Katy Pugh Smith is no stranger to community work. Now at the helm of Greater Good Greenville, she helps local nonprofits on a daily basis, and her name has graced the staff lists of multiple Greenville mainstays, like the United Way and the Center for Developmental Services. With a front-row seat to the many challenges our community faces, one would think she’d be more grim. But what’s most striking about Pugh Smith is her optimism.
“I have seen this community grow and change, and I just love this place and believe in the people who make it special,” she says. “It’s really marvelous.”
Originally from Fort Meyers, Florida, Pugh Smith–hunting for four-season weather–attended Wake Forest University, where her drive for social work came out of a conversation with a college professor. At the time, her grandfather was battling Parkinson’s disease, and the burden of navigating care providers and resources was exhausting for her family.
“I thought, the world should work better for people,” Pugh Smith says. “And I said to this professor, ‘That’s the kind of work I want to be a part of—getting people who care and systems that are supposed to be in place to help people to function in a more productive way.’”
Pugh Smith went on to get her degree in social work and made Greenville her home in 1995, when she married her college sweetheart, Matt. Since then, she’s been helping people, systems, and the community function productively together, including in her recent role as executive director of Greater Good Greenville.
A merging of Greenville Partnership for Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Alliance, Greater Good Greenville (GGG) was born out of COVID. During that time, Pugh Smith and her colleague Catherine Puckett started a weekly Zoom with local nonprofits and philanthropists to help them navigate the unique challenges and opportunities the pandemic presented. It soon became apparent the two organizations were better together.
Former Greater Good Greenville During Pandemic
“It honestly just made such perfect sense because there are things we all need to learn together,” Pugh Smith says. “We need to talk to each other and collaborate well, we need to build trust amongst each other to solve really hard problems.”
In addition to connecting philanthropists and nonprofits, boosting collaboration, and providing resources, GGG also has a civic engagement arm that works to educate citizens on local government and community involvement. Their podcast, Simple Civics, has more than 100,000 downloads, which Pugh Smith credits to people’s hunger to understand and get involved in government on a local level. This November, GGG will also launch a new platform called Give Greenville, an online nonprofit directory that’s searchable by issue and interest.
Pugh Smith believes in her community, seen not only in her work but also in her personal life, her passion for local government, and personal involvement in nonprofits. She encourages every Greenville citizen, new and old, conservative and liberal, to get involved—it’s one of the best ways to connect to each other face to face.
“I believe there is abundant opportunity.” Pugh Smith says. “You see it among all the people who care. The challenge is perhaps how to harness everyone together to seize that opportunity.”
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Katy Pugh Smith’s Giving Timeline
- 1995: Moves to Greenville and begins working with the United Way
- 1997: Joins Greenville Hospital System as the director of community planning
- 1999: Helps launch the Center for Developmental Services and serves as executive director
- 2004: Begins almost two decades with Piedmont Health Foundation as executive director
- 2013: Facilitates Greenville Partnership for Philanthropy to connect and collaborate with local grant-makers
- 2022: Greenville Partnership for Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Alliance merge to form Greater Good Greenville
