Dance Marathon with Hailey Freedman: Fundraising for Sick and Injured Kids

Welcome to our first installment, where my first guest is Hailey Freedman! Hailey is the Executive Director for Dance Marathon at Brown. Dance Marathon is a nationwide organization with chapters at many colleges. Brown’s chapter partners with Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence, and last year they raised $25,000 for the miracle kids! Dance Marathon’s mission is even more critical now than ever. As Hailey says, “these kids can’t wait for a return to normal. They can’t wait for a vaccine to come.” 

Hailey’s job as Executive Director focuses on the business side of this service organization. She serves as the point person between children miracle networks and Brown University and the national Dance Marathon organization. More minutely, Hailey is in charge of setting deadlines, delegating tasks, and creating goals for the next week. She makes sure that through her leadership, she ensures that “everyone on the team feels valued” and creates an inspiring team culture. Hailey cites her economics, business, and entrepreneurship classes at Brown in preparing her to be detail-oriented, lead and manage a team, and produce great results for the kids. Dance Marathon is also a relatively new group at Brown. So, just like working for a startup, the newness of the club allows Hailey to, as she says, “make of this whatever I want.” 

When I ask Hailey about life after college, she knows that this intersection of business and service that she’s learned through Dance Marathon will continue to guide her path forward. No matter where she ends up working after Brown, Hailey is adamant that “whatever I’m doing needs to have some greater purpose or value.” Citing investment as a potential career path, Hailey notes that she would have the ability to control capital and determine where money goes. Company culture is also crucial to her. Just like at Dance Marathon, Hailey tells me, “I need to have a place where I can empower others and then also create greater change in my community.” 

This leads us into a conversation about women empowerment, the cornerstone of WIB’s mission. Hailey lights up when we get to this topic, informing me that all the chairs of Dance Marathon are women, and telling me that “women bring a whole new perspective to the table.” When asked about her inspiration, Hailey recommends Girls Who Invest, a 10-week summer program that not only taught her about asset management but gave her “a community for life.”

For all women out there who might be intimidated by finance often being male-dominated, Hailey has some words of advice for you: “Decide for yourself if you’re going to let the prejudices or the stereotypes of what finance is affect you. Or, if you can instead rise above and bring your own diverse thoughts and your own experiences to the table when you're in these big meetings. You can let [identifying as female] not stop you and instead be something that is really beneficial to the rest of the team.”

Thank you Hailey! Reach out to Hailey with any questions about Dance Marathon, the intersection of business and service, or women empowerment. And come back next week for our second installment!