A passionate pivot
After her time in the policy world, Corbett-Wright decided to leverage her experience and pivot her career path toward nonprofit fundraising. From interning at the Mayor’s Fund for Philadelphia, to a development job at a nonprofit for advancing behavioral health, to working with the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Philadelphia Program, Corbett-Wright found her calling in the nonprofit space.
Her current role as vice president, Charitable Foundation program manager at TD Bank allows her to work on many transformative projects and fuel her passion for doing good. “I love working in philanthropy. I love grantmaking,” Corbett-Wright said. “I love making projects possible and allowing communities to be the best agents of their change and facilitating that with capital.”
A real role model
Now, she’s a leader in a professional milieu with few visible Black Muslim women. “It is very important to me to be able to be out and visible as a Black Muslim woman,” she said. “I welcome the opportunity to add to people’s perceptions of the capabilities of Muslim women, showing up in a way that changes the conversation around what it means to be a Muslim in America and how you contribute to the fabric of society.”
Corbett-Wright acknowledges that all of her success flows from that one political science course she took as a sophomore. “I’m not sure that the same magic could have happened at another school or in another city,” she said. “It was a uniquely Temple experience, a uniquely Philadelphia moment.”
—By Hillel Hoffmann and Kierstyn Smith