Wayne Kinzie

Having worked in Grand Valley State University’s Counseling Department for 40 years, Dr. Wayne Kinzie is thankful for his professional career experience. Grand Valley’s counseling department helps thousands of students learn valuable coping skills each year through individual and group therapy.To give other counseling staff members the same great experience, he created the Dr. Wayne Kinzie Counseling Staff Professional Development Endowment.

“It seemed like a valuable place to have some extra resources. To be able to fully service the university, it’s really important to stay up on our professional development and this fund will help with that need so we can service students better.”

For Kinzie, the matching of gifts for endowed funds which is offered to faculty and staff was a big incentive to create such a fund. Along with this, he felt that an endowed fund would be the best way to support the counseling center far into the future.

“It’s important to give to an endowed fund because it continues to grow, rather than having just the principal of your gift used right away,” he said.

Kinzie has always held the belief that it’s important to give back. “I should give everything that I can possibly afford to give,” he said. The main reason Kinzie gives, though, is because it does something psychological for individuals who engage with the university as a donor.

“If you look at philosophy of life, the most dominant and pervasive activity in nature is connecting with others,” he said. “I think giving to an endowment is a way of staying connected. Probably the most fundamental reason why I give is to perpetuate relationships.”