Heart at work

Lee Wochner:

Do you feel constantly on edge?

Do you struggle to relax, or do you get startled easily, or do you have explosive outbursts?

And you can’t figure out why you’re feeling or doing any of these things?

If so, you are NOT alone.

These responses may result from experiences in childhood — experiences that continue to direct day-to-day life, even without people knowing about it.

Twenty-five years ago, Shelly Willis founded the nonprofit Family Education and Support Services, or FESS, in Tumwater, Washington, to help people understand the impacts of their hidden background — and to help teach new parents how to serve as positive role models for their own kids.

Now with three offices and serving over 24,000 families annually, FESS provides a range of programs and classes dealing with the issues of domestic violence, suicide, anger management and more by encouraging healthy parenting and teaching resilience.

What’s the best way to cope in a time of so much anxiety and dread? How best to help the people who need you while ensuring the health of your organization as well? Hear from a nonprofit leader who teaches resilience and wellbeing for this generation and the next…

– in this episode of “That’s What C! Said” 

Jaclyn Uloth:
Welcome to That’s What C! Said, the Counterintuity podcast, featuring interviews with leaders and doers who have helped to make our world a better place through their actions — and especially through marketing, communications, and embracing change. Here’s Lee Wochner.

Lee Wochner:
Shelly, thank you for joining us today.

Shelly Willis:
Thank you so much, Lee. Happy to be here.

Lee Wochner:
It’s really nice to spend a little time with you. I enjoyed our earlier meeting and I’ve been checking you out online and I’m just impressed with you and what you guys do. So it’s nice to have you here. Can you please help people understand what does family education and support services do?

Shelly Willis:
Well, I thank you again for allowing us the opportunity to talk about this. I feel like we’re kindred spirits and it’s always affirming to know that someone else cares about your work that you’re so passionate about. Family Education Support Services or FESS, we call it FESS UP, is a nonprofit agency that has been around for about 25 years. And our goal, our mission is to ensure the health and well-being of kids. And we do that by supporting the people who influence them the greatest—parents, grandparents, community members, all adults.

Lee Wochner:
On your personal LinkedIn page, I just found this yesterday and I love this so much. On your personal LinkedIn profile under about, you have this as the totality of your about, which I thought was just brilliant. And it says, “It is far less expensive to raise strong, healthy children than to fix broken adults.” Why is that your about listing on LinkedIn?

Shelly Willis:
I just think if we could go upstream and prevent abuse and trauma from ever occurring, then we’re going to have a lot more healthy folks in our world influencing a lot more healthy communities in our world. And it is so costly if we don’t intervene as quick as we can and prevent further trauma from occurring because then we just have this spiral that goes deeper and deeper into the system and the cost and the impact on others.

Lee Wochner:
How does FESS help with that?

Shelly Willis:
Well, we do our best to prevent any kind of trauma to happening to kids. So we’ll provide parenting classes and support groups and access to emergent basic needs like housing, food, school supplies, just to shore families up. And then when trauma does occur, if there is poverty, issues addressed by poverty, or if there is domestic violence, divorce, parental substance abuse, we do our best to shore those families up to prevent any other further trauma for kids.

Lee Wochner:
How long ago did you start FESS?

Shelly Willis:
Probably when I was born, started fast. I think I might be rescuing myself as a kid. I started in college working at a daycare because I needed a job. Everybody in college is broke and you need a job. They were hiring at a local daycare, and I thought that was a great perfect first start for me. But I had never worked with kids before and I was failing miserably, so they sent in someone to help me. This person walked in the room, and I had 14 toddlers. She said to the kids, “Everybody get on your mats before the spiders get you.” And I was moving to my mat—I wasn’t sure where the spiders were coming from—and the kids were jumping on their mats. It really worked well and quickly. It dawned on me that these kids could be afraid of spiders for the rest of their lives because of this one thing this teacher said and how much influence she had over them, and they didn’t even know. I really started watching how adults engage with kids and how it changed who they were. I was just fascinated by that, so I switched my major to learn more about it and started working in the field of early childhood and teaching, following brain development and how adults could influence healthy kids.

About 25 years ago, I started working for a mental health organization that allowed me to do that. We had a therapeutic childcare center. When funding cuts threatened some of the services we thought were most impactful, like parenting, this mental health facility helped us transition and incubate us into who we are today—a nonprofit focused on providing family support and resources.

Lee Wochner:
I have a bit of a temper, and I’ve really worked on that. It’s not like it was, let’s say, 30 years ago. My father had a bit of a temper; I grew up with that. He was from that World War II generation. I was the youngest child, and, you know, he would get the belt and chase you around with it. And… you know, I wonder sometimes how much… and I don’t blame him for that. I don’t. He was a wonderful father, but he would get mad about something and, you know, go get the belt. The question was, are you going to run away or are you going to wait to get hit? I mean, which is worse—running around the house, and then he catches you, which was worse? But I mean, it’s just hard not to run away. And I’m certainly not a hero in this story. I think one time I spanked one of my kids, and I still think about it. It was just terrible. I never did it again.

So when you say that you help prevent that, do you work with parents to understand the impacts of such actions? Do you try to create a different sort of environment? How do you do that?

Shelly Willis:
Well, first, I just want to recognize how much you love your dad and how much he must have loved you. Every family has its own culture, and every generation has its own culture. The kids we’re raising today are going to be working jobs that haven’t even been invented yet. There are such different influences over each generation, so I’m sure your parents did the best they could with what they knew then. Now we know better, so we do better.

I always liken spanking to outhouses. It’s a tool—you can use it in an emergency, but is it the most effective? Is it going to help in the long run? Will it have consequences that you may have to pay for later on? And we talk about what those could be. One of those could be the lack of trust with your kids, because trust and fear cannot live in the same place. Trust and respect and fear can live in the same place, but trust and fear cannot.

Shelly Willis:
So you might be bargaining trust with your kids.

Lee Wochner:
Well, I appreciate you providing the opportunity to clarify about my dad because yeah, he was a great guy. And you know what? All the other kids were jealous. They wanted my dad as their dad because my dad was a great dad. But yeah, he had a bit of a temper and he was that generation. And I love your metaphor that we don’t use outhouses so much anymore because I should also tell you with our cabin up in the woods that we had at the time, I did use outhouses. So yes, I do know what that experience is like as well.

Shelly Willis:
Yeah.

Lee Wochner:
So since starting F.E.S.S. some years ago, what’s happened since then? And I think I’m really asking about how has the organization grown?

Shelly Willis: 
You know, we’ve grown in our sophistication about research and what really does change the architecture of a kid’s brain and help them become a resilient adult later on. We’ve grown in our trauma-informed service delivery and then have a better understanding of trauma, what it means today. You know, 20, 30 years ago when my parents were parents, your parents were parents, it was a very different world. You know, my dad had martini lunches and we went trick-or-treating, but he went trick-or-drinking and filled his drink up at every house, you know, as we walked through. It was a very different culture then. And our kids today are navigating phone access to internet that has unprecedented impact on their health and wellbeing and their mental wellbeing. And we’re seeing that play out right now with youth and heightened anxiety and stress and looking for ways to reduce that.

We’re just continuing to do the best we can with the information we have now on what makes a difference.

Lee Wochner:
If, so I’m going to, I hear you about the internet and I think the internet is a moral net even, right? There’s positives and negatives. So growing up as a lonely boy out in the woods, as I was, it was difficult to meet your tribe. And the internet allows me to have friends all over the U.S. and Europe who share my interest in the arts in particular and in causes I belong to. So a lot of friends follow the obscure band and bands that I like and et cetera, we meet up. So there are positive sides and then of course, I can’t imagine what it would be like these days to be unpopular and in high school in this smartphone era. That must be really bad. So there are positive sides and then of course, I can’t imagine what it would be like these days to be unpopular and in high school in this smartphone era. That must be really bad.

Shelly Willis:
We hear a lot of concern around bullying. You have a sort of loss of identity when you’re online sometimes, and it makes people very brave to take action they wouldn’t typically take. We also have youth accessing information they may not be emotionally ready to process or see. And it does change how they think about things in relationships, in how they interact with people. And we’re seeing a growing industry of a pandemic of loneliness. People who are just very alone, even those surrounded by millions, feeling very isolated.

Lee Wochner:
My fiancée and I happen to be watching, and don’t judge me, because I love her, but we happen to be watching the Golden Bachelorette. Okay, all right. So a couple of weeks ago, it’s down to seven guys competing for the Golden Bachelorette. And I keep saying, why don’t they just go on a dating app? I mean, she’s not so special or interesting actually. And so these seven guys are left and one of them goes out on a date with her. And I said to my fiancée, I said, well, she’s gonna cut him.

Shelly Willis:
Yes.

Lee Wochner:
So he comes back to the mansion and these six guys have been together for like six weeks at the mansion and they’re doing each other’s laundry. They’re cooking together. They’re in the pool. They’re doing all these things, right? And so he comes back, the one who had the date and she has informed him that they’re done. And so he comes back and he says, well, guys, you know, I’m going to be leaving. They’re picking me up. And the other guys cry.

Shelly Willis:
Thank you.

Lee Wochner:
And so I said to Kadija, I said, when we’re done watching this episode, I want to talk to you about it. Because I think I’m seeing this differently than you are. And so afterward we talk and I said, what’s the show about? She goes, well, they’re competing for this woman. And I said, I think that’s secondary. I think we have a national epidemic of loneliness and these men formed relationships and now they see that they’re temporary and going to be over. And they had no one else to confide in and bond with. And it’s awful.

Shelly Willis:
Yeah, yeah, I absolutely agree. In fact, one of the most underserved populations we’re serving right now is men. We started a fatherhood class about 10 years ago in an effort to get men an opportunity to be less alone and connected. And I have to tell you two quick stories. One of my staff male instructors said to me, we need to provide this class for men. And I said, why can’t men just go to the main class everybody goes to? And he said, you need to talk to this dad.And this dad told me about his experience picking up his daughter from daycare and how the teacher had come to him one day and said, you know, you need to take your kid to the doctor. She may have an ear infection, but you have to make sure you tell your wife to make an appointment. And he said, why do I have to tell my wife? I’m a parent. I can take her to the doctor. And he talked to me a lot about the many ways that men are discounted in their role as parents. And they don’t have the network to talk with other men about that.So we just started hosting a parenting class. And I went to Safeway where I do a lot of my parenting research. And I saw this gentleman with his two-year-old who is kicking and screaming and having a two-year-old tantrum as many do—sometimes 42-year-olds—but this was a two-year-old. And I watched the dad; I kind of stalked him through the store to see what would happen. He went to the first aisle section, which was bananas and fruit, and the kid kicked out and bananas went flying.I watched the dad to see what he was gonna do and he just goes, it’s okay Mikey, we’re gonna be okay. He picked up the bananas and he kept going. Now Mikey continued to scream as we went to the next aisle again where Cheerios boxes went flying and I thought for sure that dad was gonna leave but he didn’t. He took a deep breath and he said, it’s okay Mikey, we’re gonna get through it.But he got a little smarter; now Mikey was in the middle of the aisle where he could not reach anything but continued to scream. We get through the entire store and I was behind him in line because I followed him. I said to him, now congratulations, you made it through the store; you’re okay; Mikey’s okay; well done; good parenting. He looked at me and he said, my name’s Mikey; this is Timmy. Through the whole story he’s talking to himself! Wow! I thought what a great parenting strategy he had! In his head he had tapes telling him you can do it; you can do it; and he was reaffirming himself.And we don’t all have that; we aren’t born with that; someone has to build that resilience within us to say we can do it! Somebody gave that to him; how do we do that for other parents?

Lee Wochner:
Mm hmm. So what Timmy was doing—my strict German Lutheran mother used to call attention getters—these are attention getters! Sometimes you gave a little attention because they needed it; other times you would not give them attention and they would stop; she was pretty clever that way.So we live in a period of great change with upsides and downsides to that change. You know, kids with mental challenges—stress challenges—that lead them to go get a gun; it’s awful! I remember the Columbine shooting; that was news! Now it’s these things—I mean I don’t even know what to say; they don’t even seem like news so much anymore!So I guess my question is: in challenging times—times of great change are always challenging—in challenging times does FESS do anything like teach resilience? How do you build resilience and adaptation in people so that they can deal with change and stress?

Shelly Willis:
Right, really good question. I’m not sure we know the answer, but I think we know the path. I think we’re on the right path. We know resilience comes from two specific childhood instances where you’ve seen someone experience trauma and they got back up and they moved on. So their rubber band didn’t break; it stretched. They learned that it can stretch. And someone, one person in your life believes in you unconditionally.Unconditional positive regard. It doesn’t mean they always like you, but they are always there for you. Right? Those two things can build resilience. If we can provide opportunities for families to learn about that and strategies to get there, then we know we can help them embed resilience. There’s some really great research out there by Dr. John Medina on the resilience gene and how to build compassion. We also know that focusing on the positive tends to surround you with the positive and when you marinate in the negativity, you tend to be absorbed in that negativity. We encourage parents to engage in pro-social activities themselves and with their kids. Surround themselves with positivity through activities that they can do with their kids. Be physically and mentally healthy as strong as they can be, and we try to help them get there.We don’t know the answer, but we know some of the ingredients.

Lee Wochner:
Wow, I completely endorse what you’re talking about. I’ve been teaching writing—heaven help me—for 34 years as a sideline. I taught graduate-level writing at the University of Southern California for 10 years; I’ve taught private workshops. And one of the first things I tell people who are studying with me is, you know that little voice that tells you this isn’t any good and that you’re not any good and you’re wasting your time?

Shelly Willis:
Wow.

Lee Wochner:
You have to ignore it because it’s not true, right? And the people who actually advance their writing, they know that; you know, they still hear that, but they don’t listen to it. There’s a difference between hearing it and listening to it. And if you just give yourself the ability to do the best you can, you can improve. But if you listen to that voice and judge yourself, you can’t accomplish anything.

Shelly Willis:
That’s right. You talk yourself out of it; sabotage yourself. An attitude of gratitude—we encourage every family to try to find one great thing you did that day and end the day on that comment, that story.

Lee Wochner:
So let me ask you a little bit more about how FESS operates. What’s your average day or week like as executive director? How does Shelley devote her time to this mission?

Shelly Willis:
That’s a great question. Like you, I do other things on the side to inspire me because it can be overwhelming. And there are times when I get sad and try to find resilience. I do that by surrounding myself with pro-social activity. So I teach at the college and I am surrounded by people who are excited about the future. I work out and I try to eat healthy.And I’m married to an amazing guy for the last 42 years, and I have wonderful kids who think it’s hilarious that I teach parenting classes, by the way. They think it’s so funny! But I learned a lot of life lessons with them. And then I have a really great team of people here who just care passionately about retaining our staff. So we take care of them; we have…The chiropractor that comes in; we offer mental health days; we provide training and support and talk about compassion fatigue. So we are intentional about wrapping our folks around this with the same love that we give to the people that we serve.

Lee Wochner:
How do you track how many people FESS has assisted? Do you have a number or what’s the— as they say—KPI? What’s the key performance indicator here?

Shelly Willis:
We are our services are built on something called the Strengthening Families framework, where we have five areas we focus our service delivery on. One is building parental resilience, and we capture that mostly between pre and post evaluations. One is about reducing isolation as a risk factor, and we do that by promoting social support networks. So we have support groups here, and we track how many people participate: fatherhood support, grandparent support, parenting through addiction—all kinds of support groups. We have a goal to increase parental understanding and knowledge, so we provide a series of trainings, many of them evidence-based and some just requested by the community. We ask folks what was helpful and what they would like to hear next time. So we follow the Strengthening Families framework, track the pre-post evaluations, and then we have an anonymous survey that we send out to the community asking, what’s a barrier for you and what can we do differently in the future? Every service we offer here was born out of a need in the community, and we hold listening sessions throughout our Tri-County area to hear more about what are the challenges and barriers getting in people’s ways and what is working.

Lee Wochner:
So speaking of that, when you started FESS, what worked well right away? What immediately was the thing that you thought, this is functioning, we can build on this, we can do this?

Shelly Willis:
That’s a great question. It really was people coming to us saying, “I need a parenting class right now,” and “I need to talk about spanking right now.” I can’t wait till your grant comes in next spring and I can’t wait till the third week of the class because we need to know: can I spank or not spank? How am I going to handle parent visitation as we go through this divorce? So being accessible at the time people need it is what was needed, and that’s what we do. We’re accessible.

Lee Wochner:
Are there any mistakes you’ve learned from?

Shelly Willis:
Yes, we make mistakes every day and we make sure they’re learning opportunities. One is culture. We work very closely with the tribes, and the tribes have woven into their culture the use of tobacco in some ways. We learned early on that our tobacco prevention strategies probably weren’t gonna work in that arena, and we had to find other ways to support our tribal communities in raising healthy kids. We also learned a lot about border schools and the trauma that many generations of families had undergone. We had to learn different strategies on how to help families. We learned how to teach dads how to parent and that we needed to have teachers who reflected the populations they were serving. So we have a dad teach our fatherhood class and we have a relative caregiver lead our parenting classes for grandparents raising grandkids. We also have someone in recovery teaching training on how to parent in sobriety. So we learned that having leaders who represented the population they’re serving made a big impact. We continue to learn.

Lee Wochner:
Well, people who never make mistakes never learn anything; they never stretch and grow. I’ve made—my goodness—I’ve made so many mistakes I can’t even begin to tell you! But just as you said, I try to take them as learning opportunities. So let me ask you one more question and then we’re gonna take a little break and we’re gonna dig into marketing and fundraising and such. What would you say to someone who just thinks all the news is bad? Someone who is just so focused on whatever sort of news and they’re just tuned into everything on their smartphone, in their newspaper, wherever—on TV—and they think all the news is bad and they’re despairing. How would you address that person?

Shelly Willis:
Well, it sounds like someone who may have lost hope and isn’t sure who or what to believe in. I would try to ask them curious questions that lead me to understand what they do believe in and where they are getting their information, and where are the safe points in their world that are feeding them. So I try to find something positive that they do believe in, and we’d start there and move forward. There is always hope. If you look hard enough, there’s always hope.

Lee Wochner:
I am close to someone who had a little physical setback that she thought would be addressed, and it’s been six months and it hasn’t been addressed. I started to hear a change in how she was talking about that. I said, I think you’re starting to despair about this. So let’s have a conversation and let’s talk about other ways you might seek treatment that would help you because it’s time to try something different. I think it’s just not going away.

Shelly Willis:
Thank you.

Lee Wochner:
And I think that helped her, and it helped me to feel good about having the conversation to ask, you know, because I’m with you. I think there’s always opportunity. There’s always hope. There’s always something that can be done. And there’s always something that’s already working. But despair—once you despair—you really can’t accomplish anything.

Shelly Willis:
I agree. Once you’ve lost your sense of agency and you are a victim to everything around you, then it’s hard to find the hope. But that’s what we do. We’re dealers of hope. We talk to people about where to start.

Lee Wochner:
Speaking of hope, we’re gonna take a short break here, but when we come back, Shelly and I are gonna discuss how she and Family Education Support Services have leveraged their fundraising and marketing strategies for greater success. Stick around.

Jaclyn Uloth:
Surprise! Next year is almost here — already!

Making the most of your opportunities for 2025 means starting right now. Take the time to prepare — before time slips away.

Think about reviewing your overall marketing and branding, your donor engagement, your content and social media – everything that goes into building awareness about your nonprofit and delivering on your mission.

Need help preparing for success? Contact us through our website at counterintuity.com, or send us an email at info@counterintuity.com. We’re always ready to help.

Lee Wochner:
And we’re back with Shelly Willis, Executive Director of FESS, the nonprofit Family Education and Support Services, which helps inspire healthy child development through providing family support services. So let’s talk about fundraising—I love to talk about fundraising—and how people are putting together the funding sources they need to make all this work for people. What’s your fundraising strategy for FESS?

Shelly Willis:
Well thank you again Lee for having me here! Other than begging, we try a lot of different strategies. We hold an annual fundraiser; we write a lot of grants; some of our services are fee-for-service but a cost to attend a class would never prevent you from attending. We have donors in the community—corporations who help keep us going—and we’re constantly trying to market the impact of what we do so people know they’re investing in our community—not so much donating to a nonprofit but investing in our community’s future.

Lee Wochner:
So that sounds like a multifaceted campaign, of course! So you’ve got an individual donor campaign… Are you working through social media to get some of that? Are you sending out print and mail? How is that manifested?

Shelly Willis:
Yeah, the simple answer to that is yes; we’re doing everything we possibly can. We’re not a huge team of individuals—there are 35 of us total in our Thurston County office and we have Lewis and Mason County offices as well—and we do send out a campaign every year. Actually, Lee, the way we met was you letting me know that we could be doing better on our social media communications—and you’re not wrong! We absolutely could be doing better.

Shelly Willis:
And that’s an area we’re going to have to improve. But we do have a website, a Facebook page, and an Instagram account, and we try to get the word out about upcoming events and stories of hope and the impact we have on the community. If people are interested in donating to us, they can visit our website and donate very easily for a variety of program-specific actions or overall general agency support.

Lee Wochner:
So I took a look at what you guys were doing, and I’m just so, as they say, down with your mission. I’m on board with that. What I saw was you weren’t getting much engagement on social media. It’s not that you’re not doing anything—there are folks who are doing very little and posting randomly once every few months. It’s not that. It’s that you guys are putting out good content, but I didn’t see a lot of engagement. So just in the spirit of helpfulness, I thought I’d have my team look at it. We sent it back to you.

Shelly Willis:
Yeah, super grateful for that and very insightful. Thank you.

Lee Wochner:
You bet. So what about foundation support? You guys do a lot of grant writing?

Shelly Willis:
We do; that would be me. We put in at least two grants every month. We haven’t delved into the federal grants as much; you know, in our political climate right now, we’re not sure how much we can lean on that anyway. We focus on local community support. But there have been some foundations very generous to us locally here. Of course, there’s the Gates Foundation, Boeing Foundation, and some smaller family foundations who have helped us keep going.

Shelly Willis:
The Community Foundation is available almost in every community, and they’ve also been super supportive.

Lee Wochner:
So I served as the president of a community foundation. I was on that board for 10 years and I was chair for a year. Last week I got elected to a different community foundation board here locally in Los Angeles. So I have some background in that. The thing about a community foundation is you develop a relationship. Not only do they fund you, but they also help you spread the word because they’re so connected in the community. That’s really great that you’re getting support that way.

Shelly Willis:
It’s also really great that you’re serving on that foundation. They really couldn’t thrive unless they had someone with knowledge like yours bringing them information on what’s a good investment for the community as a whole. I’m glad you’re doing that. Thank you.

Lee Wochner:
Well, thank you. I think most people find some way to give back to the things that they think will make an impact and help people. So let’s turn the focus a little bit to your marketing. How do you spread the word about FESS? Let’s start with families—families who might need your services. How do you let them know what you’re doing?

Shelly Willis:
Well, I’ll tell you our strongest marketing tool is word of mouth. It’s a very strong addiction community, a very strong recovery community. We are in the jails; we are in inpatient treatment programs providing parenting every week; outpatient treatment provider programs; we are at tribal community centers already doing services across the community. People usually trip into us at the Boys and Girls Club or at a school or somewhere in the community. Families going through tough times—sometimes the courts or child protective services will steer them towards us. Our goal is to meet people where they’re at in the community before trauma occurs and help shore them up to avoid that from happening at all.

Lee Wochner:
So then there’s a lot of networking in that, is what I’m hearing? And that would be you, Shelley.

Shelly Willis:
Well, we have a development team and we have some really great parenting instructors who are out there shaking hands with people and talking about fatherhood or raising your grandkid or parenting. We’re in every community center, Boys and Girls Club, after-school program—meeting people and shaking hands and asking how we can help? We also have a monthly newsletter; we have Facebook postings as you know; and we’re working on other strategies—a podcast called Parental Compass where parents can log in and hear topics related to parenting—little inoculations, 10-minute inoculations that help get through the next hour on whatever the topic is. We’re continuing to learn more about this; for me, tech is new.

Lee Wochner:
Hmm. So I think you had said to me previously that you have five marketing/fundraising people? Did I get that right?

Shelly Willis:
Well, yeah; everybody wears multiple hats, but we have a development director and we have a media person who helps with the newsletter and gets the social media stuff out. We have a tech person who makes sure our Zoom works so we can teach classes, and we have some people who are out there going to Rotary Clubs and Kiwanis Clubs asking for donations and partnerships.

Lee Wochner:
So let’s say someone listening is leading a much smaller nonprofit because I’m always trying to figure out how to help them—those are like saplings waiting to become great oaks. If someone doesn’t have those resources or staffing levels—if it’s a person who is starting or running a nonprofit that’s really doing important work in the community. How would you advise her or him to make the most impact with their marketing to start? What’s the most important thing do you think?

Shelly Willis:
I think there are two steps I would take. Administratively, I would make sure that as a director you belong to a Rotary Club, Kiwanis Club, or some service club because you can’t get the word out to everybody—but that’s a one-stop shop where you could get the word out to 50 or 100 people in one luncheon. Then on the ground, I would say make sure your staff goes where the people are—the population you’re trying to serve. So if it is families—that’s why we go to the Boys and Girls Club. If I was serving kids, I’d be in schools; if I was at the library I’d find out where your population hangs out and make sure you’re there visually.

Lee Wochner:
So I wrote a note to myself of what my answer would be before you answered—and your answer is my answer! What I wrote down was just be present. Being present gets you pretty far! Here where I am—I know the Rotary Club and Kiwanis—and those folks are deeply invested in the community! I got connected with all of them back in 2004 through the Chamber of Commerce.

Shelly Willis:
Yes.

Lee Wochner:
And I’ve made lifelong friends through being involved with the Chamber of Commerce and meeting everybody in the community—it can really be great! I’ve run several nonprofits, and the Chamber of Commerce is always helpful when you just go hang out because you meet everybody else.

Shelly Willis:
You do! I’m not wealthy; my circle of friends are not wealthy people—but I’ve been able to find some strategies to help me connect—to be in the room with those people—and they help us spread the word. For example, in our Grandparent Raising Grandkids program—we call it Kinship—there were challenges our caregivers were facing at state and community levels—they were not getting support equal to foster parents—and often they had to leave their senior housing to care for kids. There were big hurdles! We invited a senator to come to our support group just to learn more about this population… It turned out to be life-changing because she went back to the Senate and asked for funds to help this population! While our agenda was introducing caregivers to legislative processes, she learned about kinship care and affected change that now brings millions into our state to help these vulnerable families.

Lee Wochner:
We have a client who works on treatment to help people stay out of drug addiction and homelessness after they’ve been released from incarceration—and we had her on our podcast many years ago when we first started working with them. I found out they were getting no funding from any level of government—and I said—but you’re keeping people out of prison! You’re saving money! Then I went over for my first visit—they’re right near government buildings—and they had no idea! So what we’ll do is set up meetings there and introduce them to people in government! And she said on this podcast several episodes ago—that was their turnaround! Because nobody wants people who had troubles fixed—to end up back in prison! If you’ve cleaned up your act—you’re off heroin—leading a healthy productive life—and need help—that’s significant savings! Just as you said when you mentioned it’s far less expensive to raise strong healthy children than fix broken adults—it’s far less expensive helping people stay out of prison than keeping them there! If that’s your mindset—it’s better for everyone’s economy!

Shelly Willis:
Absolutely; absolutely agree!

Lee Wochner:
So in your marketing—what’s the role of social media? And I ask about social because it’s connected everywhere—and everybody sees it! There’s so much social media; I keep quoting from your personal LinkedIn profile which I fell in love with—that’s your “about.” So do you guys use social media for fundraising? Are you promoting events?

Shelly Willis:
Thank you! Are you telling success stories as well on your social media? How would you advise anyone else? You know life is hard; there are definitely hard things we all experience—but we’re tougher—we can overcome those challenges with help sometimes! I liked your idea of looking at who’s next door—you know—we became intentional about making sure our facilities were next door to places families went! Our offices are right next door to TANF Welfare Office—downstairs from Child Protective Services—across from schools—we want visibility where families go! We want their stories—what’s working—what isn’t working? That information helps drive our services but also tells our impact story! Yes—we’re putting stories—with permission—on social media saying actually it came from our discussion! I’ve gone back saying we’re not doing well enough with engagement—we need better storytelling! Every April is recognized nationally as Child Abuse Prevention Month—we plant 1,000 pinwheels at our state capitol every year—to draw attention about this issue—it’s beautiful—it’s one picture—and like five minutes on social media scan! We’ve gotta find ways better tell these stories—thanks to you actually—we’re putting together impact stories noted weekly—a new story each week showing how hope was found—resilience was found—and lives changed!

Lee Wochner:
That’s fantastic! I had lunch yesterday with colleagues—we talked storytelling—a lot—and stories stick because metaphors stick—they inspire us! Given you’re doing inspirational work—storytelling should be central! This version maintains clarity while removing all timestamps from the dialogue.

Lee Wochner:
And I made lifelong friends through the Chamber of Commerce, being involved in the Chamber of Commerce and meeting everybody in the community. And it can really be a great thing. And I’ve run a number of nonprofits and the Chamber of Commerce is always helpful when you just go hang out because you meet everybody else.

Shelly Willis:
You do, and I’m not a wealthy person, and my circle of friends are not wealthy people, but I’ve been able to find some strategies to help me connect, to be in the room with those people, and they help us spread the word. For example, in our Grandparent Raising Grandkids program, we call it Kinship, there were some challenges our caregivers were facing at a state and community level.

They were not getting the same level of support that foster parents get. And often they had to leave their senior housing to care for the kids. So there were some big hurdles. We invited a legislative, a senator, to come to our support group just to learn more about this population. And it turned out to be life-changing because she went back to the Senate and asked for funds to help this population.

So while our agenda was to introduce the caregivers to the legislative process, she actually learned about kinship care and affected change that now brings millions of dollars into our state to help these vulnerable families.

Lee Wochner:
We have a client who works on treatment to help people stay out of drug addiction and homelessness after they’ve been released from incarceration. We had her on the podcast many years ago when we first started working with them.

Shelly Willis:
Mm-hmm.

Lee Wochner:
I found out they were getting no funding from any level of government. And I said, “But you’re keeping people out of the prisons. You’re a big savings in the budget.” And then I went over to visit them for the first time and said, “You’re right near the government building.” They had no idea. So I said, “See, this is the government building. We’ll set up some meetings there and introduce you to people in government.” And she said on this podcast a few episodes ago, that was the turnaround.

I don’t want people who had troubles and fixed them to be in prison. And I don’t think most people want that. If you’ve cleaned up your act, you’re off heroin, you’re leading a healthy, productive life, and you need a little help to do that, that is a big savings. Just as you said when you said, “It’s far less expensive to raise strong, healthy children than to fix broken adults.” It’s far less expensive to help people stay out of prison than to keep them in there. And if that’s your mindset, it’s better for the economy to help them get back into the workforce and be productive.

Shelly Willis:
Absolutely, absolutely agree.

Lee Wochner:
So in your marketing, what’s the role of social media? I ask about social because it’s connected to everything and everybody sees it. There’s so much social, and I keep quoting from your personal LinkedIn profile, which I fell in love with, that’s your “About.” So, are you using social a little bit for fundraising, promoting events?

Shelly Willis:
Thank you.

Lee Wochner:
Are you telling the stories, the success stories as well, on your social? And how would you advise anyone else?

Shelly Willis:
You know, life is hard and there are definitely hard things that we all experience, but we’re tougher, and we can overcome that with help sometimes. I liked your idea of looking at who’s next door to you. We became intentional about making sure our facilities were next door to places families went. Our offices are right next door to the TANF Welfare Office, downstairs from Child Protective Services, across the street from a school. We want to be located where families go.

We want to hear their stories, what’s working and what isn’t working. That information helps drive our services but also helps tell the story of our impact. So yes, social media, we’re putting the stories with permission on our social media. I went back to my team and said, “We’re not doing a good job of engagement. We need to do a better job of telling the stories.” So it has been used for upcoming events notices, but it hasn’t been used as much for telling our impact.

Every year, April is nationally recognized as Child Abuse Prevention Month, and we plant a thousand pinwheels in front of our state capitol to get attention about this issue. It’s beautiful, but it’s just one picture and like five minutes on a social media scan. We’ve got to find a way to better tell the story. So now, thanks to you actually, we’re putting together impact stories that will be shared weekly, highlighting how hope and resilience were found, and how lives are changing.

Lee Wochner:
That’s fantastic. I mean, I had a lunch meeting yesterday with some colleagues, and we talked about storytelling a lot. Stories stick with us because the metaphor sticks with us; the example tells us how this could work and inspires us. And I think that given that you’re doing such inspirational work, storytelling is where you guys should be.

Shelly Willis:
Gosh, I have to tell you, I’m inspired. It puts air back in my lungs to hear these stories; it helps me keep going.

Lee Wochner:
There’s a guy on Twitter… You know, I’ve gone back and forth about quitting Twitter/X, but this guy every day saves a dog on the streets of, I think, Vietnam or Thailand, helps them out, feeds them, and bandages them up. I just need that—I need that every day. I’m just a sucker for dogs.

Shelly Willis:
Me too. Me too.

Lee Wochner:
So you and I are speaking in early November 2024. 2025 is around the corner. What’s next for FESS? Do you have plans for 2025?

Shelly Willis:
Yes, we’re very concerned about a spike in suicide and the mental well-being of adolescents. We’ve learned recently that a third of kids are not in school—they’re not in home school, not in public school, they’re just not going to school. So our focus is to figure out why school is not being viewed as a protective factor by the staff, students, and families, and what we can do to increase school support and family connections to create hubs of safety and wellness.

Lee Wochner:
Any further advice you’d like to share with listeners, Shelly?

Shelly Willis:
I would just say remember you’re not alone. There’s someone out there who cares. If you can’t find that person, come visit us and we’ll help you find them. And I hope you get to meet folks like Lee, who care passionately and are searching the world for hope. Thank you for inviting me.

Lee Wochner:
Well, thank you. One of the joys of doing this podcast and the marketing that we do is knowing how many people care. Most people are genuinely good, caring people. If people want to connect with you, what’s the best way for them to reach out?

Shelly Willis:
The best way is to visit our website, where you’ll find my email and phone number. It’s www.familyess.org, familyeducationandsupportservices.org. I’d be happy to connect you to services. And Lee, I’m honored. Thanks for including me.

Lee Wochner:
Well, thanks so much, Shelly. I really appreciate it. I really appreciate what you’re doing. It’s been a joy getting to know you and learning more about FESS. Thank you.

Shelly Willis:
Thank you.

Jaclyn Uloth:
Thanks for listening! That’s What C! Sai is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Please like and follow the show. Visit Counterintuity.com to learn more.