2016 Economic Impact Awards Community Involvement Champion: Crista Hogan

Working as executive director of the Springfield Metropolitan Bar Association isn’t easy, but Crista Hogan has been training for it in one way or another all of her life.

From her involvement in student councils up through a 16-year association with the Junior League, she’s learned community involvement is meshed equally with 28 years of professional experience. Those are good skills to have as the leader of a 900-member organization dedicated to promoting the legal science and advancements in the justice system.

“Crista’s leadership has prioritized the bar’s involvement in our community,” says Neale & Newman LLP partner Mark McQueary. “That leadership, like a stone dropped in a pool of water, has rippled throughout the Springfield bar to hundreds of attorneys affecting thousands of residents.”

Hogan says directing the community-oriented efforts of the Springfield Metropolitan Bar Association Foundation is often the most rewarding part of the job.

“For a volunteer organization, it’s all motivation,” Hogan says. “It’s not a hard science; it’s a soft science.”

Hogan and the bar have applied that motivation to a variety of projects. Recently, those include establishing the Fairbanks Advisers and Advocates project – a quarterly clinic of volunteers providing legal information and counseling – during the city of Springfield’s Zone Blitz program. The organization also started the Bearisters program, helping students at Missouri State University with legal issues free of charge.

“Contrary to popular opinion, lawyers are extremely compassionate, philanthropic people as a profession,” Hogan says. “They are very giving, but if you sign them up, they want to do something.”

Addressing the education front, the bar has helped facilitate other programs to increase public understanding and access to legal resources, including a volunteer public defenders program, National Healthcare Decisions Day and a presentation surrounding the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, held last year.

“The most important superpower is to have relationships with the key people in this community,” Hogan says. “We all have such talent, knowledge and compassion for making the community a better place, and if you can tap into those individuals you can take a one-dimensional project and expand exponentially.”

The path to organizing such projects for Hogan was long, but not linear. It started in high school, when, as chairwoman of the local Young People Against Cancer chapter, she organized a Frisbee tournament fundraiser. Hogan says the only attendee was a friend she picked up on the way, but the experience taught her important lessons in creating volunteer events, things she couldn’t have learned from books or prepared outlines.

“Back then I had a ‘build it and they will come’ attitude toward events – nothing could be further from the truth,” Hogan says. “There is a lot more to attracting participants, volunteers and an audience than just lining it out and throwing it out there.”

Her advice to others? Find those strategic partners in the community and identify the motivating factors for participation. That, and start early.

“The stakes are low when you’re young and doing volunteer work,” Hogan says. “You fail, and it’s an incredible platform to learn some valuable and transferrable skills.”