By Judy O’Gorman Alvarez
You’d be hardpressed to find an organization that Claire Knopf has not lent a hand to.
As an active community leader, volunteer and advocate for nearly 35 years in nonprofit organizational management, fundraising and development, and board leadership, the Rumson resident has played an important role in a long list of organizations, including Monmouth Medical Center Foundation, Monmouth County Historical Association and many more.
So it seems only fitting that the Eastern Monmouth Area Chamber of Commerce (EMACC) will present Knopf with the prestigious 2023 Spinnaker Volunteer of the Year Award at its annual celebration March 22.
“I’m in very good company,” Knopf said.
Past EMACC Spinnaker Volunteer of the Year recipients have included local notables Gene Cheslock, Carol Stillwell, Tim McLoone and Sea Bright Rising.
“I’m honored to be in that group.”
Knopf credits the Junior League for launching her years of volunteerism. “They gave me the tools,” she said.
The Association of Junior Leagues International, Inc., is a nonprofit educational women’s volunteer organization aimed at improving communities and the social, cultural, and political fabric of civil society. The Junior League of Monmouth County (JLMC), based in Rumson, has been developing the potential in women through volunteering for decades.
Knopf said she was trained to “start with having a provisional plan and, once you have tools, it gives you the confidence. And once you have that, you can make an impact.”
“Each person can make a difference,” she said.
Knopf is a past community vice president of the chapter and the recipient of the JLMC Outstanding Leaguer award. She co-chaired the JLMC Building Opportunities Capital Campaign. Instrumental in program development, she led the initiative for a parenting skills program in Long Branch for teenage mothers.
When she first joined the chapter, Knopf and others were introduced to projects and organizations and taught teamwork and leadership at the same time.
Knopf credits Judith Stanley Coleman, the well-known community activist and philanthropist who died in 2010, for pointing her in the direction of certain organizations.
“She told me that I was to be involved with VNA and Monmouth County Historical Association and Monmouth Medical Center,” Knopf said, kicking off her decades-long involvement with those groups.
From the time Knopf and her husband Woody began raising their three now adult children, she found time to volunteer. “It was an ebb and flow basis” when the children were young, she said. “They needed me and of course they were my priority.”
She knew how much time she could devote to any project. “I would have to say ‘I cannot chair that event right now but I can be on the committee.’ ”
Nowadays she may have more time on her hands, but family commitments still take center stage. Including her new role as grandmother to one – and one on the way.
Knopf said she cannot say which of the many organizations she favors but it’s clear that her connection with Monmouth Medical Center, where she has served in a volunteer leadership position for decades, is strong.
Currently she is chair of the Monmouth Medical Center Foundation Board and co-chair of the Leon Hess Cancer Center Council. For over 25 years she has served as a committee member, chair and host of the Power of Pink luncheon, the foundation’s most profitable and iconic event.
She has served as trustee, first vice-president and the 20th president of the Monmouth County Historical Association (MCHA) Board of Trustees.
She has volunteered on the Rumson Country Day School Parent Council Executive Committee, the Visiting Nurse Association Health Group, Monmouth Conservation Foundation, Literacy Volunteers of Monmouth County, “As it Grows” fundraiser to benefit MCHA and historic Little Silver, Horizons and Impact 100.
She has been a board trustee at Spring House, The Two River Film Festival, MCOSS (now VNAHG), Monmouth Day Care Center and the Girl Scouts of the Jersey Shore. She is also a founding steering committee member of the VNAHG Stately Homes by-the-Sea Designer Show House.
In addition, Knopf was appointed by Gov. Phil Murphy to the New Jersey Cultural Trust in 2021.
What comes with experience working with the many nonprofits, recognizing their goals and the people they’re trying to reach, is learning how the “pieces of the puzzle work,” she said. “It’s not that it’s cookie cutter. Instead, everything is individualized.”
Her 35 years of experience in all those organizations have helped Knopf get a job done, honing the skills that are important.
One of those skills is communication. “You have to know what needs to be done and what the original mission is. You really have to go back to the organization’s mission,” she said.
“It’s quality, not quantity.”
She points out that within the broad umbrella of communication falls another asset: networking. “After all these years I know people and I know where to get the answers,” she said.
Often she can connect people to each other to get the results they need.
Through her years of work, Knopf has a respected and well-regarded reputation. People “trust me, and they’ll listen to my suggestions,” she said.
Knopf believes in transparency, as well. “Everybody in our community is entitled to know everything that’s going on,” she said, and especially “all the services that are available to them.”
That counts for raising money, as well as getting the word out to the people who can benefit from the myriad services.
She cites the RWJBarnabas Anne Vogel Family Care and Wellness Center located at the Monmouth Mall in Eatontown as an example.
“We want to get all that information out to let them know that there’s a whole menu of options and opportunities – from cooking classes for children’s healthy eating to a vegetable stand – that are available, and they’re all for free.”
“There are so many opportunities in this community,” Knopf said. “We really are so service-oriented. We’re good to our neighbors. We take care of each other. And we just want all those opportunities made available.”
The article originally appeared in the March 16 – 22, 2023 print edition of The Two River Times.
