by Yvette Moore
March International Women’s “Herstory” Month is a time for spotlighting remarkable women and their amazing gifts.
Women like Cynthia Doris Pinn, treasurer of Brooklyn’s Community Board 3; chair of its Housing and Land Use Committee, and treasurer for many other community organizations.
“I have been fortunate to be able to lose myself in service to some extraordinary organizations doing some very important work,” Ms. Pinn told Our Time Press in a recent interview.
“My professional career was mostly in nonprofit in the area of women’s health and, as a volunteer, for more than 30 years, in organizations empowering older adults; enriching the lives of our children and providing political information to the community.”
In addition to her work on Community Board 3, Ms. Pinn also serves as treasurer of the Bedford Stuyvesant Early Childhood Development Center Inc., an organization caring for children and supporting families for more than six decades; and as a consultant for Fort Greene Council Inc., providing services to older adults in Central Brooklyn for more than 50 years, including the renown Jazz966 music program.
Ms. Pinn also serves as treasurer of Vanguard Independent Democratic Association, Inc. (VIDA), the 52-year-old Black political club founded by the late Brooklyn-based, nationally known political leader Albert Vann.
“Al Vann named me community treasurer because I’ve been treasurer of 90 million organizations!” she said. “The thing is that accountants don’t volunteer for boards. You can get volunteer treasurers, but they’re not necessarily financial professionals. That’s what I’ve done with my degree.”
And volunteering is also how Ms. Pinn got into accounting in the first place.
From childhood, she was known to be good with numbers. Born in Brooklyn to immigrant parents from Barbados, she married and was wife for 58 years to the late Dr. Sam Pinn, Founder and Chair of the Fort Greene Council and Co-Founder and Director of Jazz966. She always considered herself a “numbers person,” but when she returned to school after raising her children at home for 13 years, she did so as a social work major.
Photo by Berrnice Green
“When I went to college, you became a nurse, a teacher or a social worker. Those are the professions that you were supposed to go into,” Ms. Pinn said. “I didn’t want to do those things, but I didn’t know to do anything else.”
Fortunately, she was starting school the same year her husband, Sam, was starting the Fort Greene Council, and she volunteered to help where there was a need. She then attended The City of New York’s training program for bookkeepers for new community organizations.
“The Fort Greene Council didn’t have any staff, so I thought, as a volunteer, I will go to the training then come back and train the person the Council hired,” she said.
“So, I went to the training. Poof, a light went on: ‘This is what I’m supposed to be doing!’ I immediately switched my major.”
Ms. Pinn pursued a degree in accounting from Brooklyn College, a Master’s in Business Administration with Distinction from Long Island University (LIU), and a post- graduate certificate from New York University (NYU) in management for not-for-profit organizations.
“It was always my desire to work to serve in the community,” she said. “I always said, I had no desire to help rich people and corporations count their money. With the super-rich, there’s never enough money.
“As an accountant, just looking at it from that perspective, they’re spending the same amount of money that they don’t want to pay in taxes on lawyers and accountants to keep them from paying taxes! They are spreading the wealth to other people who are also wealthy as opposed to spreading the wealth to those in need. That’s the issue.”
“Doris has actively promoted political education and financial responsibility in Bedford Stuyvesant. As our longest-active member, she is a valuable asset in serving the VIDA community,” said Henry Butler, State Committeeman/District Leader.
Ms. Deborah Knight, Executive Member of Bedford Stuyvesant Early Childhood Development Center, Inc. Board said, “Doris does much more than oversee figures; her commitment and guidance consistently make a difference in the lives of our children enrolled in our Head Start program.
“It is both an honor and a privilege to collaborate with Mrs. Cynthia Pinn,” stated Ms. Claudette Macey, Executive Director of Ft. Greene Council, Inc. She added, “All of her actions are clearly guided by her genuine commitment to serving the older adult community.”
“For more than forty years, Doris has been deeply devoted to the House of the Lord Church. Her active presence and unwavering loyalty have touched so many lives—including mine—and her generous contributions continue to inspire those around her. She’s not just a valuable member but she is my tribe sister and an essential part of our community,” Rev. Dr. Karen S. Daughtry, Pastor.
“Cynthia Doris Pinn is truly a woman of distinction, a role model, an influential leader in the community and someone who exemplifies volunteer excellence. Her dedication to Community Board #3 has been evident for more than 25 years. Doris exemplifies what it means to be a volunteer agent of change in today’s world,” Anthony Buissereth, Chairperson, Community Board #3K.
And serving community-based organizations is what Ms. Pinn has done with distinction for over 50 years. In Ms. Pinn’s paid professional life, four of her three positions were with startup organizations, establishing their financial systems and practices. Her last job before retirement was executive director of one of those startups. Under her leadership that organization’s funding grew from $700,000 to $5 million.
Then she returned to her love: volunteering.
“Mahatma Ghandi famously said, ‘The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.’ I have been fortunate,” she said.
Ms. Pinn has words of wisdom for young people seeking to find their way in the city and world: First, she states adamantly, “Know your history!”
“Know about the struggle so you don’t lose the power that you should have as a result of the struggle we have come through,” she told Our Time Press.
Second, keep the faith!
“I am a woman of faith,” said Ms. Pinn, a longtime member of the House of the Lord Pentecostal Church, known for its justice activism over the years.
“You have to believe. And you have to understand that with faith, even when things are not as you might want, God is always on time. ‘He may not come when you want Him, but He’s always on time.”
(Yvette Moore is a contributing writer to Our Time Press and an YA author living in Crown Heights.)
