PROFILE
By Glenda Graves | Portrait photo by Keith Branch
Kelly Kemp-McLintock
Writing the Next Chapter
For Kelly Kemp-McLintock, every meaningful project begins with a story. Long before she became a leader in nonprofit development across Northwest Arkansas, she was a young girl in Fort Smith mesmerized by the evening news. With only a handful of television stations available at the time, Kelly would sit glued to the screen watching familiar local broadcasters deliver the stories of her community.
“I’m a storyteller,” she said. “I love interviewing people. I’m very curious by nature and inquisitive.”
Her curiosity eventually carried her to Arkansas Tech University, where she studied broadcasting in one of the state’s few hands-on television programs at the time. Students produced and aired real live broadcasts throughout the River Valley, giving Kelly experience in editing, anchoring and reporting long before graduation.
During an election year, she landed interviews with both then Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton and then presidential candidate George H. W. Bush for her resume reel, something that immediately caught the attention of the news director at 5NEWS.She started working at the station during spring break of her senior year, driving back and forth before eventually beginning a 15-year career in television journalism. Five of those years were spent in Fort Smith before she transferred to Northwest Arkansas, where she became a familiar face to viewers across the region.
Over the years, Kelly worked nearly every shift — from morning news to the noon broadcast and later the evening news. But it was the noon show that connected her most deeply to the community she still loves today. “I had local nonprofit leaders, chefs and civic leaders on all the time,” she said. “I treasure those years so much because they really connected me to the community.”
That connection ultimately shaped the next chapter of her career.
As her family grew, including raising a set of twins, Kelly began searching for more flexibility than a job that required her to get up at 3 a.m. Around that time, longtime community visionary Dick Trammel encouraged her to consider nonprofit work. “He told me, ‘You’ve already been doing nonprofit work all these years. You've sat on the Arkansas Chapter – Alzheimer's Association and Ozark Affiliate – Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation boards. Your phone is going to ring in five minutes,’” Kelly recalled with a laugh. “And it did.”
In April 2004, she joined the Jones Trust/Jones Center as chief advancement officer, stepping into what would become one of the defining roles of her career. “When I took on that role, I took it very seriously,” she said. “It became a ministry for me.”
Kelly spent nearly two decades helping secure the future of Jones Center, stewarding the vision originally created by founder and philanthropist Bernice Young Jones. During Kelly’s tenure, the organization launched a major endowment campaign that increased investments by more than $30 million, helping ensure long-term sustainability for generations to come.
“Bernice wanted it to always be warm, welcoming and state-of-the-art,” Kelly said of Jones. “We were caretakers of what she left for the community.”
Under Kelly’s leadership, the organization also expanded annual giving efforts, developed major fundraising events and built lasting donor relationships that still support the center today.
Even during the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kelly found innovative ways to keep fundraising momentum alive. Drawing on her television background, she partnered with a local production team to create virtual fundraising broadcasts and hybrid events that exceeded financial goals during one of the most difficult periods nonprofits had ever faced.
“I brought my broadcasting background into nonprofit work,” she said. “You have to appreciate the long journey.”
The idea of preserving something meaningful long after current leaders are gone continues to drive Kelly today.
After retiring from Jones Center in 2022, she initially planned to step away from nonprofit work altogether. Instead, a series of conversations led her to a part-time role with the Peel Compton Foundation, where she helped reimagine fundraising efforts and began building an endowment campaign tied to the organization’s historic preservation mission.
The work resonated deeply with her longtime love of preserving history. “I love legacy projects,” Kelly said. “I’m very big on preserving history and promoting the founders of important projects.”
Today, Kelly has brought that same philosophy to her newest role as executive director of the Bentonville Library Foundation, where she began in January 2026.
The position immediately felt meaningful to her, not just because of the library itself, but because of what libraries represent to growing communities. “It’s pivotal,” Kelly said. “When a city has a vibrant library, it sparks creativity and innovation, and the community thrives. When people see it as a safe place to go and learn, everybody benefits.”
Before accepting the role, Kelly quietly visited the library as a patron to experience it firsthand. What she found was far more than shelves of books. “It’s a community hub,” she said. “It’s welcoming. It provides accessibility to all ages.”
The Bentonville Public Library now serves thousands of residents each year through programs, classes, the makerspace, civic meetings and educational opportunities. In 2025 alone, more than 9,000 new library cards were issued while more than 420,000 visitors walked through its doors.
Kelly lights up describing what she sees there daily — teens gathered in the makerspace, mothers pushing strollers, book clubs meeting together and residents taking free language classes. “It’s a melting pot,” she said.
She is especially passionate about helping the foundation evolve from a campaign-focused organization into one with sustainable annual support and, eventually, a transformational endowment that protects the library for generations to come.
“When I leave someday, I want to look back and say, ‘Look what we built,’” Kelly said.
That long-view thinking is what continues to draw her toward projects rooted in preservation and belonging. For Kelly, libraries are not simply buildings filled with books. They are living spaces where people learn, connect and feel seen. And the library feels like a perfect connection to the beginning of Kelly’s career as a storyteller. After a lifetime spent telling the stories of others, she now finds herself helping write one of Bentonville’s next great community stories.