A Closer Look: Stephanie Chin

community impact officer, income, United Way of Central Iowa

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Stephanie Chin’s path to the United Way of Central Iowa sounds just like the kind of journey you hear in Iowa: She knew someone with Iowa ties and then another someone, and she ended up in her current role at the nonprofit organization as community impact officer focusing on income.

Her mission comes across clearly: Chin believes the world can be changed for the better, and she’s here to listen, learn and help direct the United Way and Greater Des Moines to do just that. She spent five years at United Way Worldwide before arriving in the city.

In an hourlong conversation with Chin, I got some of the details of her background — she grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, near Cleveland, and ended up in school and jobs on the coasts before landing in Des Moines. She also provided a list of new articles, books and websites I needed to check out. Chin brims with passion and energy about her interests and what she’s doing here.

Here are excerpts from our conversation.

You started in January. What have you been up to so far?
Jan. 8 was my first day. [I’ve been] getting to know everyone. I moved on Dec. 29, drove from Cleveland, where my family is, after the holidays, during that wonderful storm. So I got to know Iowa weather very well. I like to say that the first year should be the worst weather. I’m well set on for every year looking back and being like, oh, it’s not as bad as the first one. But I’ve had a great opportunity to meet a lot of community members. Honestly, the first two months have been focused on getting to know this organization. Where I’ve spent the most amount of time is here at the United Way, getting to know the team. I am lucky and honored to have people report to me, so really the focus has been on supporting them and making sure they are where they need to be. … I think as we look forward you will see me spending more time out in the community getting to know folks.

This is a very active organization. What have been your impressions so far?
Wonderful United Way. I was lucky. I worked at United Way Worldwide for five years. I worked with Renee [Miller, the United Way’s chief community impact officer] and the wonderful team, and that’s how this really came up to begin with as a potential. … The funny story behind that is that Renee and I were talking about other business, a project I was leading there, and she made this offhand joke, “You wouldn’t want to move Des Moines, would you?” Which started a conversation, which hopefully has taken us in a positive direction. So I already knew that this is an amazing UW with a lot of trust from the community, a lot of earned trust from the community.  … I think we are fabulous planners. I have seen the amount of thought that we put into everything. One of the big attraction points was this is an organization that Mary Sellers [president of United Way Worldwide and former president of United Way of Central Iowa] helped to really align internally in ways that most other organizations — private, nonprofit, government — have not gotten to. I will say it is harder at the Worldwide level to pull all the pieces together with so many diverse stakeholders and bodies of work. This is an organization that  is more aligned than any other that I have worked for.

You’ve been working internally. What happens when you start to focus outwardly?
I like to start with individual conversations, coffees; food is always a good way to convene folks. I love to explore food as well. … I like to start everything with just getting to know people without specific outcomes associated. I like to spend the majority of that time listening, hearing what they think about, care about. A popular question I like to ask is what are your hopes and dreams for Central Iowa and Des Moines? What are you concerned about? What keeps you up at night? How can I better understand your context? I know I have my thoughts, but I’m learning. … I love to learn what folks are thinking and feeling. In a one-on-one setting, people feel more comfortable sharing things that they wouldn’t in a large-group setting. … I’m also an introvert so that also helps.

Do you have some specific goals? What do you want to accomplish?
Absolutely. My focus is on income. So the way that our income work is focused is how do we help families be positioned to thrive to be self-sufficient. I really look at what does the community want to achieve and my role as a nonprofit employee is helping with the how. The community decides why we’re doing something, what we’re doing, and like a coach or a personal trainer or an accountability partner it’s my role to say, well, how do we get there and how does someone spend their day making sure that we’re doing what we’re trying to do? The community has already expressed this desire. My first year is really to have a better understanding as we look forward. I think United Way has already set our 2020 goals around financial stability. We have seen for the first time in several years after the Great Recession a marked increase in the number of people who are actually financially stable from one year to another. There are 11,003 more people whose lives are better and are financially stable as of last year that weren’t the year before. We’re not where we want to be in terms of progress but we’re heading in the right direction. I think a lot of that came from setting goals before the Great Recession, having things really change under our foot. For my first year, it’s really listening, learning, understanding what the community wants to do, even past 2020. I have some theories and some interests about how do we really connect meeting employers’ needs as well as the needs of job seekers in a positive way that helps people find the right paths for themselves. What does that look like? I don’t have predetermined decisions yet, but looking at that nexus. I think where nonprofits have traditionally focused has been on one side of that equation, and I think it’s in concert with a lot of other conversations around the nation is where do those two things meet. When we talk to employers, very often the problem with having such a low unemployment rate is how do we find the right workers for us, what’s the right match? How do we help employers make that easier for them? And also easier for the people applying for the jobs to find the right match?

That’s the No. 1 thing I hear: We can’t find the people we need to fill these jobs or these jobs. It cuts across all industries. 
We will talk more about how we might be able to help each other and the community members who are looking for jobs but may not be getting the response. What do they need in order to be visible to those folks? How do we help employers look at other things that might identify a high performer or a potential high performer that was not part of their process previously? For me, I’ll say one of the reasons I’m here is I read the “One Economy” report. It was quite sobering and sad. I think it was surprising to most community members. [“One Economy” is study on the disparities between black residents and the general population.] … I also think that there have been probably fewer conversations like that here than in the larger cities I’ve worked in with far more diverse numbers. I’ve lived in California, New York, D.C. That conversation is just much more common. Here, it’s an emerging one, which gives us an opportunity to learn from the conversations that have gone before us about what we want to do and how we want to do it together. And I see that already happening. I’m hoping to be a part of that conversation.

What have been some of your impressions of Des Moines?
I’ve been on both coasts and I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, so I’ve been in the middle as well. I’m a person who believes that there’s beauty and wonder in every community. When I first came and interviewed, I went to the Art Center and saw all the tape up (for a climb-through exhibit) and went to Mi Patria and had some very good authentic food from another land. I have had a great time. I’m also one of those people who thinks the Midwest gets a really bad rap. … I am exploring.