It’s no secret that Duran Kinst Strategies loves to partner with small businesses. As a small business ourselves, we understand the unique challenges that arise when big ideas collide with limited resources, as well as how to surmount those obstacles to successfully compete in a crowded marketplace.
We also love nonprofit organizations. In fact, you could say they’re in our DNA.
Our business partner Lynne Kinst has been drawn to public policy ever since her college days at the University of California, Davis; however, her passion for people and families who are living with hemophilia goes back even further and connects with her earliest childhood memories.
Lynne’s father, Jim Carey, was born in 1940 as the youngest of three brothers, all of whom were born with hemophilia B, a hereditary bleeding disorder caused by a lack of blood clotting factor IX. At the time of his diagnosis, the difference between hemophilia A (a lack of blood clotting factor VIII) and hemophilia B had not yet been discovered, so Jim was treated with whole blood or plasma transfusions when he had bleeds. Finally, in the 1950s, the two types of hemophilia were identified, and replacement therapy became the new course of action, which extracts specific clotting factors from hundreds or thousands of donated blood samples to meet the needs of each patient.
As a child, Lynne and her family saw her father’s weekly infusions (or more, if he already had a bleed) as the normal way of life. When she was still young, Jim helped found a local chapter called the Central California Hemophilia Foundation (CCHF), an organization whose support continuously bolstered the Carey family, even after Jim’s passing at the age of 54. At the time, Lynne was a sophomore at UC Davis, pursuing a degree in political science.
“When I graduated from college, I went to work at the Capitol,” Lynne said, “but I always had the desire to give back to the community that had supported my family so much for so many years.”
After reaching out to a lobbyist for the Hemophilia Council of California (HCC) and being encouraged to go back to her roots, Lynne reconnected with CCHF and volunteered much of her free time to support their advocacy efforts.
When CCHF garnered the resources in 2017 to hire full-time staff, Lynne immediately applied. She served as the foundation’s executive director until December of last year, when she accepted the executive director position at HCC.
“I loved working with the local chapter,” Lynne said, “but the opportunity at HCC was the perfect mix of still serving families living with hemophilia and working in the public policy arena to positively affect real change.”
Although her position at HCC was showroom-new when the COVID-19 pandemic sent everyone home, she says the organization is still at work and adapting quickly to continue empowering communities to advocate for access to treatment for all patients. In some cases, she says, the pandemic has provided new opportunities for some of their programs, including their Future Leaders Program, which enables 14- to 22-year-olds to meet with legislators during the annual, two-day Legislator Days event hosted at the Capitol.
After making the event virtual this year, Lynne and the HCC staff are considering how to integrate digital components to make the program even more beneficial for its participants moving forward.
“Everyone’s comfort level with meeting online has changed drastically,” she said, “Everyone has had to adapt quickly to the current climate. Utilizing digital resources could help us extend the Future Leaders Program beyond two days, enabling students to establish rapport with legislators before that in-person component, and maintaining that relationship well after.”
Lynne’s fervor for advocacy is both admirable and contagious. She takes her calling to fight on behalf of this community seriously, and so does the rest of the DKS team. We understand that limited resources shouldn’t mean limited impact–that the work of nonprofits is vital to the daily lives of so many.
Besides her passion for bleeding disorders, Lynne is also guided by her faith and commitment to her family. She and her husband, David, and their children, Zach and Ashley, live in Rocklin where they are active in their children’s school and sports communities and Bayside Church Blue Oaks Campus.
We are honored to work alongside Lynne and support the important work that she and the HCC team are doing. For more information about how HCC advocates for those living with bleeding disorders, visit hemophiliaca.org.
