Episode Summary

In this episode of the Make Space for More podcast, host Melissa Swink interviews Kristen Powers, the executive director of Benevolence Farm, a nonprofit focused on supporting formerly incarcerated women. Kristen shares her journey into nonprofit work, the mission of Benevolence Farm, and the challenges and growth the organization has experienced. 

Tune in to learn about the nonprofit’s approach to community support, innovative reentry programs, and the personal stories that drive their mission. Kristen also discusses her evolving role as an executive director and the tools and strategies she employs to sustain energy and focus within the nonprofit sector.

Key Highlights:

• Learn why traditional reentry programs often fall short, and how Benevolence Farm is revolutionizing the approach to supporting formerly incarcerated women.
• Discover how authentic leadership and innovative thinking can transform lives through sustainable community solutions.
• Get an inside look at navigating nonprofit leadership challenges while maintaining mission focus and preventing burnout.
• Find out how strategic planning and systems creation can help mission-driven organizations scale their impact effectively.
• Learn valuable lessons about building and maintaining community support networks that drive meaningful change.

About Our Guest: 

Kristen Powers (she/her/hers), Executive Director of Benevolence Farm, believes that we are more than our worst mistakes. As director of a rural reentry nonprofit, Kristen, who also goes by KP, is honored to work alongside formerly incarcerated women who are creating innovative reentry programs and advocating for systemic change. It is her hope that we can learn to create communities capable of addressing harm and safety together, outside of prisons and jails. Kristen loves the fact that her own life was changed by moving to a farm and now gets to work at one.

About Melissa:

Melissa Swink, Founder & CEO of Melissa Swink & Co., has a team of virtual assistants who provide administrative and marketing support for small businesses and non-profits.

Since 2012, Melissa and her team have helped more than 100 businesses grow through the services they offer, and she is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs create profitable, scalable businesses they love.

Her work is all about doing what works (and eliminating what doesn’t) and driving real, measurable results. Visit www.melissaswink.com to learn more! 

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Hi everyone, welcome to the Make Space for More podcast where we talk strategies for growing and scaling your business in a way that's authentic and aligned for you. I'm your host, Melissa Swink, and in today's episode, I have another very special guest joining me. I have had the pleasure of interviewing so many wonderful guests over the last several episodes, and we have a few more to go before the end of the year here. But just wanted to take a moment and let my audience know, all of you listening, that

The guests that we've invited to be on this podcast have stories to share. They're very inspiring. I know many of them personally before they've come on the show. I will also say that I am not paying guests to be on my podcast. I do not receive any income should you ever do any business with any of our guests or purchase anything from them. And likewise, they're not paying me to be on the show, right?

So just wanted to acknowledge that because it's come up recently where I've made some really strong recommendations. Like I really love the way that this person runs their company. I highly recommend their services and so on. And it just occurred to me, like, I should probably be super transparent that I am genuinely excited to have our guests on the podcast for very specific reasons and they're not.

related to monetary compensation in any way. So wanted to just kind of give that update because it's been something on my mind because I feel like we live in a world where there's just a whole lot. I don't know. Authenticity is lacking, I think. But I wanted to set the tone for today's conversation with Kristin Powers. I will introduce her in a moment. She is a unique guest in that she is the executive director of a nonprofit.

So I know we have several clients who are executive directors of nonprofits or have been involved or maybe even serve on the board of nonprofits and not necessarily business owners or entrepreneurs. And so I love the fresh perspective that Kristin is going to share just with how she came into her role and just how she runs her organization and how she stays focused and all of those things, which we'll dive into. But I specifically wanted to invite Kristin to be on the show because

I really love the work that she is doing with Benevolence Farm, which we'll share more about in a second here. So I'm going to go ahead and introduce Kristin so you all have a background of her and her organization and what she's about. And then we're just going to dive into an exciting conversation where she can share her story, the work that they're doing and all the things. So that being said, Kristin Powers, the executive director of Benevolence Farm believes that we are more than our worst mistakes.

Absolutely. I love this. As a director of a rural reentry nonprofit, Kristin, who also goes by KP, I have seen that in your emails, is honored to work alongside formerly incarcerated women who are creating innovative reentry programs and advocating for systemic change. It is her hope that we can learn to create communities capable of addressing harm and safety together outside of prisons and jails.

Kristen loves the fact that her own life was changed by moving to a farm and now gets to work at one. Kristen, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today. Yes, absolutely. So before we dive into all the work that you're doing at Benevolence Farm, when I first met you, I was like blown away by the work of the organization. It's so important and I can't wait to get to that story. Tell us a little bit about you.

Thank you for having me.

Sure. Well, I am from North Carolina here in the southern part of the United States, and I really strongly identify with the community I'm in. I grew up here. I went out of state for college and then came back because I wanted to address this movement that happens in the South called the brain drain where a lot of people leave. But the South had given me so much for my own personal development that I wanted to come back here.

so happened that I also got to work in organizations that really aligned with my belief system and values. you know, otherwise I think about me, I'm someone who, again, had her life changed by a farm. So I love animals. I love being outside, taking walks outside too. And, you know, someone who really values my chosen family. I don't always have my immediate family nearby and have lost, unfortunately, family members to

different illnesses over the years and so my chosen family, including my friends, are very important to me.

I love that. Now, just out of curiosity, you had mentioned moving to a farm. At what age did you move to a farm? Okay. So that's an age that I feel like it could go one of two ways. Like, this sucks, I don't want to be here. Like, what were they thinking? Or it's like, a place to just be and bond with animals. Like, that's a very interesting age for a lot of reasons. So I love that the farm was...

I was 13.

It sounds like impactful for you.

Yes, very much so. And I had grown up in a family that was employed in animal welfare. So I was already kind of primed with the animal side. But yeah, I think we went from living in an apartment outside of Boston, which was very hectic and a lot of things going on, things that didn't feel like they were serving us very well. So my dad received an opportunity to live on a farm and care for the animals on the farm. So we took that and

I think my brother had a harder adjustment period than I did. I think I was pretty ready to be out in nature and have access to these animals. And it was a kind of unique farm in that we were actually not that far away from downtown Chapel Hill and I could walk to the bus stop and get on the bus and go downtown. So it was an as rural as some of these farms, which I think helped with that adjustment period.

That makes perfect sense. So you could be on the farm and then when you wanted a more urban environment, you wanted some activity, you wanted to go shopping and do what teenagers like to do, you could just hop on the bus and it's only a short ride away. I love that. It's like the best of both worlds. Yes, I love it. So tell me about how you got involved at Benevolence Farm. What road led you to that organization?

Yes.

So I, I mean, I the short story is I was working at an organization that was working alongside formerly incarcerated activists. And we were doing a lot of work to try to partner with employers to open up hiring processes to people who are affected by felony records or incarceration. And someone mentioned this farm and they told me where it was. And I was like, well, that's 10 minutes from where I live. And I would like,

to maybe volunteer there. I'd also recently graduated from college and unfortunately had lost my dad to brain cancer a few months prior. So I was feeling really like disconnected. had left all my college friends, all my high school friends had moved away after their time in college and kind of wanted a community connection. So the farm was interesting. Then also the support for women was something that drew me in because I

My mom growing up had Huntington's disease, which meant that she looked drunk or under the influence a lot because of how it affects your movement and your neurological abilities. so I kind of, thankfully she had never been arrested, but there were plenty of times people called the police on her. And I think I was, as a kid, pretty aware that there were better ways to resolve this. You know, they could have asked her what she needed or how, what, what help she needed, or just, you know, check in with her.

The kind of default was to call police on us, which affected our, you know, my ability to feel safe in my community. And also like people were always monitoring us. And I think a lot of the stories that I was hearing of women who are at the farm, know, similar things where, where problems were being addressed with an outside group, like the police and not in community with one another. Um, and so to have that opportunity to do, to work with people at the farm.

Yes.

who are affected by these issues kind of struck a nerve. So I started off as a volunteer. I was in our resource development committee, which is like a fancy way to say fundraising, and then joined the board of directors. And a year or so later after that, the executive director position opened and I applied and became interim and have not left ever since.

my gosh, so this is not your first work in the nonprofit space either.

No, I've pretty much always worked in nonprofit space. I've had, you know, like small business of my own for a while on and off, but yeah, I professionally in like a career role have always been in nonprofits.

Gotcha, gotcha. There's so much that I want to unpack with what you've said, especially with the community, the problem solving within the community. just, I can feel for that. I know I have a friend whose son is a type one diabetic. And he sometimes, for the lack of better terms, he will have an insulin low and he has been Narcan.

by police before, and that's clearly not what he needs. So there's been a lot of confusion. He travels for work with a crew. I think he works as an electrician. And I believe that the police and the rescuers, they're not doing anything with bad intentions, but they just don't understand what's happening.

and they're not listening as crew members are trying to explain, or I'm sure that you would try to explain when suddenly somebody shows up at your house. You bring that interesting point to light that I hadn't really considered that this is something that's actually quite common. Interesting. But anyway, that was kind of a, I just was having an aha moment as you were talking about this. like, that sounds really familiar to what she deals with with her son. my gosh.

But anyway, tell us a little bit about the work that Benevolence Farm does.

Sure. So the Netherlands farm was created by our founder, Tanya Jisa, who is responding to this observation that there was this massive increase in incarceration across the United States. the along that rise, women's incarceration was in some estimates growing 800 % from the inception of the war on drugs around the 1970s. But the gender responsive resources for women coming home were have certainly

even to this day, not kept pace with that growth. And that was something that as a social worker, she was hearing from people that women needed and the women themselves were saying they needed housing and employment. So Benevolent's Farm was created to not only provide that immediate housing and employment, but to also address this gender responsive need and to create community where people could come home. The farm came about because she was

asking people what they miss the most while incarcerated and behind the answers of family and children and friends, there was some of these messages resonating of like sunlight or stars or like the breeze because when you're incarcerated, you cannot control your movement. so you can't just go outside and look at the stars or go outside when it's raining. You don't have the autonomy to choose. And you're often surrounded by metal and concrete and barbed wire.

which are like the most anti-natural feeling substances out there. And so the location was somewhat intentional to reflect this opportunity to heal in nature. So that's where the farm component comes in, which also ties into our employment program.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, wonderful. yes, and I do recall somebody that I knew growing up, their parent had been in prison when he was young and he just, the feeling of the sun on your face and being able to walk freely down the sidewalk is an incredible feeling because you're right, the typical prison is, it's the complete opposite of living in the natural world.

So now with your program, so you have formerly incarcerated women who are essentially working the farm. And then as I understand it, you also have products that you are essentially creating from the items being grown on the farm, or should say the plants and flowers are being grown on the farm.

Yes. Yeah, we have like a farm to body care pipeline, so to speak. So people are employed on the farm to grow herbs and flowers that are then infused into body care products that we sell. And those proceeds and profits from those sales invest back into the living wages that they earn as part of that. So they're living on the farm, have immediate housing, you when they get out of prison and then also have that immediate paycheck too.

Interesting, interesting. And how do they get connected with the farm as they are getting ready to be released from prison? I'm just curious.

Yeah. So at this point, eight years in is kind of a word of mouth situation and almost like a flywheel. Like we really don't need to advertise. There's three primary women's prisons in North Carolina and about 3000 women incarcerated at any point in time in the year. so, you know, originally it was a lot of outreach to organizations and family groups and anyone, the case managers in prisons to try to.

make them aware of this new program. But at this point, people are usually hearing about us through their case managers, through friends and family, through programming in prisons, and then they're applying to try to secure, you know, hopefully an open bed at the time of their release. And we're an organization that does not discriminate on conviction type. often, sometimes we're people's only option, depending on their conviction. And then for us, the biggest criteria is like,

Do you feel comfortable coming to a rural community to coming to a farm? That's not for everyone. And we just want to make sure that it's a mutually beneficial fit. But really the biggest barrier for us is that we just don't have enough space to meet the demand.

Okay, yes, yes, absolutely. So that's a perfect segue kind of back into your role as an executive director. You started off as a volunteer with the organization. The position opened up. You took it in the interim, or I should say you expressed interest. Not that you just like took the job, making it super easy. Sounds much easier than it was, but you became the interim executive director and now it's fully your role. How long have you been in this role, by the way?

So I was interim and started full-time January 2020. So it was a very thrown in the deep end with COVID. And then I became full-time in October 2020 or permanent permanent. So yes, I usually just say December 2019 was my offer letter date. And so almost six years.

Hmm?

almost five years.

and haven't looked back, right? It's just gone by in a blur, just like everything else. So now tell me about kinda how your role has evolved in the last five years. I would imagine you've seen a lot of growth through the organization and with your team as well.

Yeah.

Yeah, have this, this type of model we have is not common. And so there's a lot of need for innovation in, there have been many challenges with this organization. So when I came on, we were actually coming out of this financial insecurity as an organization and only really were able to maintain two to three staff at that point for an organization that was serving up to six people coming home from prison who needed.

really intense wraparound support. So when I came on, had one employee that was existing and an organization that I recall, I think we were like 200, maybe 200, $250,000 in revenue. And then really didn't face a lot of uncertainty with COVID. Like we did not know like many organizations if we were going to survive that, especially with prisons being hot beds for COVID, the first.

person in North Carolina to die from COVID was an incarcerated woman. So we knew people coming out of prison were exposed and coming from dangerous settings. And then how do we safely integrate into our community? Thankfully, during COVID, we did see a massive amount of support. We received the PPP loan from the government and had that forgiven. So we were able to grow and over the years have almost swelled in.

Wow

staff numbers up to eight or nine, I think at one point and have kind of settled back down to about five and grown the organization now we're about $750,000 in revenue.

Wow, wow, that's incredible. So what does your team look like now currently? Just out of curiosity.

We have five full-time members on our staff, and we call them permanent staff because we also employ formerly incarcerated women coming out of the program, but they're in a temporary role. So there's myself there. We have a community advocacy director who she part-time works in our workshop supporting the employment program, but also leads a lot of our community-based programming like family reunification and housing support, both for our alumni.

and for other women who may or may not be able to join a reentry community. She kind of supports them. We have a farm manager. And then we have two staff who do more of the programmatic support of people in the program. And as of now, three-fifths of our staff are women who have gone through the program. And so they're formally incarcerated and have returned after leaving the farm to join staff.

That's incredible and a true testament to the impact that you're having as well. Absolutely. So tell me a little bit about your role because I would imagine your role has changed as your team has changed and as time has gone on. you kind of I want to say we're baptized by fire because you came into this role right in the thick of COVID. So it was kind of a sink or swim situation for a lot of people, but certainly somebody who's newer to a role.

Thank you.

What does your role look like these days?

Yeah. it is still definitely a lot of hats. when I, you know, I, one of the opportunities of being so understaffed when we first started is I have pretty much done everything, you know, that I'm asking staff to do. I've provided rides. I've, know, how to give people bad news. I've had, I've been, had the chance to like celebrate with successes. I've run the, the workshop for the day. I've run the farm for the day, you know, all these different things. So, so my role now is.

as we build our capacity, leaning more into what an executive director really is doing, which is steering the organization, finding resources for the organization, supporting staff in their roles. And I still definitely wear a lot of hats within that operational kind of setting, but it's definitely not as intense as it was a few years ago.

Sure, sure. Absolutely. And that's both the blessing and the curse of working on a small team in general, where, you know, when there's a need, it's whoever's available, you know, needs to help fill that need until when things come up. So to your point, you've given rides. You've kind of done all, you've worn a lot of hats. You have at least helped out in all these other roles throughout your time in the organization. That's very, very true. And I was having that conversation with

my daughter and I volunteer at a local animal shelter and they were saying the same thing is sometimes it becomes everyone's job but then the risk also is that then it's also nobody's job where sometimes there is no one person who's taking full ownership of said thing. Yeah, absolutely. So with your role in the organization right now, just out of curiosity, what are some of the things on your list that you're looking to like

Right, yeah, we've seen that too.

hire or invest in next because there's probably like you say, there is plenty of demand for the work that you do.

Yeah. So it's, it's, pretty relevant timing. Cause right now we're, we're having these staff meetings, which we kind of call our dreaming and scheming meetings. So the first meeting, yeah, later today we'll have our dreaming meeting, which is imagining what we want for the organization. And, we already have some ideas of that. And I have ideas for that, which include like, how do we continue to better staff our organization to support the needs of formerly incarcerated people? So a lot of that involves, we're still.

I like that.

trying to support the social enterprise operations to increase our revenue so that we're at parity with the revenue from our social enterprise being able to fully pay the wages of our participants, which right now we offset from the nonprofit fundraising. And also trying to figure out how, for example, to provide more support to our folks.

Many women who are incarcerated experience things like substance use disorder. so hiring what we call peer staff to support them. And there's a peer support certification program in North Carolina that trains people with that lived experience to use what they've learned from their own process of entering recovery to help other people in similar positions. So it's kind of like a credible messenger, someone who's been there, done that, and can provide advice. So we certainly want to try to hire.

Yes.

hire more for those roles and then someday maybe hiring more people to help with operations on our end. So today we're going to dream like the big picture and then our scheming side is like now would, especially for 2026, while thinking about budgeting and the realities of fundraising, that's where we'll kind of hone in more on, okay, we have this vision now. What is realistic for the implementation side to get closer to that ideal?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes, absolutely. And obviously, you and everyone on your team, you're juggling multiple priorities at any given point in time as well, because you are a small but mighty team. How do you kind of determine and stay focused on your priorities as the executive director without being pulled in so many different directions? Like, how do you make that decision whether this is something that I truly need to set things aside and handle today versus, you know, what do I need to sometimes

I don't want to say let go of or maybe pause for now because this is more important. How do you kind of weigh out what needs your attention and your time in any given day?

Yeah, I think some of what I think about is what I've heard from other women business owners, kind of this prioritization of the $10 million activity, the $1 million activity, $10,000, $10. So the way I convert that in the nonprofit world is what activities one can I only do or can I, am I best and most equipped to do and then pair in that with like the value of that activity and the

organizational need for that activity. And so really for me, that comes down to fundraising. you know, I am the person who has the relationships with our donors, and other staff can have those relationships, but is ultimately falls on me to raise the money that pays our staff. And so when I'm making, you know, my to-do list, I still get everything out of my brain onto a to-do list, but then I do try to reorganize of like, which of these activities has the highest return.

Okay. Yes.

Yes?

on my time investment and then try to also think about urgency. So like, there a fund and gap in funding that I need to fill or am I planning for next year or am I trying to take advantage of, for example, end of year when donors are most generous and trying to capitalize on that time period? Whereas in the J months, like January, June and July, people are out or have just spent a lot of money on vacation. So I also have learned kind of the

Mm-hmm.

the annual cadence of these activities too, because I don't want to necessarily exert, like in the month of July, I'm not as much like meeting with donors because I'm getting all the out of office responses. I'm more thinking, okay, like come the end of the year, you know, what systems do I need to have in place so that I can just focus on implementation and not so much the planning side.

Yes.

Yes, I love that you mentioned the J months. It sounds like you're also very aware of these cycles that you experience within the organization as well. Like January, money's all been spent last year at the end, know, November, December, June and July, you're right. I think every person, I think almost every one of our team members, every one of our clients at some point has taken a vacation in June or July. So you're right, it can be.

challenging to get things done in those months. And so being aware of that and just planning for it. So when you know that you're gonna have kind of a quieter month when it comes to, I'm just gonna say fundraising and donor relations and things like that. Are there other things that you intentionally fill those months with?

Yeah, so these are certainly more of the, the, the slower months are where I try to think of them as planning or things where my attention isn't as much drawn to like, driving to this meeting or driving to this event, because there just aren't that many meetings or events. So I'm thinking about, I suppose, like more of a strategy of, of the next few months, or, or, I mean, I think like the reason we're having the streaming session in July is part of that. Like we are.

Yes.

not as like harried running around to different markets or different events from the community hosting. And so we can kind of sit in and anticipate also good time to like review policies, make sure that things in writing that require more attention are addressed. So sometimes it also means I'm telling staff like, you know, the next four hours I'm trying to do kind of that deep thinking and can't necessarily be available for all the Slack messages or all the

text messages or phone calls, and here's how to reach me if it's an emergency. like, I'm going to try to try to focus in on the next few hours of these like outstanding to do lists that maybe didn't get prioritized during those busy months, but I can think about more clearly now.

Yes.

I love that, yes. And with you being in person, that presents a unique challenge versus those who are working remotely because you can literally have somebody kind of tap on your door and say, hey, do you got a minute? And then you have those interruptions, you have those physical interruptions. Or even if you do have team working remotely or you are working offsite for the day, you brought up Slack messages, like the tuning things out, the do not disturb, the...

the notifications being turned off all of that just say like heads down and focused is relatable for sure.

Yeah. Well, and I've even learned, know, one, I think one of the first three months on the job or in the summer of my first year, I took a call from a reporter on site and I like, we have 13 acres and I tried to go to the most remote corner within reason to have this conversation with a national reporter asking us about COVID in prisons. And somehow one of our folks found me and was like trying to wave me down and it looked really urgent. And, you know, she was

like, hey, I just wondered like, are we going to do a cookout this weekend? I was like, okay. I was like, I know you, you didn't know what my call was about. And also I think I've just understood to yeah, like being on site for certain activities. mean, that's why I'm at my, at my house right now, because it is very likely I would be interrupted if I were at the farm. And so, yeah, so that's another capacity thing that has changed is I've been able to have staff.

no!

who can rotate in and out on site. So I don't need to be there all the time or, or in the same for them too. They can go offsite and know there's other people to support residents.

Yes, absolutely. One of the things too that I wanted to ask you about is what are some of the systems or tools that you rely on on a day-to-day basis to maybe help run the organization or to keep your team organized and on task or even just communicate and keep everybody on the same page?

Yeah, so we actually underwent this whole process and I think it was 2021 or 2022 where we hired an operations consultant to help us figure that out because we were all trying to email each other. People were frustrated because people weren't responding to their emails. But if you know, users of Gmail know how like it stacks some of those emails, so things were getting missed. So the after that period of consultation, the systems that they helped us implement were things like Slack for communication. And we

Interesting.

have specific channels too that only require certain people to be in those channels. And I think that's been huge because we have information that maybe shared that's really sensitive and, or what we've tried to do to prevent burnout is also not everyone needs to get all the messages. So how do we even like pare down what is necessary for your role to be inundated with that information?

And then it also allows like our interns or volunteers sometimes to get in on Slack. And they also are not receiving some of the confidential messages. We also use ClickUp for our knowledge base. So that's also been very important, especially where we have like security things or key codes, or again, you can limit and change up who has access to what information. It also helps with accessing information about our

residents. you for example, the other day we had one of our residents birthdays. And when, when someone comes into our program, we ask things like, what are your favorite candy or favorite food, which usually involves some candy. and I was able to go back into that knowledge base. Cause that was a question we stored and ask in a particular place and can access that information. So then I was able to go buy some of her favorite things for her birthday. Yeah. And then we are like very much into G suite.

That's awesome. Yes.

Drive, Gmail. So those are some of the tools that we've used. then around those tools, we've tried to create systems of, particularly communication or using those tools in things like Loom and making videos. So for me, one of the actually most helpful thing I remember from that consultancy was making videos to explain mileage reimbursement because every new person I came in.

Mm-hmm.

we asked me how to do miles at mileage reimbursement. And so I was explaining it like 20 times a year. So I was able to make both a loom video and screenshots and links to the documents and who you emailed to send the mileage reimbursement to. So I only see it at the end stage when I approve it. And that I remember being like one of biggest differences is not having to explain that over and over again.

Yes.

Yes, yes, that's one of the things that I talk to clients about all the time is if you are having, if you are sharing the same information over and over and over again, that is a great candidate for some type of like quote unquote, in form, it can even be informal training. So to your point, creating a loom video and then some links and some instructions, here's how to do the mileage reimbursement forms, like game changer. And it's always the simple things.

that you're talking about over and over and over again. It's not something that's super high level and detailed and deep. It's usually just like those fairly simple tasks. Isn't that funny how that works out?

Yeah, it's like mosquito bites. Like one is like annoying and then, you know, the more you get bit, the more annoying it gets to handle it.

Yes. Yes. Yes. I love that. It's like the little mosquito that just like it doesn't go away. You're constantly like brushing it off and brushing it off. So it's like, okay, we need to take care of this. That's a perfect, perfect analogy for it. So Kristin, with working in the nonprofit space and certainly there are many industries that would fall in line with this as well, is you're giving a lot all the time. How do you recharge and stay focused?

Yeah, think it's, yeah, the focus side, I mean, I think it is.

and energized.

more of a daily practice than like things like taking vacation or going somewhere. I mean, I certainly try to do that and not as often as one might recommend, but like for me, it's also the stuff that burns me out the most is that chronic repetition or the chronic availability. And so, you I have my work phone, which is separate from my personal phone. And so at 5 p.m., if we do an on-call system,

for our organization. So there are some days where I am on call overnight and I can have my work phone, but any other time that I'm not on call, you know, getting turned off, no one can reach me and I can recharge. think also for me, when I, as a single person who, you know, is running this organization and has a lot of friends who are married or have kids, you know, I, when they, when the people I care about are available, I'm also trying to make my day available to

Nice.

take advantage of that time and be in community with them. So that I think that is, you know, I'm not someone necessarily who has hobbies or, or like, I do enjoy things like going for walks in certain neighborhoods or, you know, parks or stuff like that. But I think the thing that, that really keeps me grounded is, the people in my life that I care about. And so that can be tricky because that's not always in my control when they're available. So I've certainly sometimes struggled with that, that balance. And so part of my

Woof.

my challenge this year is trying to figure out how to continue to find activities I can do by myself that help recharge even if people are not around or available.

Yes, you're right. And I love what you said about vacations. People think, okay, I'm just going to run on red line for months and months and months, and then I'm going to take a week long vacation to wherever. And that's how I recharge. And maybe that happens a couple of times a year. And really, at the end of the day, sure, that's a good thing. It's not a negative thing, but is it sustainable?

is actually making an impact on a day-to-day basis, because we all need to have that off time. We all need to be able to unplug. And so I love how you shared, even as simple as when it's not my days to be on call, when the end of the day is done, I'm shutting off the work phone. I'm going out for a walk. Like I'm just, it's time to be done and just set this aside and be able to just be and focus on something else. It's those little habits.

on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis that really make the difference of having an empty cup or keeping your cup maintained at least somewhat full, right? Maybe we don't operate on a full cup 100 % of the time, but at least not to the point where we're just getting burned out. That's really the biggest risk that we want to avoid. Absolutely. Well, Kristen, where can our audience learn more information about benevolence farm?

Yes, definitely.

So we are at benevolencefarm.org, benevolence farm on all the socials, and people can learn more whether you want to financially support, if you want to get involved. Even people across the country have volunteered in different ways remotely. So we're always open to hearing more about that. And then we do ship across the United States for our body care products. And those are some ways to help as well.

I haven't outsourced quite yet all the emails and messages. And so I actually do get all those right now. So if you email the general email on the website, I will be the one who reads it. But we are working on off boarding that to a degree.

It'll be you. Yes.

Yes, one step at a time, right? There's always more to be done. There's always more that can be handed off. There's always more that can be delegated. Like it's just like one layer at a time, I feel like for everybody, even myself. I say this somewhat jokingly, but people think that I just must have this whole delegation thing all figured out. Well, I'm just like everybody else where you kind of chip away at it one thing at a time. So I hear you with all the email and communication and such.

Yes.

That is fantastic that you have all these different resources available should anybody be interested. I didn't even realize that you had remote volunteer opportunities available. That's fantastic.

Yeah, we have someone who, for example, copy edits our newsletters. Like I send her the draft. She lives in Texas, so she's nowhere near. also have like currently we have some brand and marketing professionals who are helping us think about our visual branding identity. We've had people help with graphic design or things like that. So yeah, we try to think about volunteering as like if you have a thought or a skill set on how you can support and contribute.

Okay.

If it falls into line with what we need in the moment, we try our best to make that work.

Yes, yes, absolutely. So we've got information, have volunteer information, certainly donations, but also because this episode is going to be airing during your primary holiday season of the year. So we're going to be getting into Thanksgiving and holiday season, prime gift giving season. So you're looking for products that are meaningful and will be giving back, ultimately giving back to the community.

This is a great place to check out as well. So I'm excited to share that with our audience for sure. And I will be checking it out as well. So Kristen, thank you so much for having a conversation with me today. I could probably continue to talk to you for another hour. I have so many other things just with all your experiences and just, I can only imagine all the stories from all the participants in your program and your staff. And thank you so much for the work that you do.

Yes, and we also do things like corporate gift.

Thank you, Melissa. I appreciate the opportunity to share more.

Yes, absolutely. And to our audience, thank you so much for tuning into another episode of Make Space for more. I hope that today's information was helpful for you in your role and learning more about how you can start where you're at and continue to grow and evolve and expand. And like we had said, of figure out as the company or organization grows, what tools do you need? Who do you need in those seats? Getting just enough.

but not taking on too much, keeping that growth steady. So really appreciate all of you tuning in today. And we will be back next week with another episode of Make Space for More. Have a wonderful day, everyone. Bye-bye.