Kristi Hall-Jiran’s ‘philosophy of abundance’
Head of philanthropy for Altru Health System takes stage for semester’s last 18:83 Speaker Series installment
Kristi Hall-Jiran thought her time in Grand Forks would be a few years at most.
In 1990, she finished her master’s degree in Counseling. She was planning to go into a Ph.D. program and eventually move on from UND.
Thirty-six years later, a proud resident of Grand Forks serving as chief partnership and philanthropy officer for Altru Health System, Hall-Jiran offered some advice: “Listen to that voice inside of you” — the one that, in her case, told her to stay in town after all.
At the Memorial Union on Wednesday, May 6, Hall-Jiran served as the final guest speaker for the 2025-26 academic year’s 18:83 Speaker Series.
Throughout the year, people from UND and the Greater Grand Forks community have had 18 minutes and 83 seconds to speak on topics of growth and leadership — a time limit corresponding with UND’s founding year.
Hall-Jiran used her time to talk about her career journey and the experiences that shaped her both personally and professionally. She encouraged her audience to seek their life’s purpose; find their people; make connections; dream big; and embrace the powers of optimism, laughter and generosity.
From intern to president
The Ph.D. aspirations never came to be for Hall-Jiran, a native of Jamestown, N.D., who first attended Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn.
When she was wrapping up her master’s degree at UND, she had the opportunity to intern for what is known today as the Community Violence Intervention Center, or CVIC.
She described it as a tiny grassroots agency back in the late 80s. The number of clients far outnumbered those on staff.
“I don’t think I could adequately explain to you how much that internship changed my life,” Hall-Jiran remarked.
What she encountered working at CVIC shattered her worldview. She had the perhaps-naïve sense that most families were like hers growing up: healthy, loving and stable.
“That was a really hard time for me,” she said. “It was also a time of immense growth.”
For all of the hardship in helping people through the darkest, most traumatic moments of their lives, she felt a calling to be there.
“I ended my internship on a Friday and started my job on a Monday,” she said.
That internship turned to 28 years of service at CVIC, with much of it at the position of president and CEO. During her tenure, she also sat on the board of directors for Altru for several years.
In 2018, she received an offer she said she couldn’t refuse, becoming Altru’s first-ever chief philanthropy officer.
“It combined everything,” Hall-Jiran said of the opportunity presented to her. “It was my love of health care, my love of executive leadership, mentoring people and my love of philanthropy.”
There is enough for everyone
One of Hall-Jiran’s favorite topics, she said, is generosity.
Central to her role as a philanthropy officer, she shared her belief in “a philosophy of abundance.”
“We are surrounded by people, institutions, structures and communities that believe in a philosophy of scarcity,” she said. “By that, I mean, if I have three fourths of the pie, that leaves one fourth for you. There’s no other pie. We just have to fight over it.
“I believe there is enough for everyone. And if you start looking at the world that way, you’ll find that there is, and that we can actually organize ourselves in a way where that’s possible.”
Living a generous life is a choice that will create returns several times over, she said.
Being an executive for a health care system, Hall-Jiran understands the perception that the job is about asking people for money, but she argued that it’s more about developing relationships and creating opportunities for people to give back out of their abundance.
“Some of the most spiritual moments of my life have been seeing what happens to the person who’s giving, who’s making that decision to say, ‘I want to make the world a better place, and I’m going to do it by taking care of my fellow human being.’”
