Pam Cornforth says she found the Ronald McDonald House of Delaware by chance, but she stayed for the mission.
Prior to a family move to Delaware, Cornforth was a banker and commercial lender in New York City. A series of changes for the family brought them to Delaware permanently when she was introduced to the Ronald McDonald House, then a new nonprofit organization, through her volunteer work at the Junior League in Wilmington.
Supporting a fundraiser to help build the group’s facility across the street from Nemours Children’s Health was just the start of what would become a new career for Cornforth. She told the Delaware Business Times that she quickly got to know the executive director and was eventually offered the role herself.
“When the executive director was going to move on, she called a lot of people and suggested that we apply for the position. I took her word for it, and I applied. I was offered the position, and the rest was history. It’s been a great career with a wonderful organization,” Cornforth told DBT.
That was back in 1999. She has since continued to support the organization’s growth over the last 26 years, seeing it grow from four to 37 employees along with the amount of families served which came to 1,425 families last year in the house alone. The nonprofit also serves more than 4,000 through its family room program at ChristianaCare and Nemours.
She credits her team and the supportive people around her for a successful career of service.
“One of the things that I learned early on, or someone said to me, was – find people that do a similar job as you, but outside of your organization, because sometimes it’s lonely at the top,” she said. “I feel like you need to manage or create that circle of colleagues that you can confide in or have as a sounding board. It’s a circle of people you can count on and bounce ideas off of and I have that here both at Ronald McDonald House and with my peers.”
She said while she appreciates the CEO of the Year award from DBT, she is really accepting the award on behalf of her team.
“The work can’t be done without everybody who works here and my family who have been very supportive in my career,” she added.
