Today we’d like to introduce you to Lisa Jones.
Lisa, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I have been in the nonprofit sector for over 20 years now. It has been quite the journey.
My early years in nonprofit were exciting. I was single with no kids and devoted much of my time to being a do-gooder by trade. By 2004, I had been working in the nonprofit arena for almost 10 years in various capacities but mostly in fundraising and development.
At that time I was in a mid-level development position with a nonprofit that was focused on animal conservation and education. While I enjoyed my co-workers and some parts of the environment, I was not passionate about the mission. What I WAS passionate about was working with people who had somehow found themselves in a less than a desirable predicament, and I had a great love for seniors having been raised by older parents.
One morning my husband at the time encouraged me to take the day off to look for a new position. I was weary of giving so much energy to a mission for which I felt very little passion. I decided to take a mental health day one Monday morning and began my search by sending out resumes to organizations that I felt drawn to. By 8:30 that morning I had gotten a call back from the Atlanta Community ToolBank’s executive director. They were looking for a program manager to run their home repair program for low-income seniors. I was to meet with him the following day to discuss the position and to see if it would be a good fit.
Having been raised in a small cinder block home in rural Alabama by elderly parents, I was familiar with the feelings of fear and discomfort that came with living in a house that was deteriorating around us. My parents were of very modest income (my dad was retired and my mom worked retail jobs) but they did the best they could with the resources we had to try to patch the house together. I have endured through many hot Alabama nights with no air, and cold winter mornings with only the stove to keep us warm.
Eventually, my mom decided to work multiple jobs to save money to get us into a better home. She and my dad pooled their resources and we moved into a modest 3 bedroom home in the “big city” of Montgomery when I was a teenager. The difference between living in a house where the ceiling may fall in and one where all of the systems were in great shape was stunning! But I still had warm feelings for our little cinder block house on Franklin Road.
The position at the ToolBank was a definite step backward for me both financially and was not nearly as high profile as the job I had, but I wanted to take the leap. By Thursday of that same week, I had a new job with the ToolBank heading up their home repair program. I was officially devoted to exchanging my business suits and high heels for cargo shorts and steel-toed boots. Little did I know that what I thought would be a few years of finding my way would turn into a soul journey that I am still traveling 14 years later.
The ToolBank was founded in the early 1990’s by a fellow named Jeff Woodward who decided to provide no-cost home repairs for his senior neighbors. By the mid 90’s it had evolved into a nonprofit that loaned tools to other nonprofits and charitable groups so that they could further their missions without having to invest in tools that they would only use a few times a year. Even with the new mission, ToolBank decided to maintain the home repair piece and began to grow it alongside the tool lending arm.
By 2010, both of these programs were growing rapidly under the same umbrella and it became clear that a change would have to occur to make sure that each entity could continue to thrive. In addition, the ToolBank was setting itself up to replicate its unique program model throughout the nation, and needed to do so without replicating the home repair piece. By 2011 it was decided that the home repair arm (which was renamed HouseProud in 2006) should become its own separate nonprofit and that I should take the helm and attempt to grow it. I was officially in the deep end of the pool, stitching together a life jacket while trying to learn to swim,
Fast forward to 2018 and HouseProud has grown from a small nonprofit with around $50,000 in revenue for our first year into an over $500,000 operation. We now complete high-level critical repairs for over 100 seniors annually with a staff of two and a half. It hasn’t been easy work, but it has been soulful work that connects me back to my roots and experiences in rural Alabama.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has not been a smooth road. I sacrificed a lot during this journey. Early on I worked nights and weekends to ensure that we would continue to be strong and viable. Along the way my dad died, I was diagnosed with a chronic autoimmune condition and had two children plus a bonus (step) son.
There were many nights where I doubted if we would be able to continue. I worried incessantly about revenue and goals and balancing my work and home life. We lost grants and had to let go of staff, gained new sponsors and reached great triumphs! I have felt every emotion during this work and have attended more clients’ funerals than I would like to admit. Smooth would be the last term I would use to describe this road — but it was all worth it and continues to be worth it every day. HouseProud in all its forms has been a big part of what has helped me grow into an effective leader and a confident woman.
Please tell us about HouseProud Atlanta.
HouseProud provides critical, no-cost repairs for low-income senior, disabled and veteran homeowners with the mission of keeping them ‘warm, safe and dry” in their homes. We do this by utilizing volunteers for novice projects (painting, gutter cleaning, lawn-work) and licensed contractors for major repairs (roof replacement, plumbing repair, heating and air installation etc).
We are very loving and compassionate to our seniors, and I am most proud of the gentle way that we care for our clients. I am also proud of the fact that we stretch our nonprofit dollar very far by streamlining operations and employing smart dedicated staff.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
If I had to start over this HouseProud journey, I would have sat down with others who actually started a nonprofit from scratch to see how they did it.
Our organization was blessed to have had some seed money to get started and to have some established relationships that we could rely on, but I do think we wasted too much time building the infrastructure when there were surely others out there who had already done it well.
Contact Info:
- Address: 410 Englewood Avenue
- Website: www.houseproudatlanta.org
- Phone: 4044374246
- Email: lisa.jones@houseproudatlanta.org
- Instagram: HouseProud Atlanta
- Facebook: HouseProud Atlanta
- Twitter: HouseProud Atlanta
- Yelp: HouseProud Atlanta
Image Credit:
Lindentree Photography, Green Gate Marketing
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