large organization. W believe that we can continue to grow the program with roughly the number of folks that we have right now and continue to feature their stories. We also are relying on, and have the help of the Tillman scholars out there, so they are kind of an extended staff if you will. So we have a regional captain program where they’re in geographic areas… Certain 10-12 geographical areas in the States we have Tillman scholars that head up programming. So they really kind of augment our efforts from the mothership here in Chicago to help us out, but we have zero desire to turn into this big bulky organization. We can put four to five people in the room and change the course of where we’re going. If something didn’t work we can just scrape it, we can come up with new ideas and we intend to stay that way.
Well, as you know, I operate and run a marketing group under the same philosophy, so I really love that. I think agile allows such a great sense of speed, diversity of thought, and I think it really oftentimes brings out the best in people’s capabilities, it challenges them to get outside their comfort zones. Even my own still. So I think that that is great. Talk a little bit about the fundraising side.
Sure.
Obviously, when you are running a non-profit development marketing are essentially your sales. It’s key to being able to deliver these scholarships. So talk a little bit about that.
Sure. Yeah, it’s for sure a business operation, right? Fundraising is like sales so it’s really a remarkable thing about the Tillman Foundation. First of all, there’s thousands of people that send in 10 or 20 bucks a year that are just fans of Pat’s story. So it’s a very I would say diverse fundraising portfolio. First off, there’s no endowment so it’s not like we just started off with millions and millions of dollars. We were actually born a bit backwards so when Pat was killed, people kind of started mailing in checks to Arizona State University and the Cardinals then the foundation was built kind of on Pat’s principles. But again, not endowed in the beginning and so it’s really a bit of kind of a mixed bag. So we have a lot of individual and corporate donors, we have a grant, we have a grant kind of stream of money that comes in as well, we have Pat’s Run that occurs in Arizona. It’s about a 35,000-person event where we bring people together. It’s more of a community event.
So we really have this kind of broad range of support, obviously we want to bring in more money but for us we are less interested in these kind of transactional relationships with folks. We get emails where a company will say, “How much to put Pat Tillman Foundation below my signature block?” We’re just not interested in having that conversation. We want to connect with people that are like-minded, care deeply about our mission. We want to be aligned with their corporate values, and we found that when we’re able to find that alignment, and it takes a while in conversations and being around one another, we find when that alignment is right that really they become partners and they’re kind of long-standing supporters of the foundation.
We look for that to be more of a marriage if you will in terms of support because I would say there’s no shortage of people that want to support Pat and celebrate Pat, and that’s a good thing, but again it is really about we want people to get a better understanding of who Pat was, why this organization exists, and then to help us support take things to the next level. Kind of to your point, once you meet a Tillman scholar it all makes sense and essentially this offering of this really remarkable person going out to do some great work. There are a lot of people that I would say individually, companies that care deeply about leadership, that care about the state of dialogue whether you’re a left or a right. This is not a political statement but wherever you stand there are people that care deeply about the things going on in the world and we found that there’s a niche of people that want to support us fielding people that are going to go tackle some of those problems.
Well, in many ways that’s a good problem to have. On the flip side, there’s another side to that coin and unfortunately I think we’ve just seen it recently, and that is for all the people that wanna support the values and the legacy of Pat there are sometimes those that might exploit it.
Certainly.
And that’s a challenge that some non-profits never have to face. Unfortunately it’s one that sometimes you might have to face. We’ve certainly seen that recently with some of the new brand advertising coming out and Nike focusing on Colin Kaepernick and what sacrifice looks like, and suddenly your brand essentially almost under siege by people now using Pat to fight a corporate war against Nike and Colin Kaepernick. I don’t envy you to have that problem so when something like that happens, what do you do?
Sure. Really good question. To be clear up front we just don’t go wading into those waters on political discussions. Whether you agree or disagree with Colin Kaepernick’s position that he took, that was intended and rooted around the civil rights issue. We know that this time last year that whole narrative got hijacked and kind of projected onto the veteran community and specifically Pat in some instances so it became, “Pat would kneel. Pat would stand. Pat would punch them in the face.” it became all these kind of things really which prompted Marie, Pat’s widow, our co-founder and board chair, to do a statement in late September of last year in that Pat as a football player and as a soldier, inspired unity and brought people together.
Here’s what I’ll say is interesting about that, so we avoid the discussion in terms of politics and we do not believe in politicizing Pat. I’ve met dozens of family members, friends of Pat’s that grew up with him, and not one of them are willing to say, “Pat would do this or Pat would do that.” They don’t invoke Pat. In fact, really where they spend their time and energy is talking about what he stood for: Bringing people together, debate, being civil, being passionate about something. And so we try to keep the conversation on those points and we can certainly exemplify that through the Tillman scholars.
It shows a tremendous amount of discipline for your team and staff to really stay focused on change that they can make and avoid stepping in a lot of things that I think becomes quicksand frankly. Having gotten to know some of the team and seeing them firsthand tat doesn’t surprise me that they would have that kind of discipline and focus. We’ve talked a lot about the Tillman Foundation, your journey, Pat’s values, really the future in terms of continuing that legacy with a remarkable group of scholars. Most non-profits could never ask for better brand ambassadors of their cause in that. What’s next for the Tillman Foundation? How can people learn more and get more involved?
Well, you’ll appreciate this as a marketer because obviously we like to talk about the foundation in terms of the Tillman scholars and the amazing work they’re doing. I firmly believe that this is going to get easier actually over time in that you mentioned Jonny Kim who’s a NASA… Gonna be a NASA astronaut, now he’s a candidate, at least right now… That we’ve got 580 Tillman scholars now, we’ll continue to add 60 per year and we’re gonna start seeing them pop up more and more. I have zero doubt that there will be a President of the United States that’s a Tillman scholar. There will be a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. There will be leaders in every field of human endeavor, whether that’s medicine whether that’s in the arts. So back to your point about remaining disciplined and I’d really like to defend our team for staying focused on that is if we continue to foster the program and work on the chassis and work on the chassis 10, 15, 20 years from now we’re gonna see Tillman scholars in all types of things and then that will certainly celebrate Pat’s story and how we got to where we’re at.
So in terms of what’s next is to continue to do exactly what we’re doing right now and then to smartly share those stories, elegantly share those stories with people that are motivated about Pat. So to answer your question, obviously we have a website the pattillmanfoundation.org where we have our Serving after Service video series it comes out every fall, where we feature Tillman scholars. We have a number of different pieces of content that we share. Tillman scholars are routinely writing op-eds and papers, so we try to feature all of the good work going on out there in the field. So if people are interested in learning more, come check out those stories, if they’re interested in trusting us with support come gain some familiarity with these stories and follow them.
And we find that there’s many people that invest and see us when we’re supporting that Tillman scholar with a scholarship, but then are able to see five, six, seven years down the line where that goes. So from kind of a reporting outcome standpoint we’re gonna keep doing exactly what we’re doing right now. And that is supporting remarkable military veterans and spouses and chasing that ripple effect.
So with any non-profit you’re only as good as your fundraising capabilities, it’s really an alignment of your marketing and your sales to really be able to deliver the mission to future Tillman scholars. So talk a little bit about what fundraising and development is like at the Pat Tillman Foundation.
Sure. So I think the first thing its important to know about us is there’s not an endowment behind our mission. We actually raise all the money that we give away every year. So we have a really, I would say, a diverse fundraising portfolio, if you will. There are thousands of people that mail in $10 checks, $20 checks once a year, which is really a testament to how far and wide the impact he’s had on people.
We also have a grant. We compete for a series of grants. There are corporate sponsors. We’re partners with NFL and Soup to Service campaign. We also compete for a series of grants and we have corporate partners as well as like a third-party model where people would do a fundraising effort and donate the proceeds to us.
And then a final point is we’re also charity partners with the New York City and Chicago marathons. So people can sign up actually avoid the lottery by running for a charity and donating and doing fundraising for us there. So there’s certainly we’re always on the look out for new partners, we want to increase the amount of dollars that we’re able to support the Tillman scholars with so there’s certainly capacity to generate more fundraising and we welcome that.
So Kill, thank you for being on the Brand Lab Series today. I knew it’d be a great conversation. Every time we spend time together, I really enjoy it and I’m glad our audience got to learn a little bit more about your own personal journey, Pat’s legacy, his story, and the future of the Tillman scholars, and all the great work that the Tillman Foundation is doing. So I really appreciate your time today.
Thank you so much for having us. And before I take off, I wanted to make sure to present you with one of our Pat Tillman Foundation military challenge coins. So thanks again to your team for helping shed light and awareness on our mission.
Thank you, I’m humbled, I appreciate that.
You got it. Thank you so much.
Tags: Nonprofit, Brand and Marketing, Employee Advocacy, Entrepreneurship
Enjoyed this episode? View all of our episodes now.
