Opportunity Spotlight: Family Services of Greater Vancouver With Maria Howard, CEO

For over a century, Family Services of Greater Vancouver has been a beacon of hope for those in need. Join Douglas Nelson as he sits down with Maria Howard, CEO of Family Services of Greater Vancouver. Maria delves into the agency’s wide range of programs, from youth outreach and family preservation to victim support and financial literacy initiatives, all aimed at assisting the most vulnerable in the community. With nearly a century of dedication to social services, Family Services of Greater Vancouver helps clients reclaim their voices and navigate their paths to healing and stability. Tune in to learn how this impactful organization is transforming lives in the community.

—

Listen to the podcast here

 

Opportunity Spotlight: Family Services of Greater Vancouver With Maria Howard, CEO

Family Services Of Greater Vancouver

I’m delighted to be speaking with a friend of the show and the Discovery Group, Maria Howard. Maria is the CEO of Family Services of Greater Vancouver. Welcome, Maria.

Thanks for having me.

My pleasure. I’m excited to be chatting with you as always. Specifically, this time around, we’re going to be talking about an exciting search that we’re doing together for the new director of development at Family Services. Let’s start with a bit of context if we may. Tell me a bit about Family Services of Greater Vancouver. What is it that you do? What does the organization do?

I love to talk about Family Services. This could take a long time. Family Services of Greater Vancouver is a social service agency in the lower mainland of Greater Vancouver. It is focused on serving and supporting people who are in vulnerable situations due to trauma. We focus on helping those individuals who are the marginalized of the marginalized. These are individuals who have had significant trauma in their lives and their lives changed significantly due to that to the point that even many of the other services in our province government of BC are not necessarily able to support them in the best way. We do that in a number of different programs, working all the way from young children right up to seniors.

Family Services has been around for almost 100 years and we are super proud of that. Many people aren’t aware of Family Services, but that is because we have quietly done our work for many years, looking for the gaps in the services that others aren’t providing and the government isn’t providing. We come in and we work with those individuals to support them in the ways that they need and make sure we can help them have the support, care, and resources they need to make the decisions of what they want to do.

 

 

We are here to help empower people to find their voice and make decisions about how they do that. We do that in four distinctive areas. Quickly, to outline them, we are very much involved in the street-entrenched youth population and offer our directions for youth services in Downtown Vancouver. That’s working with youth between the ages of 13 and 25 who are street-entrenched, living on the streets, and being there for them in any way that we can. Our services are low barriers, which means that we support youth however they are. That could be the youth coming into our center who might be intoxicated or under the influence of drugs. It doesn’t matter. We are there for them when they need us.

Our other program is around family preservation and family trauma counseling. That’s working with families and their children who have been through significant trauma. That can vary in providing counseling, support programs, and education to meet them where they are at. Our third program is our Victim Services Unit. We are embedded in both the Vancouver Police Department and the New West Police Department. As well as the Richmond RCMP working with individuals who are impacted by domestic violence, sexual exploitation, and counter-exploitation. Again, being there for those individuals and helping them find the way that they need to make decisions and get to be where they want to be.

Our fourth area is a social enterprise area. We offer an employee assistance program just like Homewood. We are the largest EAP provider in Western Canada and service a number of different clients ranging from government to municipalities to private businesses. We are very proud of that program because we pride ourselves on being somewhat like boutique employees. This is a program where we focus on face-to-face meetings, being guided by the client and the support they need.

Our second social enterprise program, which is fairly new but we love it. It’s our financial literacy and poverty reduction program. This came out of COVID and our observation that people, no matter where you are in life, finances are one of the factors that can make or break an individual in their recovery through poverty, homelessness, trauma, or whatever that is.

 

We work very closely with a couple of partners. We train the trainers around financial literacy. We offer one-on-one counseling for people. We run support groups. We do a number of programs to help people begin to understand their finances and how they can get to a place where they feel more empowered and confident to manage. That’s Family Services in a nutshell in terms of what we do as services.

That’s quite a nutshell in some ways. What strikes me is the scale and scope, the wide breadth of activities, the depth of activities that you’re doing, and the sheer tenure. A hundred years in the Lower Mainland and Greater Vancouver is quite a tenure and a lot to be proud of. That’s for sure.

I like to say that it’s like working at the bay. We offer a multitude of programs. The commonality is that people are vulnerable due to trauma. We have over 400 staff. We are about a $30 million agency with revenue coming both from government and fundraising, which is super important to us. It’s that diversity and that complexity that makes working here quite an amazing experience. I know when I asked our staff, “What is the number one reason that you work at Family Services?” It is always the range of services we provide, the culture, and working with people and feeling like you’re making a difference.

Personal Motivation

I was going to ask you that for that matter. What is your why, Maria, on a personal level? You’ve been in the sector for so long. We’re talking earlier, this is your fourth fall with Family Services. Why do you do the work you do? What do you find most compelling?

As a professional, I am a counselor and spent many years in counseling and working with a number of different populations. What draws me to this work is that every person has a voice, desires, and needs. That doesn’t change for a human no matter what your situation is. Sometimes, though, because of circumstances that one can’t control or one finds himself in, it’s hard to find your voice. That gets even more difficult when trauma is involved.

Every person has a voice, desires, and needs. That doesn’t change for a human no matter what your situation is. Click To Tweet

Maybe you’ve never even been mentored, parented, or guided to how you use your voice. That is what draws me to Family Services. In everything we do, we always put the client first. It’s the client who sets the goals and who knows best. We are there simply to facilitate and help them move forward. It’s not up to us to judge or say what is best for them. That’s the wish of that individual but we want to be there to help empower them. That’s what makes me proud to be here. We work hard to give everybody a voice.

Work Culture And Environment

That’s excellent. I appreciate that. Looking inwardly, I suppose, you mentioned asking staff and talking to staff about the work culture and work environment. I do want to pivot a little bit to the director role. For a director coming in, what is the work culture? What is the dynamic like? What’s it like within the organization as an employee, a staff member, a contributor, and a beneficiary of the culture?

It’s interesting. As I’ve shared, it’s a very large and diverse agency. The overall umbrella culture of commitment, care, integrity, resilience, optimism, justice, and equity sits in the big umbrella. In each individual unit, you will find those cultures might lean a little bit differently, depending on the work they do. Some of our departments are 24/7 services. This is tough work and that can be very draining on staff. Teamwork and collegial relationships are all super important.

Coming into FSGV, you will see amazing pride in the work we do, but we will also see a real diversity in how people are engaged with the agency. Some see their team very strongly. Some look at the agency in the big picture. What I’ve learned and what will be key for the director role is to understand that and to learn how to elevate the different priorities for the different teams so that we all are tracking toward the same common goal in the same culture. We all might do that slightly differently and it’s important to understand that of each team.

One thing I want to pick up on before we get to the director. It’s some phrasing that you’ve used before to describe Family Services, which I quite love. It is that larger organization brought in scope and large budget. At the same time, you’ve got a warrior mentality within the organization of affecting change, the justice lens, or the equity lens. Maybe you want to talk a little bit about that piece if you may.

It’s a wonderful part of the agency. It’s a long-time commitment. Those three are embedded in our staff. We have a staff justice and inequity committee, which we take. It’s important to us. Our staff appreciates and understands that to support an individual we need to understand their diversity and to help establish for them what is their justice and equity. We try very hard not only within the way that we serve our clients but also in the way we run our organization and our administration even with our board to try to always put a diversity and equity lens to everything, and challenge ourselves.

We all know we’re on different journeys and come to different conversations in a different way. We work hard to create that space to have those conversations and recognize that this is important. The size of the organization can make that challenging at times but the individual commitment of staff to be committed to that is what helping us slowly move that forward.

Fundraising

Much like individuals are on their own journeys, organizations are on their own journeys too fundamentally when it gets down to them. That’s great. Let’s pivot to the director of development. Let’s talk about fundraising in Family Services. What’s on the horizon? What’s exciting about found fundraising in Family Services? You’ve alluded to a few things, so let’s pull some of these threads together.

Fundraising is critical for our agency. I’m a firm believer in a nonprofit. You need a diverse range of sources of revenue. We are an organization that does a lot of services for the government. Probably 75% of our revenue comes in through government contracts and grants, but about 25% comes in through other grants and donors. That’s essential. This is where we reach out into the community and involve people.

We also know that many of the programs that we run, we like to do them in a certain way. As an agency, we take an approach where we are offering the services that we believe help people, then we decide or figure out how much that cost, and then we go find the money to fund that. Sometimes that means that what the government will find and what we want to do don’t align.

A program might cost say $100. The program we want to offer might cost $120. Our fundraising then comes in to raise that $20 so that we can still offer the program that we believe will serve our clients the best. Fundraising has an amazing opportunity to be involved at every level in the agency. They have the privilege of hearing clients’ stories and hearing staff stories, then taking that and translating that to donors and grants, and igniting that spark.

I don’t think it’s a secret if you go and talk to social services agencies. Sometimes, the general public, first of all, has a belief that the government should fund most of these services for people who are in poverty and street entrenched. You’re right, I agree but they don’t. We can’t wait till they do. We have to be proactive. Sometimes, two people are uncomfortable around people who are living on the street and who live in extreme trauma.

 

It takes a proactive, dynamic, and very caring person in this role to be able to read the audience and understand how to find that and connect that catch to the donor who suddenly can see why they can make a difference and step in. It is an exciting role for someone who wants to roll up their sleeves. There are some programs we are looking to expand in the next 1 to 3 years. Our youth services are one of them.

This is certainly an opportunity for a person to come in and be a part of that. I don’t think it’s confidential to say that we’ve set up an amazing relationship with Amazon as their first nonprofit in Western Canada. This is a beautiful opportunity with someone with some creative ideas with an international partner to come in and learn about the agency and help elevate us to a level where we can still retain who we are, which is still a little bit of a quieter profile, but build stability and reputation as a strong social service agency for the next 100 years.

You might be quieter in the philanthropic space, but you’re not at all quiet with your community services, the groups you work with, and your clients. I love how you describe that, roll up your sleeves. It’s a building opportunity and leveraging Amazon and so on.

One of the things I was thinking about from the director role and having had many years of working alongside some great directors of fund development and review development. In the sector in our space, our clients don’t want to be poster child. They don’t want to be the poster child of abuse and neglect. The creative way that the fundament department has to approach, showcasing the stories and the lives of our clients without showcasing the client can be a little different than often what you will see in the fund development space for nonprofits. We are committed to not putting our clients in a place where they feel uncomfortable because nobody wants to be in that place of darkness and have people peek in you.

Nobody wants to be in that place of darkness and have people peek. Click To Tweet

Leadership And Management Style

A great fundraiser is often a great storyteller. You have to be very judicious and thoughtful about what’s the stories you’re telling whilst still conveying the impact is crucial fundamentally. That’s great. Maria, let’s pivot a little bit here. This person is going to be working very closely with you and reporting to you as their lead fundraiser. Your lead fundraiser I should say. What is your leadership style and management style like? How do you envision working with this person?

I tend to be quite a casual and formal person. I like to be involved in things. I am a big-picture thinker and have lots of ideas. The person has to be used to hearing my ideas and feel obligated. They have to deliver them. I am not a detail person. I’m the person who’s a team to figure out how to do it in the best way to do it. I do think it’s important especially in this sector and FSGV as we’re building a reputation and relationship with this person. I envision we’ll be doing lots of meetings together, figuring out how we do that, keeping each other informed, but also feeling quite full and relaxed to not have to be tethered by details and criteria, but work together and find that relationship to be able to then create that confidence in our donors.

Compelling Reasons To Join

We’re looking for a subject matter expert here fundamentally who can guide and lead but also work closely with you, the team, and the other members of the senior leadership group who can contribute, listen, and learn fundamentally. That’s great. In summary, what are some compelling reasons for someone to come join you? Why do you think an experienced successful fundraiser would want to leave their role and come join you?

It’s an environment that has lots of opportunities for creativity. There’s certainly no shortage of work, and not necessarily the same work and the same task over and over. There are lots of very exciting opportunities. It’s a great team. We are a nonprofit. We work hard to take health and wellness and our employee’s enjoyment of their work environment seriously. There’s lots of flexibility.

The senior team is fairly new. Although, most people on the team have been in the agency for a number of years. They have been promoted. There’s lots a lot of enthusiasm. It’s for someone who is looking to make a mark in their career of something that is significant and can be highlighted as a turning point or a big monumental moment for an agency. The next 2 to 5 years or 10 years at this agency will provide that opportunity.

Lots is going on. The horizon is to be shaped fundamentally for someone who wants to come in and bring their expertise and some best practices and learn in their own right for that matter in many ways. Hopefully, we’ve conveyed the excitement of the opportunity with the future may hold with Family Services and a new director of development.

If anybody is interested or curious about learning more, I’m more than happy to chat with anyone at any point if they reach out at [email protected]. There’s a ton of information on your website as well, covering some of the breadth and depth of the programs that you offer. There’s lots to learn but we don’t expect this person to come in as an expert in Family Services necessarily. There’s lots of time for somebody to get adjusted. I appreciate your help and support. I’m looking forward to working with you and bringing some candidates forward, Maria.

Thanks, Christoph. I’m super excited as well.

I’m looking forward to chatting with you again very soon.

Thanks.

 

Important Links

• Family Services of Greater Vancouver
• [email protected]

 

About Maria Howard

Maria Howard has led Family Services of Greater Vancouver as CEO since September 2020. She is an experienced leader with a demonstrated record of advancing the non-profit sector in support of people in need. Having started as a rehabilitation counsellor, she has spent her career supporting and advocating for people who are challenged by health and social issues to live the fullest life possible, engaged in their communities.

Maria holds an MBA in Leadership from the University of Athabasca, and an M.Ed. in Rehabilitation from the University of Washington. With decades of extensive business experience, she has held leadership positions in the public healthcare sector, as CEO of the Alzheimer Society of BC, as well as provincial and national governance roles. At FSGV, she leverages her operational excellence, while guided by a commitment to caring and inclusive communities.

It is Maria’s natural alignment of personal values and professional impact that has allowed her to be effective in her career; she is a change-maker and leader with a hopefulness and vision that energizes and builds confidence in both internal and external stakeholders.

Currently, Maria serves as the Chair of Family Services of Canada, Regional Director with the Federation of Community Social Services of BC, and as a board member with Voices in Motion, an intergenerational choir for people living with dementia in Victoria, BC. In her personal life, Maria enjoys travelling with her family, gardening and spending time with her two best four legged friends!