Mark Holt, Caryn McNeill Earn National Recognition
BREAKING NEWS!
Just last week, long after the deadline for the August edition of North Carolina Lawyer had passed, the National Conference of Bar Foundations presented the 2025 NCBF Excellence Award to North Carolina Bar Association members Mark Holt and Caryn McNeill.
News this good just couldn’t wait until the next edition comes out in November!
Mark and Caryn were honored for their leadership of the Open Door Fund and Fellowship, which culminated in April with the fulfillment of the $1 million campaign to endow the Open Door Fund. The award was presented on Friday, August 15, in Washington, D.C., in conjunction with the 2025 National Conference of Bar Foundations Annual Meeting and Conference.
The National Conference of Bar Foundations Excellence Award was established in 2015 to honor “individuals who have made outstanding contributions to law-related philanthropy. This award provides an opportunity to recognize bar foundation staff members or volunteers for exemplary service and achievements.”
This is the first time anyone from North Carolina has received the award.
Much like the contributions of Mark and Caryn, the development of the Open Door Fund and Fellowship has been years in the making. North Carolina Bar Foundation Director of Development Michael Lowery and Development Services Coordinator Jennifer Swanchara worked closely with Mark and Caryn on the capital campaign – preceded in that regard by former Foundation Director Louise Harris. Lowery and Swanchara also drafted the Excellence Award nomination.
“Working with Mark Holt and Caryn McNeill has been a highlight of my time at the North Carolina Bar Foundation,” Lowery stated. “Their unwavering dedication and boundless energy turned a vision into reality raising over $1 million for the Open Door Fund – reminding us all that with heart and hard work, even the boldest goals can be achieved. Their success is not just in the funds raised, but in the inspiration they’ve sparked in us all. Their tireless efforts didn’t just raise funds – they made a lasting impact. This new initiative simply wouldn’t exist without them.”
Mark Holt and Caryn McNeill accept the National Conference of Bar Foundations Excellence Award. (Photo by Jennifer Swanchara)
“I worked with Caryn and Mark on both the Open Door Fund campaign and on the Development Committee at the very onset of my tenure on the North Carolina Bar Foundation staff,” Swanchara added. “New to the legal community, it didn’t take me long to realize how fortunate I was for the opportunity to learn from these remarkable professionals, whose passion and generosity are rivalled only by their tenacity in finishing what they had started.
“Their joy in ‘opening doors’ for deserving law students who might not have paved inroads to the legal profession is never more evident than when they are with our Open Door Fellows; the smiles on their faces say it all.”
The Excellence Award nomination included the following information:
Introduction
It is with great honor that the North Carolina Bar Foundation nominates Mark Holt and Caryn Coppedge McNeill for the NCBF Excellence Award for their extraordinary service to the North Carolina Bar Foundation and the NC legal community.
In spring 2021, the North Carolina Bar Foundation created a Task Force on Recognition and Grant Initiatives to consider and make recommendations to the Board regarding fundraising and program initiatives to encourage diversity and inclusion in the practice of law. One of the Task Force’s recommendations was to establish the NCBF Open Door Fellowship, supported by the NCBF Open Door Endowment Fund.
In early 2023, NCBA+NCBF Past Presidents Mark Holt (2020-21) and Caryn McNeill (2017-18) were invited to co-chair an ambitious initiative to raise $1 million to endow the NCBF Open Door Fund to ensure the organization’s support of the NCBF Open Door Fellowship and other diversity and inclusion programming in perpetuity. This was the largest fundraising undertaking by the NCBF since a 1999 capital campaign, and the first fund within the NCBF Endowment established in direct support of programs dedicated to diversity and inclusion within the legal profession.
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Open Door Fellowship
The NCBF Open Door Fellowship is a unique, competitive opportunity for first-year North Carolina law students historically underrepresented in the legal profession, including first-generation college students and those from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds. Open Door Fellows participate in a paid summer program providing an opportunity to gain experience in a legal work setting. The Open Door Fellows also participate in weekly summer programming that helps network and connect them to the community of legal professionals in North Carolina, including panel programs, pro bono opportunities, resume and social media advising, and participation in the NCBA+NCBF’s largest annual meeting where various members of our legal profession are recognized for their commitments to the highest ideals of service through the profession.
The Open Door Fellowship not only offers a paid opportunity for students, but they also become part of the NCBA+NCBF community, witnessing and participating in the work we do to support the profession in service to the public. Our Open Door Fellows become part of a special group of Open Door alumni, and we look forward to watching that group grow over many years to come. It is designed to invest in the students, build their professional networks, and advance their careers.
For the past three summers, we have welcomed two Open Door Fellows for a total of six Fellows.
Open Door Fund
Between 2023 and 2024, Caryn and Mark orchestrated a fundraising campaign focused on securing major gift “founding donors” to help cement the fundraising effort. This initial fundraising work involved direct personal outreach that had Caryn and Mark traveling from one end of the state to the other, meeting with law firms, legal organizations and individuals to garner support for the Open Door Fund. By the time our organization formally announced the establishment of the NCBF Open Door Fund at the June 2024 NCBA Annual Meeting, Caryn and Mark had already secured $700,000 in lead gifts and pledges among our Founding Donors.
Once the Open Door Fund was announced, Caryn and Mark created a fundraising strategy that leveraged a $100,000 NCBA+NCBF Presidents’ Challenge, a first-of-its-kind pooled challenge gift from the past and current presidents of the NCBA+NCBF. Caryn and Mark also identified and led a dedicated group of Open Door supporters and fundraisers called the Open Door Ambassadors. This dedicated group of individuals stepped forward in the last few months of the campaign to provide vital support in securing the final gifts and commitments – some of the hardest dollars to raise.
With the help of the Presidents’ Challenge and our Open Door Fund Ambassadors, under the leadership of Caryn and Mark, the NCBF hit our $1 million goal in April 2025. This was an incredible achievement for our organization, and it would not have been possible without the vision, leadership and guidance of Caryn and Mark. They were instrumental in the success of the Open Door Fund campaign and the reason we will be able to offer the Open Door Fellowship to aspiring lawyers for generations to come.
In Their Own Words
“I’m excited about the Open Door Fund and Fellowship for its own sake,” Caryn McNeill has shared, “but I’m also really excited for what it means for the future of our NC Bar Foundation. Other than for the Bar Center, we’ve never raised anything of this magnitude for one cause, and certainly not for programming.
“Frankly, fundraising for programming requires people to listen a little more closely to what you’re up to, and to agree that they share your vision. It can make for longer conversations. But giving to programming makes terrific sense, because programs, unlike bricks and mortar, can be endlessly tweaked and adapted to meet changing needs.
“I love that our success with the Open Door Fund invites us to think about what more is possible. The mission of the Foundation is to unite the talent and generosity of our profession to be a power of greater good for the people of North Carolina, and that’s what we’ve done here. We’ve done this together as a team – a team made up of our Founding Donors, Past Presidents, Ambassadors, exceptional staff, and hundreds of individual donors – and we have done a remarkable thing.”
Mark Holt believes that the Open Door Fund campaign caused donors to reflect on those who inspired them and welcomed them to the legal profession when they were new lawyers. “Many of us who support the Open Door Fund think of lawyers who opened doors for us early in our careers,” Mark shared. “We can honor our mentors best by opening doors for the next generation of lawyers. Thinking about the service that these students will provide to others during their careers is what sustains my hope for the future.”
“This effort is really more about the program than the fund, but I think it inspired some of the giving that we as lawyers want to provide. Current law students, especially those who need it most, know exactly how valuable it is to have doors open for you within this profession.”
Caryn agrees, sharing that “many of our donors gave out of a sense of gratitude for the support they received early on in their careers, and there is an awareness that not everyone has someone in their corner in the way that a lot of us were fortunate to as we were getting started. We are trying to be those people for these young folks – that is what this is really about.”
Conclusion
The NCBA+NCBF is incredibly thankful for the support and leadership that Caryn and Mark demonstrated over the past few years as the co-chairs of the Open Door Fund campaign, raising over $1 million in support of the Open Door Fellowship and other programming efforts. The impact of Caryn and Mark’s work will be felt for generations to come. Participants in the Open Door Fellowship have more opportunities to soar and succeed as they begin their legal careers serving our profession and their communities.
In addition to Michael Lowery and Jennifer Swanchara, the Excellence Award nomination was signed by North Carolina Bar Foundation Senior Director Kim Bart Mullikin and Director of Programs Alex Rogers.
Russell Rawlings is director of external affairs and communications for the North Carolina Bar Association.