Joseph Jones has built a career centered on bringing people together to tackle complex community issues, with his leadership roles spanning government, public policy, higher education and nonprofit organizations across Iowa.

Now serving as chief community impact officer at United Way of Central Iowa, Jones helps guide efforts focused on some of the region’s most pressing challenges, including food insecurity, homelessness, transportation access and youth violence. In the role, he works to connect nonprofits, local governments, businesses and community members around long-term solutions that improve quality of life across Central Iowa.

Jones, a past Forty Under 40 honoree and 2022 Forty Under 40 Alum of the Year, first came to Iowa in 2002 to work on a political campaign. Although he had never been to the state before, he quickly found himself drawn to the opportunities for both professional growth and community involvement. Over the years, that initial visit evolved into a career rooted in public service and civic engagement.

Before joining United Way, Jones worked for former U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin in Washington, D.C., later returning to Iowa to work with the Greater Des Moines Partnership. His career has also included serving as executive director of the Harkin Institute for Public Policy & Citizen Engagement and chief of staff at Des Moines University. Alongside his professional work, he currently serves on the Windsor Heights City Council, giving him firsthand experience with the challenges and opportunities facing local communities.

Throughout his career, Jones said he has remained motivated by creating space for people to be heard and ensuring a broad range of voices help shape decisions that affect their communities. Whether working in policy, higher education or nonprofit leadership, he said listening and collaboration have remained central to his approach.

Jones recently spoke with the Business Record about the importance of community voices, collaboration and the role different sectors can play in tackling some of Central Iowa’s biggest challenges.

The following Q&A has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

After spending time across public policy, education and nonprofit leadership, what drew you to this role at United Way?

It was really the combination of all of those things. The community impact team at United Way is focused on so many different things, and I think my deep commitment to community and to the betterment of our communities across the board drew me to the mission. Interactions with local government and being a local elected official meant that many of these conversations, whether it be about housing or transit conversations, naturally aligned with my interests. I love talking about sharing ideas, and my understanding of research and public policy and digging into data was really another one of the draws. So much of what we do is informed by the data we collect and analyze. So at this point in my career it’s really great to be in a space to have an opportunity to work on big community issues with advocates and practitioners from across the region.

Are there any lessons from your time in government or policy work that you still rely on today?

Constantly. The lessons of digging in to understand the sources of data and understanding what long-term lessons might arise, particularly with things that are unintentional consequences of policymaking. I think every day [about] those conversations about things that we could do better, but also knowing that at the end of the day you also have to compromise. You don’t always get all the things you want. Working on things with an open mind, and collectively, usually gives you a much better result.

You’ve had a front-row seat to both policymaking and community work. Where do you see those two intersecting most effectively?

I think it’s most effective when the community has a voice with those policymakers, and the policymakers really do take into consideration the experiences people have, whether it be working with different populations or their lived experience, or just their diversity of thought. We all have better outcomes when we can have those open dialogues, when we’re hearing from people who might not think like you, who have different experiences, that can help to really inform how we shape policy and how we make decisions for the community.

When you’re bringing together people with different perspectives, how do you navigate disagreement or competing priorities?

I think it’s setting the table ahead of time to know that people might disagree. There’s naturally going to be some bias that comes into some of those conversations, and people have some assumptions they come into different conversations with. But recognizing that that’s part of the process, recognizing that we will agree to disagree in a respectful and productive way, understanding that we will come up with a decision on how to proceed.

Since you’re also serving on the Windsor Heights City Council, how does that local government perspective influence your work at United Way?

Understanding all the different moving parts, whether it’s the geography of our municipalities or the demographics of the people and businesses within those areas. I think it’s helpful having both relationships with other elected leaders and municipal leaders in cities and counties across the Polk-Dallas-Warren area. And it’s also nice to be able to think holistically about what the nonprofit world, local government and the business sector can each bring to the table to solve some of the problems. Because none of these things are straightforward, and none of them can be solved by one of those groups. It takes a combination of many different types of groups working on the problem from their own angles.

What do you feel like are some of the most pressing challenges facing Central Iowa right now?

There are many. One of the things that drew me to United Way is that we are convening people to talk about all those different things. We know that 1 in 3 people in Central Iowa can’t afford their basic needs and that 1 in 10 Central Iowans is food insecure. I think some of those things revolve around what we’ve identified as critical community issues. So looking at food security, looking at homelessness, looking at transit and transportation, and youth violence, all issues that are really important, but it definitely will take many different sectors working together to solve a problem.

Are there any specific areas, whether it’s housing, education, health or workforce, where you’re hoping to see measurable change?

One of the great things about United Way is that because these issues have been brought to our table from the community, there are different pieces of the community that are working on each one of these things. Some of them overlap, and so I’m not going to play favorites, but I do know that each one of them is critically important to the ability for our community to thrive. I’m hoping that we can really get our arms around youth violence and food insecurity. We do live in a wonderful place, and I wouldn’t call it home if I didn’t think so, but there are definitely some things that we can work on to make it better for all of us.

How do you ensure that community voices are helping shape the solutions?

It definitely starts with building relationships and partnerships with people within the community, the people who are doing the work on the ground, including people with lived experience, giving voice to their experiences and sharing what they have seen, whether it’s the feeling that the systems in place are causing the problem, or just the everyday life of trying to navigate different needs. And not going forward without hearing from those voices and being very intentional about who we bring to the table and then asking ourselves, ‘Who’s missing from the table? Who else do we need to hear from?’

What have you learned from being directly involved in your community at the local level?

I’ve learned how to listen better. I think that I’ve always been a good listener, but I think even more so to just really actively listen and absorb the information and not try to provide solutions or build correlations, but really just listen and be in the moment, because people have so many different experiences and so many things that are valuable to share in a process, and I think that part becomes really helpful as we build consensus around solutions. But my ability to listen and my desire to just be with people in the moment have really grown.

What excites you most about the opportunity to shape some of the long-term solutions here in Central Iowa?

The people. We have such a great ethos around our Central Iowa community, and no matter how difficult the issue is or the problem we’re trying to solve, I show up excited about working with the other people who show up who want to continue to work on it. And knowing that we might move the needle a little bit or a great bit, but at the moment, we’re the caretakers of our community in this issue, and so we have to do our part to move on to the next level. I get excited about the people who really want to see positive change and work together to make it happen. That excites me, and it motivates me.

You said people motivate you. Is there anything else that keeps you motivated when working on some of these complex, long-term community challenges?

I think understanding my own experiences and the idea of helping people to have a voice, or bringing forward voices that might not otherwise be at the table. When I talk to the individuals who work with young people in our community, or even talk to young people directly, it gets me excited that they’re looking for a future. They’re looking for how they fit into this place we call home. That gets me both excited, but also focused on doing the work because it’s our job to provide opportunity and the ability for those young people who want to be here.

What message would you want Central Iowans to understand about the role United Way plays in the community?

Our role has a lot to do with convening and focusing on the health and vitality of our community. It’s not a specific entity or type of entity, it’s really looking at the issues that are at the forefront that have no direct solution and being able to bring people together from across sectors to really work on those problems, to leverage our relationships and our understanding of the issues to really bring us to a better place. Central Iowa’s United Way does a great job of being nimble and open and looking for those things and being able to help the community respond.

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At a glance

Hometown: Windsor Heights

Family: Partner, Andrea

Education: Doctorate in education; Master of Public Administration from Drake University; and a Bachelor of Business Administration in economics from Loyola University New Orleans.

Hobbies: Reading, hiking and hunting