BusinessWest & Healthcare News: Business & Health Talk Podcast · Audacy

Joe speaks with Tara Brewster, vice president of Business Development and director of Philanthropy at Greenfield Savings Bank

·23 min·1 clip

Tara Brewster says her mother’s stage four ovarian cancer changed the entire course of her life.

Joe Bednar opens the conversation with Tara Brewster of Greenfield Savings Bank. The first stretch of the interview centers on a light but memorable fundraising story: the day-in-bed event, its origin with Monty Belmonte, and how a strange-sounding idea became a real community fundraiser. Tara keeps the tone easy. She says it is genuinely fun, even if spending 11 hours in bed is tiring. From there, the conversation moves into her career path and the work she handles at the bank. She describes business development as a relationship-heavy job, one that grows by meeting people and then meeting the people they know, which makes the role rewarding but also exhausting. The pace stays measured. Tara says the philanthropy role is normally a rotating assignment, but it fits her so well that this is now her second year doing it. She lays out the scale clearly. The bank gives out about a million dollars externally each year to about 350 organizations, and the focus tends to be on the smaller grants, sponsorships, and donations that keep local groups moving. The episode stays rooted in community. She notes that requests can range from $50 to $150,000, but the bank tries to support the smaller nonprofits and the smaller amounts that make day-to-day work possible. Joe and Tara then move to the public-facing side of her civic life. He is preparing to emcee BusinessWest's Difference Makers event, and she reflects on having been honored there two years earlier for community work. She names a few of the organizations closest to her. Those include the Double Edge Theater in Ashfield, a longtime organization whose work she connects to storytelling, self-awareness, and lifting up different peoples and cultures, as well as the Downtown Northampton Association. The conversation keeps circling back to why local institutions matter. Tara connects her board and volunteer work to the same practical civic instinct that shapes her day job, where support is not abstract but tied to real organizations and real needs. Near the end, she and Joe talk about the value of local media itself. She says she likes print, loves radio, and appreciates a medium that lets people keep doing other things while listening, which fits the show's own easy, interview-first style.

As heard by us

A clear look at how local banking turns philanthropy into community support.

Joe Bednar's conversation with Tara Brewster shows how Greenfield Savings Bank ties business development to philanthropy in a way that feels practical rather than polished.

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Why you'd press play

See how a local bank turns philanthropy into practical community support.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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