In our "Meet an Apra-IL Member" feature, we interview a different individual from our member rolls every month. This month, we are pleased to be featuring Jane Cronkhite, an Apra-IL member since 2024.

Jane has been a Manager of Research and Portfolio Management at the University of Illinois Foundation since January 2021. She has bachelor’s degrees in both History and Comparative Literature from Indiana University Bloomington (her hometown), and a Masters in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (where she now lives). Prior to working in prospect development, she spent 20 years as a public librarian — including 9 years living in Silicon Valley — and she's continued to use skills from her librarian days like research and customer service as part of her current role in prospect research. 

Read on to learn more about Jane!

1. What work of yours (or your team’s) from the past year are you most proud of?

My teammates in Research and Portfolio Management (RPM) at UIF put together a BPCon (Best Practices Conference) this fall that united our teams in Champaign, Chicago and our Analyst in Springfield. We spent two days learning from each other, asking questions, sharing experiences, and set department goals. It was one of the best times I’ve had with my teammates in 5 years on the job.

2. What “superpower” do you use most at work?

Asking clarifying questions. After twenty years of working on the reference desk at the public library, I know that taking the time to make sure I understand and am reflecting back to the client what I understand their need to be means I will be more likely to help them. Perhaps I cannot get them the exact thing they originally asked for, but if you take the time to listen, ask and clarify, then tell someone what it is you can do for them, often they are satisfied with how you are able to assist them.

3. What is your favorite lead you’ve ever uncovered?

Earlier this year, a faculty member followed up with me and the development officers who pointed him in the direction of a grant. He received grant funding to work with some students to develop graphic novels about periods and distributed those to women in Sierra Leone, addressing issues of period poverty. He shared photos and outcomes of his grant. It was very rewarding to see the outcome of research work and prospecting I did for that team.

4. Why do you think local professional associations like Apra-IL matter?

It is important to be able to learn from your peers, and not just at your own institution. My experience has been that our profession is very generous in sharing knowledge and best practices, and that we are change agents as well! National conferences are wonderful, but smaller, local groups also offer opportunities to dig deeply into specific topics or to reach out to a peer with a quick question. I have found that my best professional networks and professional development often come from local groups.

5. What is your hobby?

My current hobby is writing short fiction. I’ve taken a couple of classes on flash fiction and submitted my first story to a contest recently!