September 2001

When Gabriela Smith, the daughter of an Argentinean foreign-service trade officer, left her native Argentina to study at UCLA, she discovered that in some ways she wasn’t so far from home. She saw that many people in Los Angeles suffered some of the same deprivation that plagued poor people in South America. Gabriela worked hard at UCLA, first learning English, then earning a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s in Latin American Studies. “I knew my call was to help people who were poor,” she says. She believed she could help them in the US and abroad through a large, powerful organization like the World Bank, but first she wanted to work among the people she hoped to help.

She became a social worker in Los Angeles, helping immigrant families deal with the barriers of language, culture, and unemployment. She created the Hispanic Leadership Program in Venice, CA, which helped prepare families to meet the challenges of their new lives in America. For Gabriela, it meant patching together resources for services like child care and learning to write lots of grant proposals. “Being a social worker is a challenging job,” she says. “It takes such a level of commitment. They certainly aren’t in it for the money.”

Armed with an understanding of life at ground zero, Gabriela then worked to gain managerial skills at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Her postgraduate work in Boston led her to a job at the World Bank in 1991, but not before she met her future husband, Doug Smith. At the time, Doug was building a wireless telecommunications company called Omnipoint, which would grow to 2,500 employees before merging with Voicestream and two other regional companies.

At the World Bank, Gabriela ran health and education projects in Bolivia. “It was very rewarding work…. One of the most striking things I remember was walking the streets of Bolivia…and seeing a woman in bright native clothing selling food on the street to survive. Her children were playing happily nearby, and she had such a smile and such twinkle in her eye. Despite their poverty, they were managing to make the best of things.” The face of that woman reminds Gabriela to always keep in touch with people in need.

To that end, Gabriela now devotes her time to her three young children and the new foundation that she and Doug created, the Amanter Fund (meaning “with love” in Latin). The fund is focused on supporting children, families, and education.
Last year, Nina Zolt and Miles Gilburne introduced the Smiths to Mario Morino and VPP. Their common interests in children and education seemed a perfect match. “We were impressed by the high level of commitment and professionalism on the part of Mario and the team,” Gabriela said. As a board member, she is already contributing her insights as a social worker. She hopes that the association with VPP will also teach her more about the nonprofit world and the best way to support organizations that she believes in. “When you give, you want to make sure that it will make a difference.”