Inspiring Good

Candy Yoder on Compassion & Leadership

• Community Foundation of Elkhart County • Episode 15

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Reflecting on a Legacy of Compassion and Community Commitment

In this episode of the Inspiring Good Podcast, brought to you by the Community Foundation of Elkhart County, we reflect on the remarkable career of Candy Yoder, the Chief Program Officer, who recently announced her retirement. Known for her dedication to helping others, Candy's journey from social work in New Mexico to influential leadership in Elkhart County is truly inspiring. Join us as we delve into her early career, the mentors who shaped her, and her transition into leadership roles that set the stage for her impactful contributions to community well-being.

00:00:46: Overview of Candy Yoder's career

00:01:29: Tribute to Darrell Abbott

00:02:25: Early career in child abuse prevention

00:03:48: Transition to CEO and leadership challenges

00:06:01: Advice to new CEOs

00:07:19: Vision and meaningful work

00:08:14: The importance of systems and collaboration

00:10:27: Building Strong Brains initiative

00:13:09: Expanding partnerships

00:16:04: Experience as a female CEO

00:17:31: Collaboration between organizations

00:20:35: Blind spots and leadership growth

00:23:01: Importance of listening and feedback

00:23:31: Discussions on race and impact on grant making

00:23:54: Introduction of the discussion topic

00:24:09: Process of reading books together and uncovering community learning

00:25:06: Impact of white supremacy on personal and societal views

00:26:04: Life transitions and retirement decisions

00:27:17: Starting a new role at the Community Foundation

00:28:52: Transition to a part-time role and the Building Strong Brains initiative

00:32:01: Reflecting on mentorship and community support

00:32:40: Looking forward to retirement activities

00:32:58: Future hopes for the community

00:33:35: Sources of hope and human resiliency

00:34:13: Closing remarks and gratitude

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This show is a production of the Community Foundation of Elkhart County. It is powered by equipment from Sweetwater and recorded in The Riverbend building in Elkhart's River District. Editing is done by the award-winning communication students at Goshen College, home of one of the best college radio stations in the nation. Listen to Globe Radio at 91.1 FM. Learn more about the Community Foundation of Elkhart County at inspiringgood.org You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Music is provided by Sensational Sounds. Thanks for listening. We hope you are inspired and inspire good and your community.

Welcome to the Inspiring Good Podcast. This podcast is brought to you by the Community foundation of Elkhart county, which serves a vibrant community in Northern Indiana, known for its generosity and strong network of nonprofit organizations. I'm Marshall King, your co host with Kevin Deary, a veteran nonprofit CEO who now coaches others. Today our guest is Candy Yoder, Chief Program Officer at the Community Foundation. She's retiring from that role at the end of this year. She started as a social worker and was CEO of CAPS before joining the Community foundation half a dozen years ago. We're here to talk with Candy about how she spent the last 40 years helping others and how she plans to do that after retirement. Welcome, Candy. Thank you. It's fun to be here. Candy. It is so good to have you on the show as our audience doesn't know, but we have been friends and colleagues for a long time. 32 years. Absolutely. That's a long time. And it was a privilege to be a CEO at Boys and Girls Cub while you were CEO of caps. So I had a chance to watch you transition from a mentor for many of us, Daryl Abbott, who just passed away and you were chosen to replace Darrell and how hard that must have been. I just want to have just to take a minute to have you recognize and talk about Daryl. Thank you. Thanks for giving me that opening. Yeah. I worked for Daryl for 20 plus years. And I'll tell you, when I came to this community and found this child abuse prevention organization and began my journey there, Daryl had already been there 15 years. And I remember thinking, that's too long for any one person to be with any one organization. It can't be good for the person or the organization. But I was there for a long time because what I learned from Daryl is that if you're passionate about the work and it's a strong organization, it doesn't feel like work and life is good.yl And Daryl kind of set that tone for everybody who came around him. He brought child abuse to a level in Elkhart County of awareness and prevention intervention. His programs at CAPS that you then took over and grew incredibly over your years and your span as CEO stand today have stood at the test of time. We hope to eradicate child abuse someday. But you started simply with in your early days, early part of your career, you were doing foster home checks and licensing.yl Tell me, tell me how that all started for you when you were investigating child abuse and coming right out of college. That must have been really hard. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to come to my own story, but I want to Go back to what you said about Daryl being the first child abuse prevention person here in Elkhart County. And indeed he was. There was a group of volunteers in the community who said, child abuse is a problem here and we can do something about it. And Daryl was working at the Department of Child Services at the time as an investigator himself, and he knew that prevention was important. So he came out of doing the work of investigations to found this prevention organization. And that's what was attractive to me, because as you said, I did get my start doing investigations licensing foster homes in New Mexico, where I was working. We carried a case from the investigation through final placement, whether that was at home or in adoptive homes. And that was really hard work. You see people at their darkest times and you see the saddest parts of our society, and it's hard work, and yet it's really important work. And I found that after my son was born, it became even more difficult for me to do that work because as I would investigate neglect or abuse of an infant, I couldn't help but see my own son in that face. So I began to burn out after about seven years. And that's when we moved to this community and I found this organization that did prevention. And I thought, wow, what an opportunity. I need to know more about that. When you were transitioning to CEO, that's a significant shift, because it's not. You're just not doing caseloads, you're not just supervising caseloads, but you now have a board of directors, you have to raise the money, you become the face of the organization. When you were transitioning, what were some of the biggest challenges in this new leadership role? Well, there were major challenges. You talk about it being a public facing role, and it certainly is. And for someone who never wanted that, who never sought that, that was probably my biggest initial challenge. Now, I know there are personalities that love that love being on stage and love being in the spotlight. Well, that wasn't me. So I had to get comfortable with that, with being in that space, even as the leader of the staff. I remember clearly one of the leadership books I read said, when you're the CEO, you need to sit at the head of the table. Well, I literally was not doing that in staff meetings because I didn't want to be in that seat as head of the table. And I realized that's the role I'm in, that's my responsibility. And so I had to get comfortable with that. I had to get comfortable with setting the tone, with setting the vision. And I learned to love that part of the work. Well, that is such a key point. There are so many new leaders that are coming on board as executive director, CEO. What other advice would you give these new CEOs that are now facing forward, directing teams, directing a board, raising money? What other. You and I have a little bit of talked about this in the past, but there is things you wish you could tell yourself when you started. What are some of those nuggets? Well, I think the most important thing is to learn from others. I think I remember my early days as CEO and I was a member of the CEO Roundtable. You and I were colleagues. You were one of the mentors. You and Don Phillips and Paula Shively and others who had been in that seat for a while were there to give advice. And it became also a place of accountability where when I would share a challenge I was facing, the rest of you would challenge me. So what am I going to do? And the next time we met, they would ask, you would ask, have you done that? So it became an accountability checkpoint. And I can't imagine a new leader without that kind of accountability and challenging space where you can wrestle with problems and wrestle with whatever the struggle is and get some good advice. So I think being open to learning from others is really important. Candy, you spoke at our annual celebration for the Community foundation in October and gave the keynote address. It was a lovely, moving speech, but it was a chat with our community and thanking and affirming and naming some really important things. You talked about vision and collaboration and humility. But one of the things you mentioned is what you alluded to a little bit ago. You mentioned that the best prize is working hard at meaningful work. I mean, talk a little bit more about that and how you discovered that and how that has kind of carried you throughout this long career. When you're working on something as important as children's safety, that's a driving point. And if the question becomes in your mind, are the children safe? And that was the question I had to ask as an investigator of abuse and neglect. And then in the programs where we were preventing abuse and neglect, that became the question too, is the work we're doing keeping children safe. That's a very compelling question and very meaningful work to do. And I would say too, that doing the prevention work gave us a chance to see parents who were changing the story for their families generations to come, where families were breaking the cycle of abuse and neglect. And that is so promising, that is so fulfilling. And when we'd have parents say things Like, I remember cowering from my parent when I was a child. And I was determined not to repeat that with my own children. And to be a part of that story, even though it might take hard work to build those relationships where that happens, it's so worth it. And the payoff, knowing that kids are safe is so worth it. Doing that kind of work means you don't work a day in your life, right? Well, that's beautifully said. Talking about your keynote, you had talked about being a vision keeper for all these years, continuing the vision that Darrell had, shaping it to meet the times, because times and laws have changed, families have changed, structures have changed. But early on, you were caps, was the leader of pulling leaders of other organizations, whether it's schools or churches or nonprofits, together. And that has kind of spilled into now building Strong Brains, which is such a strong initiative that the community foundation here has developed. And really, it was your vision of systemic care and understanding the power of systems to have a deeper outreach. Could you talk a little bit about systems and some of the work of bsb? Yeah. Well, let me go back to setting that vision. When I became CEO, I knew that my. One of my first tasks was to set that vision for the organization. And preventing child abuse is a laudable cause and mission. And everybody in the community knew CAPS for that. But I knew we needed to form something that was measurable and trackable and that could engage the community in a really strong way. And that's where we settled on reducing child abuse and neglect by 30% by the year 2020. That became a driving force for the board and for our team as we strategized how to really make that happen. And we knew it couldn't have been just CAPS alone. That's where the system came into play, because we knew we needed other community partners to join us in this really important effort. We knew the answers lied across all of these systems. And so it became important for us to partner with faith communities, with schools, with libraries, with families themselves. And now in this county wide coalition of building strong brains, that story is being repeated. We have a different data point we're tracking, and that is our kindergarten readiness assessment scores. We know those scores aren't what we want, and so in order to change that, we're bringing systems to the table. You know, I said in my speech at that keynote, for every difficult, complex problem, there is a solution that is simple and clear and wrong. We know that these complex issues really take complex solutions. When you started this initiative, tell me, who were the first major Partners that. Who are the pillars that came around that you've built this systemic vision on? Yeah, we had five organizations that kind of quickly came together. One was Crossroads United Way. They've always had an early childhood area of focus for themselves. One was the system of care. They were doing prevention work across the county. Another one was caps, a Natural partner, Horizon Education alliance, where they had this early childhood focus as well. And then the Community Foundation. Quickly we were joined with other folks like the Health Systems, the Health Department, reta, the Federally Qualified Healthcare centers, libraries. So it has grown quickly to about. 70 organizations, including Goshen College. Absolutely. Oaklawn. There's just. Everybody's part of this system of care. And you're taking some really good strides and you're being coached by somebody from Canada, I believe. Can you talk a little bit about them? Yes. So when we started imagining how we might do this in Elkhart county, we said, who across the country has been successful at this? Who knows how to do these systems change efforts? And we actually interviewed three different firms who consult with other communities. And we landed on Tamarack Institute, who has been effective at helping communities reduce poverty across the country of Canada. We have been engaged with them since the beginning, and they've had really good tools for us and processes and really a way of thinking about bringing organizations together where no one has authority over each other, but we all have this shared agreement on what we want to accomplish. I think one of the most powerful parts of your speech at our annual luncheon, when you gave the African proverb, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. That's so true. That is something I'm going to use. And tell me how that fits into your own personal vision. And you have practiced this for decades, so tell me how this started and where you got it. Yeah. Well, my own personal bias is for action. I tend to want to move quickly and move toward action quickly. And sometimes that has not been good because I've moved too fast and others have been left behind and we haven't found the right solution. But I have found it to be so true that if we bring bright minds to the table and you have this shared goal, you can come up with better solutions. But that takes time. And actually, it's a struggle for me sometimes with the pace that progress moves because of my bias toward action. And I want to get there quickly. It's the CEO in you. Maybe so. But I do know that we'll get the best solutions if we have lots of voices around the table and listen to each other. Well, Candy, you are. You're an amazing leader and so well respected in the community. I'm curious what it has been like to be one of the few female CEOs in Elkhart county during the era in which you've done the majority of your work. What did that look like and feel like? You know, I really didn't think about that very much. I paid more attention to am I doing the work right and what can I learn from other people around me now? There were personalities. I've talked about Kevin and Don as my peers in the Seat yout Round table and both east coast strong personalities, type A personalities and loud voices in the room often. But that was about their personality. I don't think my challenges and my shyness were about me being a woman, but just my own personality. So I didn't pay attention to that a lot. And there were women who were leading the way for me. I think of Paula Shively at ADAC who was a strong female leader. Lori Knafsiger at Oakland, strong female leader. So I had good models and role models around me and paid more attention to what actions am I taking and what attitude and shadow am I creating versus am I a woman or a man? I thought you mentioned Don. The three of us became fast friends. The three of us shared resources for families, for people, for individuals. If any one of us needed anything, we helped our organization. There was no sense of it was all done for the right reasons. I am sure that every time that Don and I work with you we saw humility and class and a level of intelligence and teamwork that guys like Don and I weren't used to. I'm not sure what we gave to you other than grief, but we loved working with you and with your leadership team and with your board. And quickly Basher Capps and Boys and Girls Club became the probably the three conveners of ideas and being able to combine resources for the good of families and none of us looking for credit. Just it was the right thing to do no matter what time we called each other. Yeah. And I think we recognized that our single organization couldn't be successful without the other two organizations being strong. All three of us had countywide influence, served families across the county and beyond. And we each had our own niche and if we shared our resources, we were better together. I know we shared training. We had. I remember the time where I had folks who were moving into leadership, mid level leadership and I was looking for training and Don Phillips said, I Have this training, send them to me. We'll do it together. And that's exactly the way we did work together. And I think that's a unique thing about this community, is the way we can lean on each other and share with each other. And it's not a competition with each other. It's about partnering together to get our goals all met. And I think one of the areas that I'm most proud of is you look at Rebecca Shetler Fast, who's now CAP CEO, and Tammy Hicks Boys and Girls Club, and Sean McCrindle, Ed Basher. Those three have kept that trust, friendship and impact on the community as you and I and Don had originally did. And to see those leaders now, when we sit back and see the quality of the people that are coming into leadership of major big size organizations, their grasp of technology, their grasp of seen past themselves at this young, at their young ages, really, they really just get going. They've had other careers, but now they're jumped into this career and they are, all three of them are excelling. And how fortunate that makes us feel to see such level of leadership. And we hope that this continues to the next level, to the next level, to the next person. Well, I do see each of them pouring into their own leadership and also partnering well with others in the community to again accomplish more together. And as I said, I think that's what makes Elkhart county unique. I hear from others who work across counties how unique this collaborative spirit is. And I hope we never lose that. It's magic. So now that I've built you up and you know how I feel about you now, I got to ask you a tough leadership question. Every leader has blind spots. So as you were growing as into this leader you became, where were your blind spots? Yeah, well, you know, first of all, I have to say that it took me a long time to recognize that I really did have blind spots. I somehow I think I used to think that blind spots were just. I hadn't read enough, I didn't know enough. But there literally are blind. There are things we cannot know about ourselves. And it took me late in my career to understand that. And part of blind spots for me is how I naturally react to people, especially to, you know, the way people work that maybe are different than my style. And sometimes I don't make enough space for those folks. And the way I think that I'm leading them is actually harming the relationship or harming the work. And it took a long time for me, through failings, I guess, to learn that and it took people being willing to give me feedback in an honest way to help me see it. No, I think that is so important. Every leader has blind spots. There isn't anybody who doesn't. Being for me, it was learning how to truly listen, not only with my, with my ears, but also with my heart. To really listen to my staff, to listen to our families, to listen to board members and donors, to listen to the community, to listen to our comrades that worked so closely with us, including schools, churches, Caps Basher and so many others, that we were to really listen and take in when we make a decision, what's the impact on people? Right. And especially if we're driven hard to success and we're working a plan and somebody gives us feedback that derails that plan and we're really driven to achieve, we have to have the humility to step back and say maybe there is a better way and maybe I can do this in a different way. I could have used that African proverb after my first five years. Yeah. Oh, me too. Because I was running fast, running hard. So that's such a good point about listening to others. Kenny, you led your program team in several, I mean collaboratively reading some books together, particularly around the issue of race over the last five years or so. Tell us a little bit more about that and why that was important and what you learned from it. You mentioned reading as a way to know, but this was more than that. This was, this was engaging each other and engaging others outside of that team. What I'm curious, tell us. Yes. So it was after the George Floyd murder and there was this national conversation about race and racism and we began to ask ourselves, how has the, the system we were raised in impacted us and impacted therefore the grant making work we're doing. That's really what drove this question for us. Are we building things in our own processes that perpetuate this dynamic? And so we said, let's read some books together and talk about them. And I think there were five books or so that we read and we would just take turns facilitating discussion around a chapter and began to really uncover what did we learn from the communities we were raised in, the families we were raised in, the relationships we had and we saw our families have. And in my case, I didn't have anyone in my life for the first probably 12 years of my life that were not white and I wasn't exposed to, I didn't have the opportunity to have relationships with other people. And so the only thing I knew, I absorbed from the Society around me. We learned together that the history books that we used in school and the history lessons did not tell us the whole stories. And we absorbed this message that our society has built into our white supremacy history. We began to uncover or ask ourselves, do these principles, do these ideas make their way into our grant making process and if so, how do we adjust? What changes do we need to make and how can we listen better to the rest of the community? That's very deep and I thank you for sharing that. We all grew up with a set of biases that we are not familiar with. Yes, we all have biases. You know, we all, all of us have biases. We're built for that. We have to, we have to make decisions about is this better or worse? Because there's too many options that come at us all the time and we're blind often to those choices and those preferences that we have unless we step back and really tear apart, piece apart what's behind the, the assumptions that we make. As you were transitioning and you made the decision to retire, both of us are 40 plus years in community service. When you made the decision to retire from CAPS and come to the Community foundation and start another chapter of your career, tell me what that thought process was of when you knew it was time and then how you communicated it. Yeah, well, when I left caps, it wasn't to do a smaller job, it was to do a bigger job. And I really wasn't looking for that. The opportunity was presented to take this cross sector, community wide initiative that would include the work of CAPS and beyond to make an impact in early childhood. And that was an opportunity I just couldn't say no to. As I said, I wasn't looking for it. And it actually surprised me that I was open to it because I had been contacted by headhunters looking for executive directors in the region and across the country and I never had an interest. I loved my work at capps, I loved the mission of capps and I loved this community. And when there was this opportunity to do this early childhood initiative across systems, I thought all of my work so far, my career has kind of prepared me for potentially this next step. So that's what the motivation was. So you transitioned here to the Community Foundation? Probably. What year was that? What year was that? 2018. 2018. And in 2022 is when I retired from Boys and Girls Clubs. And then in 23 I came to the Community foundation and I was not surprised. First of all, your graciousness and knowing I was coming from a Very similar path from you and how nervous I hadn't worked another job. You were very nervous. I was very nervous. And coming to work that first day an hour and a half early, I was ready to get my, to get going. I just didn't know where I was going. Yes. And you were so kind to take me out to lunch that day and just kind of teach me the ropes and let me know that these are the values and this is the pace that we keep and that it would be okay. Trust me. You will find work and work will find you. As the director of professional and organizational development, it quickly took off. You're busy enough. Right. And the learning center TLC has been fun. That's been so much fun. I just wanted to thank you for your, for your friendship and your mentoring through that time. But now you're entering, now you're retiring kind of again. You're slowing down. You're going to remain with the Community Foundation, a part time role. Can you talk a little bit about when you decided to do that and what exactly you'll be doing? Yeah. So I had kind of set in my mind kind of an age of when retirement might make sense for me. I watched my own energy level and my own passion, a fire in my belly for the work and recognized that it was time for me to step back from some set of responsibilities. And I am having so much fun with this building strong Brains early childhood initiative. Not fun in just all pleasure, but it is so rewarding to see this coalition growth happening and I'm not ready to step away from that. So was able to work with Pete to agree on a smaller role, part time role with building strong Brains, still investing whatever I can to help that grow and stay strong while giving up some responsibilities here. And some of that is age and energy level. And it's time for a next leader to take over those responsibilities. And I do want to go back to what you said about when you came, how nervous you were. Isn't it interesting that after a 40 year career someone is still nervous starting a new job? It just talks about the human nature of being in spaces that are unknown and we don't know what to expect and what steps to take. And I remember my first week on the job here as Chief Program Officer, my brain was so tired. I was exhausted at the end of the day for the first week and I thought I haven't done anything, why am I tired? Learning is hard and I think that's a good life lesson for all of us as we continue through our Career. We continue to learn, and that still takes energy. I think one of my fondest memories will be in my early days being in your office. And I happened to look out and across the parking lot, pretty far away, there was a fight going on between freshman and high school, some kind of fight. And I immediately ran downstairs and ran out to break out the fight. Yes, you did. And to walk the two boys away, talking with them and counseling them. And I just remember your face when I saw you, and you were like, you just can't take the social worker out of here. So I always remember that because it just speaks to whatever we were talking about that was really important. But there was a fight going on out there, and I have to go break that up. That was urgent to me. That was. You know, that'll never come out of us. The systems of care, the. The love of the community that you have will never be taken out of you. I don't think either one of us will ever fully retire. We'll just stop working at some point. Take a different role. It's a different role. And I just so appreciated watching you over the years have so much respect for the body of work that you have and so proud of the legacy that you have left. And this African proverb is really something I hope everybody hears about. You can only do so much alone. You've got to go together. And your mentoring, you and a host of other folks have really made it possible for me to succeed. I couldn't have done what I did by myself. This is really a story of how people pour into other leaders and join together and partner together. So thank you for your mentorship and friendship over the years. And to the rest of the community who have done that also, I thank you, and I'm grateful. Candy, what are you most looking forward to with this additional time? Well, I'm looking forward to playing my piano a little more, to more walks and more hikes and some more trips with my husband, and more being and less doing. That's great. What do you hope this community looks like in 10 years related to this work that you've done over your career and that you'll continue to do in many ways, even after you step back from this program role? I hope this community, and by that I mean faith community, business community, elected officials, all nonprofits, recognize the incredible importance of what early childhood looks like for Elkhart County. And I hope that we are the best place to raise a family. Last question. What gives you hope? There are two things that give me hope. One is the resiliency of the human spirit. I've seen it in children who are so harmed get back up and move on to make life good. I've seen it in parents who have been so burdened by their own trauma, who work really hard to make sure that doesn't get repeated in their own children. The human resiliency. And I've seen it in leaders who try hard and try hard and keep trying because they know it's worthwhile. So human resiliency and the way we work together, those two things give me hope. Thank you. Even in those closing words, you continue to teach us and I know that that won't stop. But thank you so much for your service to make this county better and all of us better. We're deeply grateful and thanks for joining us today. Thank you so much. It was fun to reflect on this and I'm grateful to share my story. This show is a production of the Community foundation of Elkhart County. It is powered by equipment from Sweetwater and recorded at the Community Foundation's offices in Elkhart's River District. Editing is done by the award winning communication students at Goshen College, home of one of the best college radio stations in the nation. Listen to Globe Radio at 91.1 FM. Music is provided by Sensational Sounds. Learn more about the Community foundation of elkhart county@inspiringgood.org. you can follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. We hope you're inspired and inspire good in your community.