Meera Pillai and The Scholarship Fund for Northern Virginia

A retired IT professional turned philanthropist, Meera Pillai is an influential figure in Northern Virginia nonprofit circles who has become prominent through board membership and outreach. She left a lucrative IT career to pursue philanthropy, which she felt was her life's purpose. Since then, Meera has served as Board Chair of the Ronald McDonald House Charities of DC, a member of the Board of the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia, and a member of the Board of Educate Fairfax.

As a second-generation Indian-American, Meera appreciates the value of paying it forward, as such opportunities enabled her family’s pursuit and achievement of the American Dream. Indeed, Meera was pivotal in the recent launch of The Scholarship Fund for Northern Virginia, which supports local students pursuing higher education at a Virginia public college.

We interviewed Meera on her philanthropic background and contributions to The Scholarship Fund to get a better sense of her work and goals:

What did you do before local philanthropy? What brought you here today?

Before making the leap to philanthropy, I worked in IT Project Management for over 10 years. The bulk of my career was spent at Booz Allen Hamilton, right here in McLean, VA. They were a wonderful company that honored work-life balance and made a career doable for me when I had my children and they were young.

Around my 40th birthday, I felt a shift, a restlessness, that I perhaps had a different purpose, but one I couldn’t define yet. That catalyst moment came when I started volunteering at my children’s elementary school and had a random conversation with the school’s social worker who deals with student issues such as food insecurity.  She told me a heart-wrenching story about a 3rd-grader who regularly saved his chocolate milk from his free lunch to take to his little sister at home, obviously one where food is a luxury.

I was shocked. Of course, I knew that food insecurity existed, but I naively assumed not in my middle-class neighborhood school. That small story was my moment and call to action, and over the next several years, I did just that. I left the corporate world to focus on philanthropy, particularly causes focused on children.

Tell me about your role as a Community Foundation Board Member. How did you hear about CFNOVA and get involved?

Several years ago, my husband and I decided to contribute to the Foundation’s Permanent Fund for Northern Virginia and created a fund in our family’s name. I was looking for a way to broaden our charitable giving in the area, and this seemed like a perfect way to do so. The CEO at the time, Eillen Ellsworth, invited me to coffee as thanks for setting up our fund. Our wonderful discussion led to an invitation to join the board!

I have been a Board Member for 3 years and the Chair of the Nominating and Governance Committee. I also participate in the Gala and Grants committees. I am so proud and honored to serve on this board. It is an organization that truly touches every mission area of need in our area. I’m a big believer in giving back to the area you live in and serving on this board allows me to do just that.

What is the purpose and impact of The Scholarship Fund for Northern Virginia? 

The Scholarship Fund for Northern Virginia will provide high school seniors with financial assistance to pursue higher education at a Virginia public university or community college. Recipients will be selected based on financial need and the challenges they face in accessing higher education. 

We hope this new fund will help us reach an even greater pool of students in need. Nothing changes a life trajectory more significantly than education, and I’m thrilled to be part of this effort that helps students achieve this goal. Even better, the Scholarship Fund was established as a component of the Permanent Fund for Northern Virginia, which means it will be treated as an endowment that will forever support students across the region.

What inspired you to help with The Scholarship Fund for Northern Virginia?

As a reviewer of scholarship applications, I learned that we have many scholarships created by families as an endowment or memorial fund. The minimum to establish such a scholarship fund is $25,000. I also learned that many scholarships are very specific, such as requesting that recipients be selected based on a particular field of study or come from a particular school.

While these are valuable sources of scholarships, we can create a broader fund without such restrictions. I envisioned a fund where a donor could contribute any amount (whether $50 or $5000) and for which recipients would be selected based on financial need only and could apply to any field.

I firmly believe that many donors like me would love to support education and scholarships but don’t have the bandwidth or resources to start their own funds. The Scholarship Fund allows us to reach those donors and increase our scholarship grants.

What was your role in launching the Fund? What do you hope to see in The Scholarship Fund’s future?

The Community Foundation leadership team was as excited about this new scholarship fund as I was, so it was relatively easy to create! We needed a minimum donation of $5000, which I was happy to provide. With that, we can launch and begin our outreach and fundraising.

My hope for The Scholarship Fund is that we raise $50,000 in our first year! Long-term, I would love to see us provide multi-year support for our scholarship recipients. The sky's the limit with this new fund!

What is your favorite aspect of your role on the CFNOVA Board?

I love everything about my role on the CFNOVA Board, but I particularly love serving on the Grants committees. As a board member, there’s no better way to feel the impact of our work than to read the grant applications and understand the needs out there. It’s humbling and gratifying and energizes me to put 100% into this board.

I look forward to serving as a Reviewer for the new Scholarship Fund next year and seeing the students our new scholarship will be helping!

Why is local philanthropy important to you? What areas do you focus on most?

As mentioned above, being an immigrant family shaped my outlook. Education and opportunity allowed my family to emigrate here and build a successful life, and I now have the good fortune to pass that down to my children. Not every family is so fortunate.

Local philanthropy helps address those gaps and allows my family to pay forward with our good fortune. Furthermore, being a mother and working with food insecurity initiatives led me to causes that help children.

Whether addressing basic needs (such as food, clothing, and shelter) or quality education, helping children tugs at my heartstrings, which is reflected by the boards I serve on.

Tell us about your volunteer work with food banks and combating food insecurity in Northern Virginia.

I’ve volunteered or donated to numerous local organizations addressing food insecurity. My family, being of Indian descent, is also involved in charities that address similar issues in India. One of my proudest achievements is establishing a Food Backpack program at my kid’s elementary school. I named it the “Bears Care Food Program” in honor of the school mascot and worked with the PTA to add this program to its charter.

In this program, I sent out weekly donation requests and either packed bags myself or recruited older students who needed service hours. The backpacks went to the selected students on Fridays. A key factor of our backpack program was that we sent home enough food for all the siblings in the house, not just one student.

I also established a Holiday Gift Giving program that provided gifts to each need-identified student and their siblings at home. Lastly, I set up a summer food program by collecting grocery gift cards that school families could use over the summer to purchase food.

The school’s social worker told me that kids would come to school on Friday, even if they were sick, just to receive their weekend food backpacks. While heartbreaking, that made my work completely worth it.

What else are you involved in locally?

I serve on the boards of two other local nonprofits. I’m currently the Chair of the Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Greater Washington, DC, area, which provides housing support and other essential services to families with critically ill children receiving treatment at our local hospitals. I’m also on the Board of Educate Fairfax, a foundation that supports Fairfax County Public Schools in funding key mission areas to improve student outcomes.

How can someone interested in local philanthropy get started?

That’s an easy answer: passion. Figure out where your passion lies, what tugs at your heartstrings, and pursue that. There are numerous ways to get involved in local philanthropy. Volunteer Fairfax is a great place to start. But before that, it’s important to know what cause you want to support with your volunteer time.

How can people contribute to The Scholarship Fund?