Jackie Feddersen took a fairytale approach to career satisfaction.

“I worked at a YMCA in Champaign, Ill., and it was a small, independent association,” she said. “When I worked at the YMCA in Milwaukee, it was large and very urban. Des Moines had the perfect opportunity, the right mix of both. The CEO created a position that perfectly met my career skill set.”

Feddersen came to Iowa two and one-half years ago. Although she grew up in Illinois, she says she had wanted to come to Iowa for some time. Her family moved to the Hawkeye State when she was a freshman at the University of Illinois. She finished her bachelor’s degree there and later pursued a master’s degree in human service administration at the Milwaukee campus of Springfield, Mass.-based Springfield College.

“[Springfield] College was started over 100 years ago as a YMCA training ground,” Feddersen said. She says the college and the YMCA are separate entities now, but each has maintained a philosophy of service to the whole person: mind, body and soul.

Between earning her undergraduate degree and applying for graduate school, Feddersen spent five years working for a Fortune 500 company. That was when she first started volunteering at the Y. Eventually, the Champaign YMCA offered her a paid position. She accepted.

“That’s when I got that bug,” she said. “I’ll probably never get rid of it.”

Feddersen is now director of development and marketing for the YMCA of Greater Des Moines, which comprises six branches and a camp in Boone. She says her top focus is raising funds for the organization’s endowment as scholarship program. Feddersen says they gave 11,000 scholarships last year.

“If you can’t afford our programs, we’ll find a way,” she said. Last week was the kickoff of a fund-raising campaign to bring in $803,000. “But at the end of the day, it’s not about raising money,” Feddersen said. “It’s about reaching out and meeting community needs.

“If I’m sitting in my office under a stack of administrative stuff, and I wonder [why I’m doing it], I can walk 10 feet out of my office and see kids who are being affected by what I do every day.”