 Welcome back to the non profit show. You know, I like to say back because my assumption is you've been here before, but this is a very special week and this is actually day two of the nonprofit power week and really excited to have with us today. Melinda Haggerty, Esquire. Melinda serves as the senior vice president general counsel at the Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption. So every day this week we have an amazing rock star from their team. Melinda's brought to us a conversation that we don't talk about. I'm going to say ever nearly enough, that's for sure, but your own experiences and trauma and work in the nonprofit sector so stay with us Melinda's got some really great stories to share many of them so she's willing to be vulnerable with us and we're just so grateful for that. So as I mentioned this is a dedicated week focused on the Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption special week, of course, our third annual actually with the foundation for these conversations so just so grateful to have, you know, guests from the team joining us to provide education, training information. And really as I like to say to like, real pull back the curtains and share some information some insight some research, all kinds of like amazing nuggets that we don't typically get access to just simply because you know it's not part of our everyday conversation. So thrilled to have this nonprofit power week with the Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption. A quick reminder if we haven't met you yet Julia Patrick is here she's the CEO of the American nonprofit Academy, and I'm Jarrett Ransom, your nonprofit nerd and CEO of the Raven group, truly honored to serve alongside day in and day out, because of these amazing sponsors. Thank you to fundraising Academy at National University, Blumerang, your part time controller, nonprofit thought leader, American nonprofit Academy. Also thank you to staffing boutique nonprofit nerd, as well as nonprofit tech talk. Thank you to the companies that allow us these nonprofit power weeks to really attract the talent the rock stars in our community and in our sector. Together they've helped us produce a plethora of episode coming close to 1000 actually so we used to top 900 and now we're really working towards 1000. So if you missed any of our episodes or you want to go back and listen to yesterday's guest or you know what Melinda is going to share with us today with your board or your team. Here's where you can find us so you can find us on the app you can go ahead and scan that qr download the app. You can still find us on the streaming broadcast and podcast platform so just a reminder, wherever you stream and binge watch your entertainment, you can find us there as well. So Melinda thrilled to have you here truly. For those of you that have joined us Melinda Hagerty Esquire, Senior Vice President General Counsel at Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption. Welcome to the nonprofit show. Thank you so much for having me. Melinda we were talking in the green room with you know doing this now coming up on four years almost 1000 episodes. I don't recall ever having a guest on who was an in house attorney a general counsel that served in the nonprofit. We've certainly had attorneys on, but somebody that is tied to that organization in such a manner as having that expertise just down the hall. Can you talk to us a little bit about that in your journey to this this type of work. Well, I started everything I guess started many many years ago. As a child I was the oldest of five children, I have four younger siblings, and my parents were teenagers, they struggled with mental health. They struggled a little bit with addiction. And all of those things sort of snowballed so that when I was 13 I went into foster care actually for being a chronic runaway. I have a 12 I had a 12 year old sister at the time who is in the juvenile justice system, which really was the first time I learned that the system can have very different responses to a child that's experiencing the same trauma. So, that was just in our paths continued in that manner. I continued and eventually became an attorney. My sister continued on her journey and unfortunately ended up in the adult criminal justice system. So, so those paths were set very early. I ended up at a group home for a couple months and then in foster care at 13. My foster mother was very luckily for me as social worker from an adjacent county. So, that was great. And I had a wonderful experience in foster care. I certainly am aware that not everyone has that same experience but I had a wonderful foster parent. But in the late 90s early 2000s when I entered care, we really didn't talk about permanency for teenagers. So, there was no question of I would stay in this great family and I would age out of care. And as I was approaching my 18th birthday. I think the reality really hit me of just aging out without that family without that place to go back for the holidays, and certainly, we had planned to remain informally connected, but I think it was really important for me to have that commitment. And I know a lot of my colleagues who grew up in foster care have that similar need for not just someone to have a relationship with but really that that dedicated committed person. So, I ended up being adopted around my 18th birthday by my foster mother and, you know, that support has really carried me through undergrad, law school, I'm having my first child. I can definitely say I don't feel like I would be where I am today without without having that permanency so did that I always knew that I wanted to go to law school. And growing up in foster care and in some of the circumstances I was in. I always really felt a connection to that vulnerable child and really understood in a core way how that feels. So I went to law school thinking I would do like guardian of Lightham work or something like that. And ended up just through connections, meeting, going through law school, meeting Mike DeWine who was our current running for Attorney General in Ohio. He's now the current governor in Ohio. And if you know anything about Mike DeWine, he is called the Children's Senator when he was in the United States Senate, because he did a lot of work on the adoption and safe families act, and had an interest in foster care and child welfare issues his entire career. So I met him and that's sort of how I got introduced to this work. I already had an offer from the Attorney General's office to do labor and employment work. And I thought, this is great, you know, it's not quite where I want to be but it's an attorney role. And then he offered me, I got to meet him and I just wanted to thank him for all of his work on behalf of foster youth. And he offered me this job to do policy and legislation and represent his office in that manner. And so I did that for about four years. And I have to say, I never thought that I would be sharing my story on a public stage. And so, that was a big change when I was in foster care you didn't talk about being in foster care it was very stigmatized. So I, you know, had to reframe my story and figure out which parts I was comfortable sharing and then I would hear it from the Attorney General on a press conference. So I got very comfortable with that. My lights are coming back on. And so that's how I ended up meeting Rita. I was, I was hosting a panel of experts, and of course Rita was such an expert our CEO here at the Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption. And I thought, if there's ever one particular issue that I'm working on that speaks most to my heart. It was really understanding that youth need permanency, and you need that to transition into a successful adult life. And so it took about two years actually chatting with Rita on what a role could look like for me and what a general council could do and I think it was fortuitous that we added a general council. We went from having one agreement with a state. We now have 17 and counting agreements with states. So the state contracting process is very, very lengthy. We grant fund of course all of our Wendy's wonderful kids recruiters all 500 plus of them. So there's actually quite a bit of contracting work that goes on and I'm also doing a lot of training of the legal community on helping them understand what impact they have on a youth's ability to be adopted and to get legal permanency. Wow. Well, Linda, what a story. First of all, thank you truly thank you for sharing and being so willing to share your story. And then also, what amazing success and testament truly for you using your superpower for good. You know, I know so many people that have said when I grow up I want to be an attorney, but to actually go through the process that the the commitment that it takes. And then here you are working for, you know, a mission that is so near and dear to your heart. I just really admire that. But I'd like to call out the fact that, you know, something that Julia said earlier, we don't often hear of general counsel in a nonprofit, you know, organization so I love the, the, I don't know the foresight perhaps for the Dave Thomas foundation for adoption to have that goal and that need and then to find this perfect match to bring that in. Yeah, it's it's really powerful. You know, I, I want to keep going along your journey because I, I'm really interested at how your trauma and how you you work in a trauma informed environment and topic. Yeah. And how does that impact your leadership and your decision making. Do you ever have to say this is the decision I'm making and you know the backstory. Do you have to like go forward and say and let me tell you why because I was there I mean how, how do you navigate disclosing your personal story and and everything and making decisions it's a it's a big issue. Absolutely. Well, I think, first of all, one of the things that I am very aware of is my lived experience is just one lens that I have. So I carry many lenses right like I also I'm an attorney, I'm now a mother. So we all have a lot of different lenses so I think it's helpful to put in perspective that my lived experience and foster care is one lens and one way that I can look at things. Another important thing is my experience doesn't speak for all of the lived experience out there. So, I try to keep that in perspective. When I'm looking at a decision in all these different lenses to say like, let me pull in other lived experience and other people's realities. So I think that's just that's really important to me to understand that at the end of the day I have a lot of different lenses to look at things and I never want to make a decision because of my lived experience because I would be missing the lived experience of everyone else in the child welfare system. Well, and as you age and as your children age and as you continue your journey and you have more influence and you see more legal issues, that's I gotta believe is going to change too. I mean, it's a it's a growth. It's an ever evolving situation. Absolutely for all of us. Yeah, for all it for everyone. I gotta ask you this question in it. It's kind of a follow up to this general environment. Do you see that you have other people in your circle, whether it be the Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption, or just the state partners that you work with, having a similar background or bringing to the table shared experience. Or do you feel like you're by yourself. No, no, not at all. We have several staff at the foundation who have lived experience in some way or another somewhere adopted as infants. We have a foster parent who adopted a an older youth. So I think it's very helpful for me to have other colleagues in this office and across the work that I'm doing to just be bouncing things off of to just process how sometimes the impact of the work and how that relates to our personal story and sort of how we navigate that piece of it. I think that's really important. I'm curious how the team leadership, you know, really the culture, how you approach disclosure of certain items and also what it's like to say, Hey, we need to set a boundary or I need to set a boundary. So can you talk to us about that disclosure and setting boundary boundaries. I feel like it's part of the culture there but like, what is the process for this Melinda. That's a good question. Yeah, I think it's really important if you are doing work in an area where you have lived experience that could be in the child welfare system the juvenile justice system. I think it's really important for you to understand how proximate to the issue you can be without it being a trigger to you. So that's been a big part of my journey. One of the things I do as legal counsel as general counsel is to manage risk. And so I really enjoy doing that on behalf of because I care about. I enjoy doing the legal training on permanency. I enjoy some of my policy work, but I know about myself that I'm never going to be doing that direct work with youth and families, because that's a boundary that I've set. And I feel like that would be a bit of a trigger for me. In terms of disclosure, I've been working in this field for over a dozen years, and I'm very comfortable with the pieces of my story that I share. I have been processing through this journey for 20 years I was adopted almost 20 years ago. So it's important to know the things that I am sharing. I have really processed through and can find a place for them. I'm not necessarily sharing some of those things that are happening here and now, before I've had a chance to really process those things. I think one of the things to know about folks with lived experiences, even if you're adopted, it's not like, Hey, I'm adopted and life is perfect, right? Like you still have a biological family, you still have to deal with those relationships. You now have an adoptive family, you're navigating those relationships. So I think it's just really important to understand like how close you can be to the issue to really unpack your trauma and work through some of those things. I love that you shared that because it kind of goes back to how do we look at our own situation, our own journey, and then kind of work it into our work, if you will. And we just said a few minutes ago, I've got to believe this is an evolution as you navigate your own family and that next generation and your work and all that. I mean, it's never going to go away, nor should it. But it has to be a period of self-reflection quite a bit. Would that be fair? Absolutely. It's important to know that I have a really great therapist and this kind of ties into our discussion a little later about self-care. But I think it's really important to have a great therapist, not just professionally, but personally. So yes, very important. Wow, amazing. Well, let's go there and I appreciate you teasing the self-care conversation. As we talk of trauma and trauma-informed care, I even asked you the question about ACEs, which stands for Adverse Traumatic Experiences. I feel like there's a lot more language, vocabulary, vernacular, that's being brought into our nonprofit community because the truth is, you know, so many of our community members have experienced trauma. So when we look at, you know, navigating the day-to-day, potentially reliving some of these experiences that weren't so happy and they were an adverse, you know, childhood experience, what do you use by way of strategies for your own self-care management? And then I want to add on to that, Melinda. Like, what has been built to support the team there? Because this is not light work. This is some heavy work, right? So open-ended question. But I'd love to know what you're personally doing for that self-care management and then also what's really been kind of set us the tone. Yeah, absolutely. For my own personal self-care, I think it's very important for me to continue to see a therapist and continue to talk through some of these things. The superpower about having grown up in foster care and in the child welfare system is I think I come to this knowing that I have some ACEs, that I have some triggers, that I have some things to work through, which in some ways is a blessing because I think we all have things that to work through. We all have ACEs. We all have things that are going to impact our current life. I think for me, I learned how to practice doing that while I was in foster care. So I know where to go if I'm struggling. Like, I have a great therapist who is a social worker and specializes in adoption and foster care issues, which has been very helpful for me because one of my continued areas of exploration is my job, how much of my identity is in my job because of the connection to my personal background, figuring out how to separate from that when I need to separate from that. I will share having children is a really great work-life balance forster because you recognize like there are little people that rely on you to do that. Early on in my job when I was doing more policy and legislation work, I remember one of my roles was I would get lots of calls from foster families or potential adoptive families who kind of were at the end of their road. Like they had a struggle and all of the systems had said that's not our job. So I would get these kind of in the cracks calls. And I just remember at one point I recognized why am I having such a struggle at the end of this day. And it's because I had back to back called three of these families. So I was on the phone for like six hours, like struggling trying to help these people who had been told there's nothing we can do. And some of these kids were in really devastating situations that really pulled at my heartstrings. And so that's the day I realized, okay, even if I get three calls in one day, we schedule one call per day. And then just kind of monitoring and checking in with myself like, oh, that felt much more reasonable than being on a triggering call for six hours. Like that's not going to work for me. So I think it's just really having that level of self-awareness continuing to work with the therapist, enjoying my children. It's been very healing for me to have those normal childhood experiences with my children and see that that care that I would have wanted for myself to be able to give that to my children is such a affirming and incredible experience to go through as a mother. Of course, that's come with its own level of processing. As well. So, yeah, and I, in terms of the foundation, I think that we have a really great culture in terms of taking care of ourselves, being open to chatting with folks. Unfortunately, my sister that I was telling you about passed away this past year, about a year ago. And it was nothing but incredible. I mean, like, like notes from every person in this office. And really understanding like that history and, and what, you know, I had gone through. I just think that they do an amazing job of helping those of us who do have lived experience. Being supportive around if there are things that we need to take care of being willing to listen and like start that dialogue. It's just an incredible supportive environment to be a part of honestly. You know, I gotta ask a follow up question because and I know this might seem like a super odd question. But once you started on this journey of sharing your lived experience. Do you ever wish that maybe you hadn't that it would change the trajectory of your work or where you are? I mean, because once you've done that, this kind of be forever, right? Right. If you do ever consider that. I have never had second thoughts or regrets about sharing my lived experience. I think if I can help in any way, I'm absolutely willing to do that. I will say sometimes when there's more of a transactional relationship like say I'm on a call with a state child welfare director and we're talking about a Wendy's wonderful kids contract and scaling our signature program. There are some times when I introduce myself that I have that thought of like when is it appropriate to share that I have lived experience? When is it relevant to what I'm doing? And just this tension of also wanting my lived experience not to be my only qualification because I worked really hard to go to law school. You know, obviously I'm first generation, a lot of things, but I don't know anyone in my family who who is a lawyer. And so that was really hard. And so I think sometimes I do have that tension of like, do I share? Is it relevant? Will it change the perspective of this person? Is it needed to be shared? Or do I stand on my own as I'm the general counsel, I'm an attorney and I want to be taken seriously, not only for my lived experience, but also for the expertise that I've built in this area. You know, that is such great insight and I feel as you said earlier, you know, we all have something, some story, some, you know, some memory, some experience, right? And I too have felt that as well, Melinda, where it's like, when is it appropriate? I've been in environments and I've seen other people kind of struggle with that timeline. And I also want to go to what you said about taking those three calls, more or less, you know, on top of one another. You know, the decision to say taking one call a day seems so simple. Yet I know it's not, right? Because in our world, there's always another person that needs us. There's always someone else that needs help. But if I just feel like if anyone could take away anything from today's conversation, you know, having the ability to set a boundary, to acknowledge that self care, to be aware to say, okay, what is the thing, the things plural, you know, that is really too much for me? How might I mitigate that? How might I lessen, you know, the stress, the anxiety for me? Who goes to you for acknowledging that? And then also, you know, for speaking your truth that this is what I need to take care of myself to be able to move forward. So all of this has truly just been so fascinating. I'm so grateful to have you here. You know, I hope that more organizations are listening, you know, as we have you here, general people, so much amazing experience, professionalism that you're able to bring to this mission to advocate, to lobby, to do so much great work. I'm just blown away and extremely just thankful to have you here to share this story and your time with us. Thank you so much for having me and I would encourage everyone also to look at more folks with lived experience and making sure that you have a diverse number of perspectives of folks with lived experience because we all have a different experience. Yeah, I love it. I think it's been brilliant to have you on. You know, when when I first spoke with Rita Sornan, who's your CEO and she'll be joining us this week as well. And she spoke so highly of you and said, you know, we would really love to have her come on and speak about this. I was just like blown away because I think it's very personal. It's very, it's a real achievement with without being exploited. And that's I think my biggest concern is that we look at this talent that we have in our sector and say, look, how do we navigate this without re traumatizing them without making them the showpony for whatever it is our topic. And so I'm really, really impressed by what you've had to say and the authenticity with which you shared has been magical. Again, Melinda Haggerty Esquire, Senior Vice President General Counsel. I'm going to add Rockstar to that title. Who kind. At the Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption. You know, you might have heard this from us over the three weeks that we've done this over three years with the Dave Thomas Foundation, but November is a sacred month for the organization because it's National Adoption Month. We're going to talk about National Adoption Day coming up. There's so many wonderful things to celebrate and the Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption has really been at the forefront of this. And what a tremendous legacy that Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy's has provided for really not just our nation in Canada, but for the world. So really in fascinating story, check out the DaveThomasFoundation.org website. You can learn more about what their work is, how they navigate different topics, what they've done historically and what they're working on and changing the lives of so many families and children. It's truly remarkable. Again, this is a week where we dig deep with the Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption. We've talked today about trauma and working in the nonprofits. We're going to talk about founder syndrome, a really interesting topic, and we're going to talk to Rita Sorenen, the CEO about that. We're going to be talking about testing your marketing plan. We really dug into research and changing attitudes and how we can use research to navigate what's going on, not only in our own nonprofit, but in our sector. And then we're going to end our week with an ask and answer, specifically with Rita Sorenen, the CEO and magical leader of the Dave Thomas Foundation. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy, been joined today by the nonprofit nerd herself. My nonprofit nerd, she can be your nonprofit nerd. Jared R. Ransom, CEO of the Raven Group. Again, we have amazing support from our partners and they include Fundraising Academy at National University, Blumerang, Your Part-Time Controller, American Nonprofit Academy, Nonprofit Thought Leader, Staffing Boutique, Nonprofit Nerd and Nonprofit Tech Talk. These are the folks that join us day in and day out so that we can have these amazing conversations like we've had with Melinda. Blunda, you have just proved to me once again that magical things can happen. Thank you so much. It's been great. I was going to say, Julia, I'm always mesmerized by these weeks bringing in Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption. Every single leader is truly a rock star. So thank you for all of you that have joined us today. As we wrap up today, we invite you to come back tomorrow because we're not done with this nonprofit Power Week. And as we sign off every day, we want to remind you to stay well so you can do well. Thanks everyone.