Tara Brewster

Vice President of Business Development and of Philanthropy, Greenfield Savings Bank

She Makes Purposeful Connections to Multiply the Impact of Good Works

Photos by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging

Tara Brewster has told the story on many occasions about accepting her current job at Greenfield Savings Bank and being asked by John Howland, then then bank’s president, where she wanted her office. She said she didn’t want one.

“I said, ‘I’m good.’ He said, ‘what do you mean you’re good? Everybody has an office.’ And I said, ‘you expect me to be making relationships in the community. You expect me to be having meetings with people. Nobody’s going to want to come into the bank to have a meeting with me in my office. So I’m not planning on being in my office hardly ever because I’m going to be out in the community. And he was like, ‘OK, prove it.’ So for nine years, I’ve never had an office. This is my office.”

By ‘this,’ she meant the restaurant where she sat with BusinessWest for this interview — and not just that establishment, but any number of eateries and other community meeting places where she meets potential clients on financial matters, but also nonprofit leaders, as her title spans the worlds of both business and philanthropy. As does her life.

“We’re not going to fill that gap alone; we’re only one organization. But we need to be intentional and focused about the different times that we’re living in.”

“So many people don’t get out — they work their 9 to 5, they work their desk job, they have their own obligations. I feel privileged that that I’m able to create my own schedule, go where I’m needed, and be really intentional, purposeful, and independent on where I need to go and who needs me. That’s not lost on me.”

She’s especially gratified by her philanthropic role; the bank now gives away about $1 million each year to some 300 nonprofits.

Tara Brewster (center) with four of the valued mentors who have supported her for many years: from left, Chia Collins, Barbara Jones, Sidonia Dalby, and Mark Grumoli
Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging

“We don’t do the big check presentation. That’s not how we roll. I like to send all the contribution checks to all the branch managers and have them make the connection and go deliver them and say hi, because it’s not about my relationship with the nonprofit; it’s about our relationship.”

Since COVID, Brewster explained, the bank’s philanthropic priorities have included healthcare, human services, housing, food security, safety, and children. “We try to look through that lens and meet the needs where we can.”

It’s especially important, she added, at a time when nonprofit funding, already a challenging landscape, is being threatened on a massive scale by federal cutbacks.

“I would like to have a conversation with senior leadership about, ‘OK, who is really being targeted? How can we allocate a little bit more funding to those groups? How can we step up a little bit more to try to support them and fill in the cracks from holes in federal funding and the decimation of their livelihoods?’ We’re not going to fill that gap alone; we’re only one organization. But we need to be intentional and focused about the different times that we’re living in.

“You know, if we didn’t have nonprofits, we would be screwed,” Brewster added, “because government — even in the best of times, with the best of leaders, who have the heart to do it — could never take care of all of the issues that exist and the needs of all the people. They haven’t figured out how to do that. So it makes the role of institutions like banks, foundations, and individuals so much more important, because they do so much.”

Those who know Brewster understand her passion for supporting the community didn’t start with her current job. She currently serves on four nonprofit boards — Cutchins Programs for Children and Families, Riverside Industries, Downtown Northampton Assoc., and Double Edge Theatre — as well as several local committees, including Community Action of Pioneer Valley, Look Memorial Park, North Star Self-Directed Learning for Teens, the David Ruggles Center, and the Treehouse Foundation.

She is also a top fundraiser for numerous regional events, including the Hot Chocolate Run for Safe Passage, Dancing with the Local Stars for Cutchins, and two annual events — the Mother’s Day Half Marathon and the Bed In fundraiser — for Cancer Connection, whose executive director, Chelsea Kline, is also a Woman of Impact this year; see story on page W19).

“Respected equally by business leaders, nonprofit executives, and grassroots organizers, Tara is a force multiplier for good,” wrote Ira Bryck of Helping Leaders Grow, who nominated her as a Woman of Impact. “She is present in every role she plays — mother, wife, colleague, volunteer — leading with an open heart and strategic mind. Western Massachusetts is better because Tara Brewster calls it home, and her impact continues to ripple outward through every organization, partnership, and person she touches.”

Road to Success

This is Brewster’s third BusinessWest honor; she was part of the 40 Under Forty class of 2009, when she co-owned Jackson & Connor, a men’s clothing store in Northampton, and a Difference Maker in 2022.

Since joining Greenfield Savings Bank in 2016, she has generated over $200 million in deposits, loans, and mortgages while shaping and expanding the bank’s annual philanthropy budget — a success on every level. But the road to her current career was a winding one, marked by early tragedy.

As a teenager, she planned on moving far away from Massachusetts and attending college in Montana, with the goal of becoming a pediatrician. But her mother was diagnosed with stage-4 ovarian cancer when Tara was just 15, a turn of events that would not only alter her plans for college, keeping her close to home, but inspire her to reach higher and serve others more purposefully following her mother’s passing.

She eventually graduated from Smith College, majoring in government and anthropology, and found her way into the men’s clothing business. She started at Taylor Men, which had a store in Thornes Marketplace, while she was at Smith, and would later be regional sales manager for seven stores in the Northeast before moving to Manhattan and working for a men’s wholesale apparel company.

Eventually, Brewster returned to Northampton and opened Jackson & Connor with a business partner; they ran the store for eight years before selling it. It was there, she told BusinessWest, that she began to understand the importance of community connections.

“Respected equally by business leaders, nonprofit executives, and grassroots organizers, Tara is a force multiplier for good.”

“I was like, ‘oh, my success is tied to the community’s success. It’s tied to others. It’s tied to me supporting you and you supporting me, and one hand washes the other.’ It was very clear. Before that, when I worked for these larger companies, in bigger cities, they weren’t very philanthropic, and they didn’t really push us to do a lot of charity work. But when your livelihood is dependent on local customers coming in and supporting you, that’s how you eat. That’s how you pay the bills. It’s how you pay your employees. I really got it then.”

After selling the store, Brewster segued into consulting before Mark Grumoli, senior vice president and commercial loan officer at Greenfield Savings Bank — who, years earlier, had helped the partners secure funding to launch Jackson & Connor when he was with Florence Bank, convinced her to become the new vice president of Business Development.

In addition to her dual role at work and her robust involvement with nonprofits outside of it, she also hosts the Western Mass. Business Show on WHMP, a radio interview program with local business leaders that she inherited from Bryck.

“Tara is a creative spirit, an entrepreneur, media mogul, and supports philanthropy,” wrote Tina Champagne, another nominator. “When there is a community need of any kind, Tara knows who to call and how to help raise funds to support those in need. She is brilliant at luring others in with her passion, care, and positive energy.”

Still, Brewster admits there’s only so much one person can do, especially someone who is widely recognized as a go-to helper.

“It’s not about being in all the rooms anymore. When I first started, I felt like I had to be at all these events, I had to meet this person, I had to go to this, I had to go to that, I had to show up. But really, it’s about being more calculated and smart about how I can actually effect change — who are the people that I need to call in, sit at a table with, connect with, strategize with?”

Sue Monahan (left), creator and director of the Mother’s Day Half Marathon, with Tara Brewster, host of Bed In for Cancer Connection.

Especially, as noted earlier, at a particularly rough time for nonprofits.

“A lot of the meetings and spaces that I’m in, people are talking about ‘how are you taking care of yourself in order to be a freedom fighter and a warrior and someone who shows up and has capacity for other people and the work?’ And ‘how do you choose what’s important?’”

For one thing, Brewster would like to see more conversations between nonprofits whose clients have needs that dovetail.

“If we’re having a meeting about federal funding or food security or another need, let’s not just have it be like a siloed meeting,” she said. “Let’s have it be an integrated meeting — who needs to be in the room, who can do what, and how we can get it done? — rather than just thinking, ‘I’m me, and I have these resources,’ and ‘you’re you, and you have these resources.’ We just need to be more collaborative and more strategic than we’ve ever been going into these times.”

Setting an Example

Just as important as who’s making an impact now is who will follow in their footsteps, which is why Brewster values mentorship, both giving and receiving. In fact, she asked to take a photo for this story with four of her mentors, people who have helped shape her path and work.

One of them is Chia Collins, a local small business owner and volunteer. “Tara Brewster is my sister from a different mother, as she has said to me. She is truly a saint in the valley,” Collins said. “I adore moving mountains with her and for her. What nourishes her seems to be her love to connect people and to better the world. Tara is truly a force of nature.”

Brewster, like others honored in this year’s class of Women of Impact, is quick to deflect, or at least share, credit for such accolades, but said the award is still a meaningful one.

“I’m incredibly honored. It’s very humbling, and it makes you want to do more; it makes you want to keep going. To be recognized and acknowledged says, ‘OK, I must be doing something right; I must be helping people, or my impact must be having a ripple effect, so I need to keep doing it,’” she said.

“What are we here for — like, seriously, what are you here for — if not to make a difference, if not to improve someone’s life?” she added. “I want to die having left a mark, having a purpose, helping others, something other than just self-service.”