Calgary Food Bank With Melissa From, CEO & President

Melissa From, the CEO and President of Calgary Food Bank, candidly takes the conversation deep into leading an established name in the social profit space. She shares what it means to take over a long-serving legacy leader and organization. She also delves into building the management team to lead the organization to its new chapter. Melissa also explains how she brings the board and her organization together in embarking on strategic planning. Her advice for new leaders to turn around the organization beyond to where it is today brings more value in today’s conversation. Check out this episode to collect more nuggets of wisdom from Melissa From.

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Calgary Food Bank With Melissa From, CEO & President

In this episode, we have Melissa From. Melissa is the CEO and President of the Calgary Food Bank. In our conversation, she talks candidly about what it means to take over from a long-serving legacy leader in your organization, building the management team that she needs to lead the organization into its next chapter, and what it means to bring her board and her organization together as they embark on strategic planning. Melissa is very candid. She offers great advice as to what new leaders can do, the lessons that she’s learned, and turning around this important organization in Calgary and beyond. Please enjoy my conversation with Melissa From.

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Welcome, Melissa.

Thanks. It’s good to be here.

Melissa, we’re going to have a great conversation. I’m just convinced of it. I’ve had the privilege to get to know you and the incredible work that you and your team have been doing there at the Calgary Food Bank over the last several months. For those who haven’t been as fortunate as I am to get to know you and the team, tell us a little bit about the Calgary Food Bank and the mission that you serve.

Food banks, it’s probably pretty self-explanatory in the title that we’re here to help people who are struggling with access to food, typically due to the issues around poverty. I think our mission, our mandate is really alleviating hunger, and the second half of that is its root causes, which is a bit more challenging and nuanced. I think part of the mission and mandate is that feeding people is really obvious and easy. The root cause is where it gets a little complex.

Easy is an interesting choice there. Having seen the very elaborate operations that you have there at the Calgary Food Bank, easy isn’t the first word that comes to mind. As a CEO about a year into your tenure, take us back to that first day. You put your hand on the door and walked through the doors of the Calgary Food Bank as the CEO for the first time. What did you find? What was that like?

The Calgary Food Bank

I’ve been in the nonprofit sector for almost 20 years, and I’ve had a really interesting trajectory that I’ve had the opportunity to do a startup. I’ve had the opportunity to work in a long-standing organization and be an internal promotion, like someone who is a Director of Fund Development and then moved into the CEO role. Now, the third act in my career is to be this external transplant CEO. Spoiler alert, external transplant CEO, by far the hardest. Walking into the Calgary Food Bank almost a year ago, new CEO in an organization that’s existed for over 40 years, coming in on what I’ve been using the term legacy leadership fellow who was here for 23 years. He was an internal promotion.

No one had ever onboarded a CEO in this organization. I know about donors. I know about finance. I know about HR. I know about client services and the social sector and helping people. I don’t know about refrigeration. I don’t know about forklifts. I don’t really know a lot about the food industry. I just walked in on day one, and I really haven’t stopped since. It’s a different path when you come in externally having to learn the business, the culture, and learn the people and the mission and the mandate and the clients and all of those things.

I’m sure through the interview process, you’ve got a really good sense of the purpose. As you say, the purpose of the organization is in the name. The operations, you knew you weren’t going to be familiar with forklifts on day one. What was your mindset like as you started in the role and started to plot out what the direction of the organization in your leadership was going to look like?

For me, I look at the forklifts and stuff, and I probably only know enough to be dangerous truly, but my leadership style is I’m a really big believer. My number one mandate is the people who work at the Calgary Food Bank, and their number one mandate is the clients that we serve. Right from day one as much as it was important for me to learn, how many forklifts do we have? How are we feeding people? What’s the food in, food out process, and all of those things? It was equally important for me to learn, who are our people? Who are our A-players? What do I need to know about the culture, the people, and the past leadership? What worked and what didn’t work under him? What do I need to do to ensure we have a motivated, engaged, and high-functioning team?

That rings true for me, having walked through the operations with you, and a walk that if it was just the two of us would have taken about 15 seconds, took about 15 minutes because everyone wanted to stop and talk to you and share pictures and photos of events that had happened earlier in the week. Tell you stories and updates on some of the clients that they’ve been working with that you had met. It’s really obvious as an outsider that you are connected to the team that is there at the Calgary Food Bank. Has that always been your approach as a leader? Is that something that you’ve learned over the course of your leadership journey?

I would say that’s just always been my approach as a leader. My dad was in a leadership position when I was growing up, and that was certainly the type of leader he was. Work was a community. I think I really saw that role model growing up. I’ve done Skills Finder, Successfinder, and where I’ve ranked the highest is on accessibility and visibility as a leader. People know who I am. They know where I am. They know what I’m doing. Definitely, I’ve just never been a leader where it’s that mysterious corner office. Nobody’s really sure what happens there. Even when my office got renovated a couple of weeks ago, an email went out that was like, “Come and see my office.” My assistant was getting annoyed. It was like a revolving door of people coming in and out of my office for a week and a half to see my new paintings, my paint, and my curtains.

That’s a remarkable story in itself that you had donors willing who came into your office and said, “This won’t do,” and donated all the materials and all the time and all the design to make that happen. I think it speaks to the community of the food bank embracing you, not just you embracing that community. The idea of coming in and replacing a legacy leader, and we’ve had a number of guests on the show and certainly there are lots of our readers who I can confidently say followed long-serving leaders.

There’s so much strength and advantage to that. There’s also some risk involved in following those legacy leaders. You’ve had the opportunity to build your leadership team over the course of the last year. For our audience, I think it’d be really interesting for you to share your thought process as you build that team, and now that you’ve got that team onboarded, what you’re looking forward to doing with the leadership team in place.

Legacy Leadership

I think at the Calgary Food Bank, first, coming in on the heels of legacy leadership, it’s such a challenge because you know you’re stepping into these massive shoes to fill, but also there’s a bit of that mindset of like, “What got us here won’t get us there.” I was a couple of weeks into the job, and I had the opportunity to go for coffee with Ken Keelor, who is the CEO at Calgary Co-op. He’s just done an incredible job. Anyone who’s working in the Calgary area will have seen that transformation of the brand of the Calgary Co-op under Ken’s leadership over the last few years.

He suggested to me a book that he held near and dear in the first few years of his role, Good to Great by Jim Collins. I remembered it from probably 1997 or something when I was in business school. It’s a good book, so I downloaded it on audiobook, and I’ve literally listened to it on repeat. I think I’m on my fifth time through it now.

One of the fundamental tenets of the book, Good to Great, is you’ve got to have the ‘who’ before you can do the ‘what.’ For me, I’ve spent the better part of the last year figuring out, “Who is my who?” I have to have the right people under me. Frankly, for the most part, then it’s like, “Now, you’ve got to figure out your who.” I’ll figure out that layer, and then they’ve got to figure out everything else underneath that, but before we can start to talk strategy, before we can start to talk about how we change the way we’re serving the community or better integrating the community or work with community partners, anything like that. If we don’t have the who, we’re going to struggle with the what.

That’s Jim Collins’ book from 1997. It’s still worth a read. It’s a much smaller book. The Charitable Sector is amazing as well. Again, through your leadership journey, did you always know that intuitively it was the team, or was there a moment in time when you realized, “I need to get the who before the what or the how?”

I think I’ve always known it. Have I always done it right? Definitely not. I’ve had a couple of situations in leadership where I’ve had the wrong who. I think whether it was ego like the foolishness of youth where you’re like, “I can fix this person and make them the right who.” I had a few of those experiences where I look back now and go, “If I just made some changes sooner in that situation, we both probably would have been better off.” The great thing is that you live and learn from your mistakes. I have had a few of those experiences, and it doesn’t serve either party well when you’ve got a great person in the wrong job. I think that having had some of those experiences has served me well in this role now because it made me maybe a little bit braver about making the changes I needed to make when I needed to make them.

What are you looking for in the who to be an effective member of your leadership team?

Leadership Team

Every leader has the things that are important to them. What’s important to me certainly might not be what’s important to Doug or what’s important to the next guy at other nonprofits. For me, I’m a very visible leader. I like to be out talking with people, and so I think it’s important that I have a leadership team that embodies that as well. I’m a dirty hands leader, so if there are potatoes that need to be sorted, if you need an extra set of hands to swamp a truck on a ride along, all of those things. I know that there are certain jobs that at the end of the day, the board is not like, “Let’s have our highest-paid employee clean the toilet.” It’s like no, they want me to be doing the things the CEO needs to do, but I do get my hands dirty.

I think some of the other more nuanced things are more around like self-accountability and trust. You just try it. I’ve tried it many times, and at the end of the day, you just really cannot work with people you don’t trust and self-accountability. We all make mistakes, and when you make those mistakes, just own it and be like, “I messed up, what’s the path forward? How do we fix it?” When somebody makes a mistake, we all know that person made the mistake, and there’s finger-pointing. It breaks down the collegial environment. It doesn’t serve anyone well, and it typically doesn’t serve solutions well when people aren’t just willing to own their s***.

When somebody makes a mistake, and there's finger-pointing, it breaks down the collegial environment. Click To Tweet

In my experience, recovery is more important than the mistake itself, and how individual leaders and team members respond to that makes all the difference to being able to move forward and reestablish that trust. Actually, in many cases, enhancing that trust when one’s able to say, “I messed up on that.”

We hear all this narrative about authentic leadership. That’s the topic of the day right now. Nothing’s more authentic as a leader than being like, “I totally screwed this up. How are we going to fix this?” When it’s like, “I don’t know who did this, but I guess we have to fix it.”

“Someone should fix this.” We probably see that type of leadership or that finger-pointing, blaming leadership less in our sector than in other sectors. The emphasis on servant leadership is really a hallmark of our sector, certainly not universal but it’s there.

Yeah, I would agree.

As you’ve been onboarding this leadership team, what advice have you given those new members of your team as they’re working with the individuals that they work with on a daily basis?

The first thing, again, because I knew I was bringing a new leadership, there are incredible shining lights in this organization and some really great things. There are some things that when a leader is in place for 20, 25 years, sometimes there are things that get dated and systems that need to be updated, and so trying to find that balance with new leadership to say, “It’s okay to make changes.” Get to know your team, love your team, and spend time with your team. At the end of the day, I am not going to be the CEO who’s looking over your shoulder like, “Did you dot your I’s? Did you cross your T’s? Did you do the donor contract? This is your team, you are the commander of your domain. Go. Actually, it’s great. I sleep a lot better at night now. They’re in place. It’s their problem now.

It can be really challenging for leaders both the CEO or in the vice-president level in an organization when you come in. You mentioned there are some legacy systems or some things that needed some adjusting. As a new leader coming in, you see so many things that could be fixed, so many things that could be updated or changed. It’s important not to pick up every single rock because there’s something under each one of them, and you’re going to have to deal with it when you pick it up. Make sure you’re picking up only the rocks that are going to make the most and are going to help you move faster, accelerate change, and accelerate the organization. Eventually, you’ll get to them all, but don’t pick them all up. How did you handle that?

I would add to that too. Every nonprofit is complex. Don’t get me wrong, but I’m finding this is a really complex environment. We’ve got multiple warehouses. We’ve got 700 households a day coming in for food. We’ve got 50 to 60 charities that we’re giving food to. There’s just a lot of moving parts. Just when I think I have something figured out, I find out I’ve got it completely wrong. I’ve had some missteps along the way too because I came in like, “I’ve got to fix this system, and I’m going to tweak this thing,” and then six months later, I’m going, “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“That’s what that button is for.”

Exactly. I’ve been able to use that as a bit of a cautionary tale for some of my new leaders as well to be like, “I know you’re going to just want to jump in and fix everything, but just when you think you know what needs to be fixed, you will learn something different.” Just know that there’s a huge element of you don’t know what you don’t know.” I’m almost a year in and still, there’s a lot I don’t know.

You will learn something different when you think you know what needs to be fixed. You don't know what you don't know. Click To Tweet

That’s a mindset though of leadership to remain open, remain curious. When you’re dealing with a high volume of things, there’s urgency, there’s importance, there’s crisis. The demand of the Calgary Food Bank, I know it’s been skyrocketing, and we’ll talk about that in just a minute. When you’re hitting that overwhelming level, how, as a leader, do you step back and remember to stay open and remember to stay curious?

When I’m hitting that overwhelm level, and I’m like, “I’ve got to do all these things. I know I’ve got to change this and change that and all the rest,” that’s usually when I know it’s time for me to step back from my desk and go for a walk through the warehouse and talk to people. One of my favorite questions to ask people, and this has been one of my favorite questions for a really, really long time is, “What do I not know that I need to know? Why do I not know that you think I might need to know?”

You walk through a warehouse and you ask people that, and you get all sorts of answers. We’ve got four pallets of dairy in the fridge that are going to expire tomorrow and they need to get on the floor. No one’s doing it. You get Susan’s going through a really bad divorce and she keeps showing up late. You get everything from soup to nuts. Usually, when I start to hit that inflection point of being overwhelmed and being task-driven, then I completely step away from my computer, I go for a walk, and I talk to people and I ask that question.

It’s possible you’re going to come back to your desk with a longer to-do list than you left it with.

Sometimes, what it does is it prioritizes for me because what I think is important after I go and talk to people and ask them that question, I find out it’s not what they think.

I like that so like a reality check or a what-matters-most check on your to-do list.

I’ve never done that where I’ve come back to my desk and be like, “This burning fire that I thought was so important is the most important thing.” Never once has that been the case.

I recall that feeling of overwhelm when I was in a role, and the trigger for me or when I knew that I needed to step back was the thought that would go through my head, “What button do I have to push?” I just wanted something to be automated that almost inevitably involved people. Just push the button and they’ll behave like robots. It’s an instinct that at least I think is counter to how I generally operate, but it’s also not how people work. I’m looking for a solution. It wasn’t an easy button. It was just like, “Fix this,” and push the button. For me, it was to talk to donors and to have a conversation.

When I was at the BC Cancer Foundation as CEO, I was writing between 15 and 20 handwritten thank-you cards a week. That’s what I would do when I was feeling overwhelmed. I’m just going to write a thank-you note. When somebody opens this up, they’re going to think, “That was really nice. I’m going to send good feelings into the world as much as possible.” I think every leader has a different strategy for it. What I think is interesting is when I meet a leader who either doesn’t recognize they ever have that feeling, in which case I’m both suspicious and jealous. I’m sure you feel that way, but if you don’t notice it, maybe that’s better. I’m always curious, what are the tactics that people use when they deal with that? I think that connecting to the people who are doing the work that you suggest is a really good idea.

One of the things that’s great here too is when I’m walking through the warehouse, obviously, you’re seeing the clients come in and there’s that side of it too. Our workforce is more than 50% volunteer-driven. We will have between 700 and 800 volunteers on-site at the Calgary Food Bank in a week. Not only am I walking through and I’m talking to the staff, “What do I need to know that I don’t know?” I’m talking to those volunteers as well. Those are incredible people. Some of them are here three shifts a week: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 8:00 to 4:00, giving up their time and that’s their retirement. This is their community. This is where they go to connect, to get back. It’s pretty hard to not go around and talk to those folks and come out of it with a better attitude.

 

When you say those numbers, 50% volunteer workforce and the hundreds and hundreds of people that are coming every week, that runs so counter to what we see in the headlines around the volunteer crisis that’s across our sector. What makes the Calgary Food Bank different than what’s happening more broadly in our social profit sector?

Resources Management Team

I can say that for the Calgary Food Bank, we have probably the best volunteer resources management team in the country. That’s probably the biggest difference. We just have a phenomenal team that stewards those volunteers and recruits them and trains them and loves on them so hard that you can’t help but come back for your second volunteer shift. That’s a huge part of it. Part of what they do and part of where the magic is on that is the community that they build around it. The volunteer appreciation events that we have, the huddles before shift, and the huddles after shift where we talk about the impact.

Because folks are coming back repeatedly as volunteers, they have this little shift of people that they’ve worked with sometimes for years. I’ve seen just some incredible things through that. A couple of months ago, we had one of our volunteers and her husband who work a regular shift in our organization went on a holiday, and her husband died quite suddenly overseas. I happened to be in the warehouse when she came for her first shift back. It’s pretty incredible to see those volunteers rally around her and the support and community that exists in that.

That’s a beautiful story. When organizations rely so heavily on volunteers, really investing in volunteer management and volunteer appreciation, it’s so critically important in our work here at the Discovery Group. We work with some organizations where the organization’s approach has been, “People care about this, so they’ll do whatever we ask them to do,” and then they’re wondering why they don’t keep coming back. We know that doesn’t work with donors. It doesn’t work with board members. It doesn’t work with clients. Why would it work with volunteers? You mentioned it, you’ve got a great team and you should probably disconnect their phone and email in case there are any recruiters. What else is it about the culture of the Calgary Food Bank that keeps that bedrock so strong and firm for the organization?

Like I said, there’s that community side of it, but I think also the reality is when you’re running an organization or leading an organization that is dealing with what is really truly an urgent need. Those volunteers who are coming to the Calgary Food Bank to support us with their time and talent see that need in the community, and there’s just something to be said for recognizing that you are helping your fellow citizens at a time when they’re truly at their lowest. If you can’t afford food for your family, for your babies, and you’re coming to the Calgary Food Bank, and as a volunteer in the community, you can feel that sense of connectivity that you are supporting your fellow men. I think that it’s a great privilege and an opportunity that we have to serve as that connection point for people to love their neighbors, basically.

That’s really great. Thanks for sharing that, Melissa. I’m curious as you’ve gone through this first year as CEO, and you mentioned how the complexity of the organization. What is one myth or one misunderstanding or misperception of the Calgary Food Bank that you’ve encountered the most?

I feel like I’ve learned so much in a year that in itself could just be a book. I will say that the two things that I think for me, a year on the job, is like, “What are some things that I didn’t know about the Calgary Food Bank?” I volunteered here. I’m very much aware of the Calgary Food Bank and the community and the sector. One is the role that the Calgary Food Bank plays in the greater ecosystem of the nonprofit or social serving sector in our community. We really are playing this hub and spoke role in our community that there are over 50 different charities that we are providing food to, so that when they sit across the table from their clients, whether they’re dealing with homelessness, substance abuse, employability, English language skills, domestic violence, they don’t have to wonder, “Is this person starving? Has this person eaten this week?”

I just met with an addiction center a few weeks ago and they said, “Last month, do you know how much money we spent on food? Nothing because the Calgary Food Bank provided us with all of the food that we needed for 140 live-in clients who are working really hard to get off the streets and get clean.” Because we were able to provide them with that food, they could allocate their resources to their mandate, to their mission. That’s a role I did not know that we played in the community.

Do you know how much money we spend on food? Nothing, because the Calgary Food Bank provided us with all of the food that we needed. Click To Tweet

The second thing that I think was a bit of a surprise for me, and maybe because I’m a mom so my kids do the school food drives and a little hockey team food drives and things like that, what do you give when you’re doing one of those food drives? You go into your pantry, and you maybe find a can of tuna and a bit of macaroni and some canned tomatoes or pasta sauce, and that’s what you throw in the bag, and off it goes.

Our food hampers are food that I would feed my family any day of the week. 30% fresh produce, fresh fruits and veggies, 30% protein. You’ve got beef, you’ve got ground chicken, you’ve got pork, whatever that is, every food hamper gets a jug of milk and a carton of eggs. It’s really those extras of bread and the cereal and the macaroni, that make up the other 20%, 25%. We are not sending people out the door with a Costco-sized box of macaroni and a jar of marinara sauce. They are really getting food that is going to feed them well and keep them nourished so that they can then get back on their feet and deal with whatever those underlying issues were that brought them here in the first place.

We’ve done a fair bit of work with David Long, who is the CEO of the Greater Vancouver Food Bank. He’s been on the show talking about the food distribution network. His emphasis is always on the problem. It’s not a shortage of food, but really a broken distribution system. Does that hold true in your work there at the Calgary Food Bank?

It really does. I think across the country, we just look at food waste in general, whether it’s industry or otherwise, it’s astronomical. What I will say is I do think we are seeing a turning of the tides in the food industry. We’re starting to see some of our community partners, whether it’s Co-op or Costco or Safeway come to the table, and we are reclaiming hundreds of thousands if not millions of pounds of food every year across the City of Calgary to redistribute to those in need. Those corporate partners are really stepping up in pretty big ways to help us do that.

 

That’s really encouraging to hear that. That’s not the story that’s often told about the food system. I can hear your fundraiser beginnings in that answer of asking people to invest in abundance and potential rather than just responding to crisis. How does that perspective of being an optimist at heart, which I certainly know you to be, how does that influence the direction you see ahead for the Calgary Food Bank?

Food banks have been around for a long time across the country. I think Edmonton was actually the first food bank in 1980, and Calgary was shortly thereafter. There are definitely two sides to this coin, and some folks could go, “I can’t believe it’s been over 40 years and we’re still having to feed people,” and I look at it like, “This is amazing that people when they’re at their lowest, that we’re here to do this for them. That’s so great.”

When I step back and think about what that means for the future of the Calgary Food Bank and where we’re going to go. I spent the last 14 years of my career working in an organization that taught innovation and entrepreneurship. I think I’m maybe bringing some of those roots with me. I really would like to spend the next couple of years at the Calgary Food Bank looking at like, “What can we do a little bit different here? What could we do that maybe change the way that we do food banking across the country or North America? Is there a different way to skin this cat that we maybe haven’t looked at?” That’s where I get excited about like cleaning things up, making sure our tax receipts have our charity number on them, and things like that. That’s the boring stuff, but when you start to talk about blue sky thinking, “What could we do that would be really crazy, and everyone would say, “What are they doing in Calgary?” That just gets me so excited.

I know you’re just coming out of the starting blocks in your strategic planning process. What is your approach to bringing your board along in that conversation, and informing them about the complexity of the organization, making sure they know enough to be able to give that really solid, good advice that exceptional boards do? They know enough but also are inspired to look beyond the day-to-day and what the organization has done and may have been able to do in the past.

I look at these next couple of months of strategic planning as a really great opportunity to educate my board. I’m really fortunate. I have the privilege that I get to go out and I get to meet with these community partners. I can just go into the parking lot and I can talk to clients. I can call up other food banks and say, “What are you guys doing that we should be doing?” But they don’t get that.

I look at these next couple of months of going out and having those conversations and really packaging that up and being able to bring that back to a table where all of my board is sitting there and saying, “This is what our community is telling us. This is what the other food-serving agencies in our community are telling us. This is what our clients are telling us. This is what David’s doing in Vancouver and what Neil’s doing in Toronto. To just put that all in a package that’s really digestible for them, but that I think is probably going to make them go, “Okay, there’s more to this than meets the eye,” because they just don’t have that opportunity to have those conversations all of the time every day the way that I do.

Strategic Planning

That’s such great advice for any leader looking at strategic planning to anchor their board in the context and the potential of the situation rather than, “Here are the fast facts, now let’s make some big decisions.” You really want to make sure that the nuances are understood. You’ve suggested some answers to my last question that I ask all of our guests, but I’m going to ask it anyway. Melissa, what are you looking forward to?

Many things. First of all, I’m going to tell you this is my major quick answer to that question. The YWCA in Calgary is having its Annual Women’s Day Fundraiser, and Pamela Anderson is talking. I’m so looking forward to going and hearing Pamela Anderson at the Women’s Day. That’s my personal answer. But on the professional side, I’m almost one year in, and my Chief Operating Officer literally just started last week, and that was the last piece of my leadership puzzle. For me, it’s like, “Now, the fun begins.” I’ve spent the better part of the last year having to work on the who. When you go back to that book, Good to Great, you’ve got to get the who before you can do the what. I’ve got my who now. Maybe some of them have to figure out some of their who, but that’s their problem. Now, for me, I can start to look at all those other amazing concepts in Good to Great and think, “What are the next steps now to make sure the Calgary Food Bank is really truly great?”

Going through the strategic planning, talking to our donors, talking to our clients, talking to our charity partners, and understanding what our community actually needs from us right now. I’m excited to have the conversations. I’m excited to hear the answers. I’m really excited to start then to ideate on that and be like, “If you need us to be in a different location, what does that look like? Is it a hub? Is it a satellite? Do we need facilities? Can we rent facilities? Do we partner with a different level of government?” I get so excited about being in a place where we can start to have those types of conversations.

I think it is so great and rare to meet a leader so anchored in abundance, which I think is so important in our sector in an area and organization that is normally identified with scarcity. You’re bringing a very different approach to food banks. I’m looking forward to seeing the great work that you and your team are going to be able to do over the next couple of years.

Thanks. That’s going to be fun.

Thanks for being on the show.

Thank you. It was a great conversation.

 

Important Links

• Calgary Food Bank
• Good to Great
• David Long – Previous Episode
• Greater Vancouver Food Bank