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tl;dr: Nonprofit employees and educators struggle to make the time for their own well-being, but they’re superstars at helping others. Two Baltimoreans, Ty and Susan, founded Nonprofit Wellness to support staff at schools and nonprofits in developing individual resilience and team-care culture.
Our Co-Founders:
Ty spent 30 years in schools, while Susan spent 30 years at nonprofits. Both saw too many of their colleagues — idealistic, intelligent people committed to changing the world — suffer a decline in physical and mental health, often burning out and ultimately leaving their jobs.
When Dr. Tyecia “Ty” Powell got into teaching, she didn’t realize how much she’d absorb her students’ trauma and relive her own. Despite her investment in a master’s degree, the stress and the happy hour culture drove her out of teaching and into yoga, Pilates, and managing a fitness studio. Today, she's on the founding team at Sojourner Truth Public Charter School, and recently defended her dissertation entitled "Whole Leaders, Whole Schools: Increasing School Leaders' Emotional Intelligence Through Mindfulness".
Susan is now Professor Comfort at American University, but before teaching about stress she was immersed in the stress of the nonprofit fundraising hamster wheel. She raised $30+ million for small organizations over the years, all while dealing with personal stressors related to bearing and breastfeeding two children, being a (queer) working parent, and going through a divorce. Susan studied organizational development at Georgetown, then developed a survey to assess stress at nonprofits, then a pilot program to address it at 12 nonprofits over six months. That was the impetus to launch Nonprofit Wellness with Ty.
While directing Playworks DC, Susan receives the Pentagon's “Spiritual Fitness Award” for developing a Brain Breaks lunchtime talk for U.S. Department of Defense civilian staff. This same year, Ty serves as an instructional coach and athletic director at DCPS's West Education Campus, which Playworks was serving, however Susan and Ty don't (yet) meet.
Ty takes a sabbatical from education, becomes certified in Pilates, and starts directing a yoga studio.
Everyone watches nonprofit stress accumulate post-election, and school stress accumulate with new shooting and lockdown drills. Susan fields a Nonprofit Burnout Survey in December, attracting 240 responses from over 100 groups across the country.
Susan begins 8-month Georgetown certificate program on Organizational Development, using the survey responses to design a Nonprofit Pilot that evaluates self-care and team-care wellness interventions at 12 groups in DC. Susan is the only American invited to lead trainings at a TechSoup Europe conference in Romania. This is also the big year that Susan finally meets Ty, whose studio contributed classes to the Pilot.
Ty begins her doctoral dissertation and helps adapt and expand Susan’s Personal Stress Prescription and Stressor Scorecard tools for an educator audience. An anonymous grant supports publishing the “Wellness Equity Report” on the Nonprofit Pilot.
The year started with two months of weekly webinars to build a YouTube channel, so when the pandemic hit, Susan and Ty were already experienced with online trainings. They expanded Zoom offerings with a growing team of diverse trainers and team-building wellness experiences. In the midst of pandemic few ppublished our report -- See the Pilot results! Nonprofit Wellness also was chosen for the CityBridge Education venture program,
Nonprofit Wellness completes the CityBridge program with a business plan to become a 501(c)3 and serve even more schools and nonprofits. The 501c3 is approved, officially, by the end of the year.
Ty and Susan continue to mentor GWU students who are pursuing their Masters of Public Health degree, in official "practicum" internship programs. By 2022, Nonprofit Wellness has served as Preceptor to more than 12 MPH students.
The nonprofit board of Nonprofit Wellness thanks its founding chair, Terri Shuck, welcomes new chair Daniel Medina, and welcomes former GWU interns Diana Aguilera and Meghin Brooks as board members. We bring on new clients, like Co.act Detroit and Schott Foundation for Public Education.
Ty earns her doctorate in Education with her dissertation, "Whole Leaders, Whole Schools: Increasing School Leaders' Emotional Intelligence Through Mindfulness" and continues her leadership at Sojourner Truth School (middle/high Montessori public charter in D.C.). Susan becomes an adjunct faculty member at American University, teaching "Strategies for Stress Management" to undergrads. Nonprofit Wellness supervises its 5th and 6th cohorts of MPH practicum interns from the GWU Milken Institute.
Who Dat: Co-founder, Nonprofit Wellness. Susan has 30 years of nonprofit and advocacy experience, which brought a lot of stress. She's a bisexual/bilingual/bicyclist from Baltimore.
Graduate of: UNC-Chapel Hill (Go Heels!), also Willow Street 400-hr Yoga Teacher Training
Fave hobby: creating alternative sidewalks
Fave dancing: Salsa, 5 Rhythms
Fave job: Bo Brooks crab house server
Fave mental health boost: Learning K-pop dances via YouTube w/ daughter
Fave exercise: Walking, preferably near water
Fave veggie: anything roasted
Fave 80s Icons: Michael, Janet, Prince, Madonna
Fave city: Bal'mer, hon
Four Tendencies Type: Obliger
Follow @professorcomforts (IG)
Who Dat: Co-founder, 25-year education veteran, earned Doctorate in Education, passionate about wellness for school leaders
Fave veggie: broccoli
Fave dog: Bruce
Fave mental health boost: yoga class-- practice heals my mind and my body
Fave kid-show character: Josh from Blues Clues
Fave way to help people face limits: squats, the hot room, planks, yoga poses
Fave book: (impossible; too many!)
Fave school: Sojourner Truth Montessori PCS
Fave quotes: "Waves Will Come. Ride Them." "Show Love & Sow Love"
Four Tendencies Type: Questioner
Follow @tyeciapowell (IG)
Who Dat: Civil (water) engineer from Bogota, Colombia; Passionate about environmental restoration, regenerative agriculture, and social equity impacts of climate change.
Fave school: Cornell University
Fave dancing: Cumbia
Fave faraway place: Tibet
Fave nature spot: Rocky Mountain National Park
Fave mental health boost: Transcendental meditation
Fave exercise: Yoga, mountain climbing
Fave veggie: Mashed sweet potatoes w/ maple syrup, cardamom, a splash of bourbon (almost no longer a veggie).
Fave fruit: Mangosteen
Fave charity activity: Playing the congas at Jammin4Water benefit (pic).
Fave quote: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” -- Mary OIiver, The Summer Day
Susan Comfort led an "E.D. Chat" with our top Team-care tools, answering questions with hundreds of Executive Director TechSoup members (10/26/21, 40 min). These tools are available for free on the "resources" tab, above.
"I was diagnosed with severe arthritis in my hands, hips, knees and feet after a car accident in 1992. The pain interfered with sleep and increased to a place that I could not walk around the block. I had lived a very active life, so I wasn’t ready for immobility in my fifties. Today at 80, I live without pain, active, healthy, enjoying life, thanks to the practice of qigong."
Read more from Joann & Pat
Joann Malone and Patrick Smith have been practicing regularly since 2005.They got certified in 2011 with their acupuncturist and teacher Nianzu Li, and have been teaching Qi Gong at the Takoma Park Recreation Department since 2013.
Kevin O'Keefe has taught tens of thousands of people to juggle, and now does it online, with simple plastic bags or scarves. Book his juggling workshop or make it a circus-themed year at your office (which some people say is a circus anyway).
Kevin is the founder of www.CircusMinimus.com and co-creator of Circus Yoga. He is a mindful tennis player and lives in a tiny house in Vermont.
You can book Kevin for an online or in-person juggling training or Circus Minimus show, contract with him for a circus residency, or find him on Instagram @CircusMinimus
Leslie created a skill-shop entitled "Grief with Grace" specifically for workplaces grappling with widespread pandemic-related grief. Let us know if you're interested in bringing it (online) to your team.
Leslie is the author of Black Widow: A Sad-Funny Journey through Grief for People Who Normally Avoid Books with Words Like "Journey" in the Title.
She was an entertainment columnist for the Palm Beach Post for years until returning to her hometown of Baltimore with her son, Brooks (and re-connecting with her elementary school friend, Susan). You can find her freshest thoughts on Twitter @lesliestreeter
A recent graduate of University of Vermont, Davis is an art history fan who respects the ancient art of upcycling.
Davis has perfected the art of Earthalopes, the mindful transformation of discarded paper products into artistic, usable envelopes.
She trains kids and adults alike on making cards, envelopes, and simple origami while focusing on positive presence and mindful moments.
Follow @earthalopes on Instagram
Hailing from Colombia, Ricardo and his partner Elba Garcia have taught, choreographed, and performed at hundreds of events.
In 2008, Ricardo founded the After School Dance Fund, which supports public school dance clubs and produces the annual MCPS Latin Dance Competition at the Music Center at Strathmore.
A graduate of the Nonprofit Management program at Georgetown, Ricardo worked with the Kennedy Center’s “ArtsEdge” to develop an instructional series, “5(ish) Minute Latin Dance Lessons” and he received Montgomery County’s "Community Award for Excellence in the Arts & Humanities.”
Founder of Building Better People Productions, Lynne developed a session called “Improv for Teamwork” for nonprofit and school staff.
Lynne specializes in social emotional learning and educational theatre, and applies these skills to help build trust between co-workers. She works with kids of all ages (including "adults").
She coaches, instructs and directs all over the world -- lately, mostly online. Glimpses of her life are on Instagram -- DM her your favorite karaoke song.
7009 Aspen Avenue, Takoma Park, Maryland 20912, United States
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
-- Wendell Berry
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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