Creating Stronger Communities through Faith-based Leadership

Creating Stronger Communities through Faith-based Leadership

Hosts: Steve Boese & Trish Steed

Guest: Dave Schunk, President & CEO of Volunteers of America Colorado

Today, Steve and Trish met with Dave Schunk from Volunteers of America Colorado about faith-based leadership in the modern workplace.

* Career transition from private sector to nonprofit

* Career development, relationships, and financial management

* Serving the homeless and food insecure in Colorado, with a focus on VOA’s ministry and culture

* Senior programs, including handyman and meals delivery

* Importance of volunteering and giving back to your community

Thank you for your continued support of the show and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!

This episode of At Work in America is sponsored by Paychex, one of the leading providers of HR, payroll, retirement, and insurance solutions for businesses of all sizes. As we wrap up 2024, don’t you just love the feeling of checking off those pesky year-end tasks? That’s where the 2024 Year-End Payroll Checklist from Paychex comes in! Whether it’s important reporting deadlines, necessary tax forms, or compensation updates, it’s packed with all the essentials to help you breeze through those year-end must-dos. Download your free checklist today at paychex.com/awia.

Transcript follows:

Steve 0:11
Hi everyone. This is Steve Boese, and welcome to a special encore presentation of the At Work in America podcast. Today we are replaying a conversation we had back in August 2024 with Dave Schunk, President and CEO of Volunteers of America Colorado. We talk with Dave about faith based leadership in the modern workplace, the mission at Volunteers of America Colorado to serve their community, and how all organizations can improve how they embrace their communities and give employees an opportunity to serve. This was a fantastic conversation with a truly inspirational leader, and is a great message for all of us this holiday season, before we welcome Dave, I have to thank our friends at Paychex.

Steve 0:51
This episode of at work in America is sponsored by Paychex, one of the leading providers of HR, payroll, retirement and insurance solutions for businesses of all sizes, and was, as we wrap up, 2024. Don’t you just love the feeling of checking off those pesky year end tasks. But let’s be real, making sure your business is compliant can be a bit overwhelming and a lot harder than just ticking a box. That’s where the 2024 year end payroll checklist from Paychex comes in, whether it’s important reporting deadlines, necessary tax forms or compensation updates. It’s packed with all the essentials to help you breeze through those year end must. Do’s avoid last minute scrambles or compliance headaches. Download your free checklist today at paychex.com/awia. Thanks once again for listening, and please enjoy our conversation with Dave Shunk, all about faith based leadership and giving back to our communities and Happy Holidays from all of us at the HR Happy Hour media network.

Steve 2:07
Welcome to the at work in America podcast. My name is Steve Boese and I’m joined by Trish Steed. Trish, what’s happening?

Dave Schunk 2:14
You know, it’s a good day here. It is not too hot, not raining. I don’t know. How are things where you are?

Steve 2:21
Fantastic. Hot, 97 degrees today. As we record this after the show, I think I’m going to get outside and do something so goodness. But yeah, it’s great summertime. We’re falls coming quickly, though, sadly, we spent a little bit of time earlier this week talking about events and travel, and it’s shocking Trish, for someone who, least for me, who said I don’t want to travel so much anymore, I really don’t. It’s stunning how much travel there’s coming up, but I guess we’ll talk about that at another time.

Dave Schunk 2:56
Yeah, the new normal that came about, supposedly during the pandemic, that’s gone, right? We’re back to how it was. So, yeah, I think I’ve got like, 11 or 12 trips this fall. It’s ridiculous. It’s too many fun, fun, fun trips.

Steve 3:14
Speaking of fun, good segue, let’s set up today’s show real quick, because today’s show that we just finished recording. Is fantastic. And probably you just said a second ago, this is one of your favorites of the year, and I think it’s probably one of mine too. Trish, we’re going to be talking about volunteerism, faith based leadership, and getting more involved in the community with the CEO and President of Volunteers of America, Colorado, Mr. Dave Schunk and Trish, what a wonderful guy and fantastic conversation.

Dave Schunk 3:47
Yeah, I think what people are hopefully going to take away from this is it is definitely possible to get involved in any capacity with your community outreach, and if you don’t have that connection, then Volunteers of America Colorado will absolutely be a great connection for you and your company.

Steve 4:15
It’s fantastic conversation, and let’s welcome him. We are excited to welcome our guest today. He is Dave Schunk. He’s the President and CEO of Volunteers of America, Colorado. We’re going to talk about faith based leadership and mission of the nonprofit, how organizations and people can be more involved in their communities. I can’t wait to have this conversation. Let’s little bit more about Dave Trish, since late 2018 Dave has served in his position at the Volunteers of America Colorado, a faith based nonprofit Human Services Organization away from the office. He serves on several ministry, business and community boards. He loves the outdoors, which makes sense for being in Colorado, Colorado and his church community. And he’s married with three grown children, and enjoys, of course, his grandchildren. I don’t know how many, Dave, you’ll have to tell us how many grandchildren there are. Okay, Dave, welcome to the show. Great to see you. How are you?

Dave Schunk 6:38
I am wonderful. What a great opportunity. And thank you for having me, Trish and Steve.

Steve 6:42
It’s our pleasure. We were so excited. We talked a little bit in the pre show before we started the show about how excited we are to talk to you about the mission to learn more about Volunteers of America Colorado, and your story too. Dave like because we’ve, I think, back to a recent show we did with Keith Wargo, who’s the president of Autism, Speaks, right? And we, you know, before he got into that work in that community and serving the neurodiverse community in the autism community, he had a really interesting kind of corporate life and background too. And it’s always interesting us to learn more about the people we meet with and how they sort of came to be where they’re at. So maybe, Dave, if you don’t mind, we’ll start there. Let’s start a little bit more about you and how you sort of came to be the President of Volunteers of America Colorado, because you don’t wake up one day, and that’s your job well.

Dave Schunk 7:32
And if you would have asked me, 35-40 years ago, would I have ended I would have said, No, there’s not a possibility. But, and I think, let me preface this by saying I think in a person’s career, they can bring their whole self, their faith component, to any job. And in my faith, in the Christian faith, I’m called to do that. I was not very good at it. I tried to figure it out in a number of different ways. I was in banking and technology for a number of years. I love that. Space banking, you meet a lot of incredible people. I then went with a customer that I was actually banking, who had just come out of bankruptcy in the technology space. And that was a phenomenal experience. And then from there, I went into some other businesses, private equity. And all through that journey, while it was wonderful, there was some there were some missing components for me. One, I was on the road a lot, and I was missing some formative years in my family and our faith. My wife’s my faith have always been an integral part of that, and that was missing. I was gone a lot. And so for me, that was on the same thing as I said earlier. I really struggled bringing that whole self to the work environment. And back in the 80s and 90s, there was, it was an easier time when you could do that, versus today, it’s a little more difficult, and maybe we can talk about that, yeah. So long, moving the story along just a little bit quicker in in then in the early 2000s a good friend of mine, this is one of my my life themes, if you will, or messages to those out there. Relationships matter who you’re connected to and who you’re not connected to really defined who you are over time. And one individual that I was connected to by pure chance in the banking business, the guy’s name is Brad Miley. Brad eventually became the CEO of the Denver rescue mission, and for years he asked me to join his board. Finally, after a number of no’s and no’s, he was persistent, I said, Yes, I joined his board in 2005 and then that changed my life.

Dave Schunk 9:30
That board experience where I got to see two things. I saw lives change for the good. I also saw failure, and I saw a lot of it in this space, in the human services space for those listening that know, humans are very complex, and you might get one in 10, or one in eight, or something like that, that might ultimately change their trajectory of their life permanently. You’ll get four to five of those 10 that will change your life for a period of time, a season, and when. You see that it’s just tremendous. And then there’s times that those that don’t, but then they come back for a second and a third chance. And that’s what I loved as that second and third chance for those individuals and for those that succeeded so but that part of the journey done between oh five and 10, I was still in the private world with a foot in the nonprofit, faith based space. And by 2011 CFO job opened up a Denver rescue mission for me. And it was funny. The CEO, Brad came, he said, Hey, do you know any good CFOs? And, well, this is funny. I said, No. I mean, I’m not that interested, but I know a few. And he said, Hey, that was on a Friday. On a Monday. He said, Let’s go have breakfast on Monday. I made the big mistake. Actually, the greatest thing I ever did was go home and tell my wife about it. She said, let’s talk about this. We actually, for me, we prayed and we fasted and we we just really thought through this, because I had three kids in college. Wow, it’s like I already, I was on the Finance Committee. I already knew what the CFO made at Denver rescue mission at the time. And I just said, How are we going to do this? And she said, We got to have faith. And he did anyway. Long story short, I went and told him I was interested. He said, No way. You’ll get bored. You’ve done all these amazing things. I said, Brad, I really haven’t I’m not being fulfilled. And I take a lot of that inspiration from this book by Bob Buford. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but it’s the book title is something to the effect of success to significance. Okay, and so that really drove me at that point in my career. I really not that I had tons of success. I had plenty of failure, plenty of failure, but I really felt like, get satisfied that that business component. Felt like I had a lot to bring to the nonprofit space. And that’s what inspired me to make jump, have some faith, do some real estate investing to help bridge the financial gap. And it’s worked out. And now I feel like I’m in the best job ever, seven years at DRM demo, rescue mission. And then Brad actually came down the hallway, my good friend and mentor, and he said, You know what, I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I feel like I’m being nudged by a higher power, and you need to go talk to my good friends at VOAC to be their next CEO. And I said, I like it here. He said, I’m kicking you out. I’m like the net. And he did. And and then this has been a tremendous journey, not easy, but a tremendous journey.

Dave Schunk 12:19
Thank you so much for sharing your story. I mean, I’m frantically making notes for anyone who’s just listening to the the pure audio version of this. Um, so many things to unwrap and unravel in that story that that really speak to what we hear from an HR perspective, right from from employees every day, trying to figure out where is the right place to work, especially if you’re maybe just entering the workforce, or maybe you’ve been at a company for a while, and now you’ve been downsized, and now you’re sort of like, what do I do next? I I just have to say, I love that your path to where you are today isn’t a straight line, right? And one of the things that I know I currently have kids in college, Steve has as well, and many of our listeners do as well. It’s something that you get asked all the time, when you have children that are grown ups that are still searching themselves, like, Well, how do you find the right job? Right? I loved what you said, when you said that the relationships matter. Because to me, when you’re making relationships and just focusing on that, I sort of believe that God will put the right opportunity in your path. And it sounds like I was just I was so intrigued that conversation with your wife. Can you talk just a little bit about that, maybe even from the perspective of younger people trying to figure out their path? What role do you think that plays in just being open to what is placed before you, or is that important?

Dave Schunk 13:46
Oh, Trish, you’re hitting a really important topic. It is important. It absolutely is. And I think for me, I needed to just hear from my partner of her support, because this was a sacrifice for her, she actually went back to work, but she was so excited to do that, she wanted to contribute. And we were at a good point. Our kids were now out of the house in college. Actually, our last one was a senior at valor High School, which here in Denver, you might know that’s equal to a college tuition, maybe more, but it was worth it. But I guess the point is, is that they were really, pretty much already, you know, on that independence track. And so she had that time. She was able to do that, but it was her encouragement that said, You know what, I need to make this jump. Because I knew for me, there was a hole in my heart. There was a hole in my I felt like I was missing something. And I won’t get too much into scripture, but let me just say this one, and it’s a really good one, and it says Paul actually states, in the New Testament, he just states that to live a life worthy of your calling for you have been called by God, and that is my life first. And I felt like I had not been in the calling I was destined to be. I felt like that there needed to be that, and yet there was this financial gap and some other things. And so I would say relationships do matter. That was critical. I don’t think I ever would have made that jump without key mentors in my life. So tell young people, the people you’re working with now, even if you’re not in the job that you you ultimately will be in or the career. And by the way, that’s okay. Things have changed so much from when my father was in the workforce and from even today and my over my 40 years, the being in that same vertical career path that’s really changed. I We don’t. In fact, some of that can be even negative, so we look at that. But relationship matters to the people you’re working with. Work your best, work your hardest. Be known as the person that raises their hand and says, I’ll do that. I’ll do that. Have that can do attitude, because people remember that. They don’t remember specifically what you said, or, you know, details like that. They do remember how you made them feel. And I think in Brad’s case, we there was a 20 year separation between he and I in that space, and while we kept in touch a little bit, is what he remembered how I made him feel, and I certainly remembered how he made me felt. And so number one be relationship man. And the second one is, I would tell people, live under your means. So if your means allow you to live at position, a whatever that is, don’t live there. Buy the smaller house, drive the car a little longer. Look for ways to save money. You know, it’s The Millionaire Next Door theme, right? Where you can save a little bit at a time and really do that, if you can live under your means and be satisfied there, you now have flexibility, right? And if I had not done that, and trust me, I was a bad end of this one, you know, right, right before the Great Recession, I’m like, Honey, we need to move to a bigger house. I’m tired of, you know, it’s like hashtag, first world problems, right? Yeah, garage is too small.

Steve 16:47
I can’t get my jet ski in the garage, exactly, right?

Dave Schunk 16:51
She says, No, we’re staying here. I love this community. We’re going to stay in this. And I knew she was right. But by by living under your means, you have now lots of flexibility when opportunities present themselves, and opportunities will present for young people, especially when you look at demographics and the job openings that will be coming up in leadership positions. Plus, if you’ve garnered relationships that matter throughout your time, you’re going to have opportunities you can’t take those If, however you’ve lived above your means, because now financially, you’ve got to really figure that one out, and that’s hard.

Trish 17:25
Great advice. And you know what, I don’t think in all the years we’ve done this for 15 years, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say that that is actually a key to flexibility. Is living under your means, and it’s so wise. So thank you for sharing that. That’s really good advice.

Steve 17:39
I think another interesting thing we’re tapping into here a little bit, Dave, I think, is how look. It’s real easy for people sometimes to say, even people like us to say, oh, you know, find your passion. Connect to work you’re really passionate about. Find that right fit. Look, so many people in the working world, in our country, look, your passion is paying the rent and feeding your family right. That’s your passion. That’s what you’ve got to do. You don’t maybe have that luxury to really seek out and find that that just right fit, or that that place that aligns with we see this a lot in the surveys of younger workers that are in the workforce today, actually, too where they really are looking for that values alignment and that connection to a mission, which, Dave, you’re explaining to us how valuable that’s been to you personally, certainly, and professionally, too, and that. But that’s not always easy to do, and because practicality, right? You’ve got to keep the lights on and keep the family fed and all that. But I think you’re really tapping into, if you can do it, it by a combination of being patient and forging relationships, living a little bit beneath your means, as you described, Dave, that you can maybe have a better opportunity right to find those whether it’s me, it doesn’t have to be in the nonprofit world. It can be in other types of work too. But I think you’re tapping into just how much more fulfilled you can be as a person. If your work really lines up with your values, I think you’d probably agree with me on that Dave.

Dave Schunk 19:09
Oh, it’s 100% but I’d also say Steve, very quickly too, and I just touched on that earlier. Do believe people can find worth and value in their current job, even if it’s, you know, maybe they’re, they’re the mission of the company. Might be selling widgets, right?

Steve 19:25
You’re working in the Amazon warehouse and exactly fulfillment, right?

Dave Schunk 19:30
You can still find worth in that. And here’s where you do that two ways. I believe I wasn’t particularly good at it, and that’s why, for me, my path ventured this way. And I’m so fortunate that it did. But I think a lot of people do this where you’re in a spot and you’re saying the Amazon warehouse not to pick on Amazon, but let’s do that for fun, in the sense, because it could be anywhere, and you’re in that spot and there’s people around you, and there’s people and we talked about this just a minute ago, before we came on air, there’s people in need all around i. Had a good friend of mine, a mentor, say to me, everyone we meet every day, has something they’re dealing with. We’re all pretty good about hiding it. I am too, but they’re dealing with something in their life, and you can impact that. And one of the things that Volunteers of America has taught me and that we really preach here is that a simple engagement can change a life. A simple engagement of seeing somebody being present with them. It can be a hello, but a real Hello. So that’s one, is that kind of presence in the workplace where you can change people’s lives just by the people around you there. And then the second thing I tell young people this all the time, get involved with your cause. Yeah, on a on a voluntary basis, whatever that cause is the animal shelter. It can be we would love to have you at VOA. We have 16,000 volunteers that we work with to keep our mission, but get involved in your spare time. In fact, get on a board, on a nonprofit board. Nonprofit boards need nonprofits need business acumen. They need marketing. They need finance skills. They and you can do that on a voluntary basis, and that can also help you get opportunities. Because guess who else is on that board? Other influential people. You gain opportunities. You also get to share what you’ve been given. And that’s a worthwhile experience in itself.

Dave Schunk 21:18
Yeah, I think those one thing I’m just consistently hearing from you is there are so many steps that all of us can take that are going to again, even if you’re not in that maybe right position today, start taking some of those steps right there. There are two or three very actionable things you mentioned. I’d like to delve a little bit, though, into actually what it is that you’re doing at Volunteers of America, Colorado, and so that people who are listening can both sort of identify, you know, what it is that you’re doing, and then why that is so special and different, and maybe how they can get more involved. So if you just take a couple minutes, maybe tell us a little bit about your work and what that means to the communities you’re serving.

Dave Schunk 22:03
Trish, thank you for that opportunity. I’d love to do that. I get to do that every day, and it’s a wonderful thing. But we are a faith based Colorado institution. We do affiliate with the national organization Volunteers of America. The VOAC story is fascinating. The very, very short version is we were part of Salvation Army. In 1896 we split. The son had come over from England and had done so well with the Salvation Army here in 1896 did not to 18 to the year 1900 that the that it grew faster than the England one. Then Dad came over and said, Hey, we’re going to pull you back. He said, No, we love it here. We’ve become Americans. We want to grow this so they just had a friendly split. We still work closely, side by side with Salvation Army every day, but that’s how our story, and that’s where our faith journey began and and they’ll so through that. Today, Colorado, we serve over 106,000 Coloradoans every every day. We do that through four primary means. We the two that are basic are hunger services. So we do meal we run the one of the nation’s largest meals and Wheels program, and then we have food operations that we serve through our shelters and our transitional housing and our affordable housing. So food is key, and then housing is key. We’re one of the state’s largest affordable housing providers. We have 27 affordable housing communities, called communities for a reason, and then we have a number of shelters. So those, these are emergency shelters that are focused on populations that are underserved, the Denver rescue mission and Catholic Charities, God bless them. They’re serving big groups, especially rescue mission of men, but we’re focused more on, for example, women, 55 and older, that are experiencing homelessness, so shelter, transitional housing and affordable housing. Now we use those two things to help us gain a relationship, a trusted relationship, with our the person that we’re serving, and then the magic happens. Right? We believe that food is an opportunity at a relationship, and a relationship is an opportunity at a transformed life. That’s the opportunity to get to transform. And so the other two parts that what we do are community support and volunteer. So this is where we change lives. This is where we’re connected to people. A number of great programs. It could be a we have a handyman program for seniors who can’t fix up their house. We do that for free. We get volunteers to come in and do that. One of my favorites is the Foster Grandparent Program.

Steve 24:31
I read about that one, Dave this morning. I wasn’t that amazing. Yes, I did. That was so cool. Maybe you could describe that one briefly?

Dave Schunk 24:37
It gives me chills to talk about it, because I can think of a couple of our foster grandparents, who are just so precious, but these are men and women that have been part of our American community for the longest time, and they’re seniors. They have no family members, most of them, they live by themselves. They’re isolated, they’re lonely. So we reach out to them. We know they have skills. I think, in America, we quickly discard our. Seniors. And you know, they had have a purpose of being friendly, but they have so much more to give. And so we reach out to these seniors who are typically living right on the edge of poverty, and we bring them in, we train them, we actually pay them a small stipend, and then we put them in the inner city schools of Denver and Aurora, and now you have a grandparent in the classroom. The teachers love it, because they can focus on teaching and the important things they do, and the grandparent get the Foster Grandparent gets to do what grandparents do, be a little goofy. I’m learning that three new grandkids, you’d be a little bit goofy, but you’re safe, and you all provide the kids an opportunity with another person to just encourage them and let them become who they’re worthy of becoming. And it’s one of our favorite programs, and that’s what we were talking about, Steve.

Steve 25:48
Fantastic stuff. And you think, like, you know, for some of those folks, the grandparents, I’m thinking of specifically, they might feel a little isolated. Maybe they’re not contributing anymore in any way. And this gives them something to look forward to, something to add value to, and that it’s a win, win all around. That’s it’s so innovative.

Dave Schunk 26:05
Yeah, all the way around. And think about the same of our meals and Wheels program. So you take our food services, and we say here often again, we did 1,000,001 point 4 million meals last year statewide, and all of our volunteers, I have so many stories I could share with you, but the stories are, we say it’s about the food, but it’s not about the food, right? It’s about that connection that happens that when we, when we have our meals and Wheels volunteer, they’ll knock on the door and that person will come. Oftentimes, it’s the only person they’re going to see all week, because these, these are homebound seniors, and we want them to stay in their home, but then we also want to have connection, because that’s what helps people thrive. And so not only is it a help to society and you can go through all the cost reasons and all that, but more importantly, allows people to age in dignity and connection. And so this volunteer will come up, they’ll hand the food, and they’ll say, how you doing today? Many of them know the story, because they’re serving the same people. Yeah, and it’s just, it’s a, I think it’s one of the best government programs. A lot of government programs, maybe not so good. This one is great because it involves what everyone does best. Government acquires the food for us at a great price, nutritional food. We now work it and manage the food process. We have a big, 55,000 square foot kitchen here in Commerce City. And so we get that food ready, and then we organize the volunteers. We have 800 volunteers who help us deliver these routes every day. And it’s the last mile connection to people that the government says, Hey, you do that, right? You do that. You do what a community should do, and that, I mean, I’m telling you, it works wonders. We just have so many beautiful stories from that.

Steve 27:46
Yeah, that’s fantastic. Dave, I’d like to ask you now you’re in Colorado, there in the Denver area, and then out, you know, other places in Colorado in the last five, six years, are the demand for these services? Is it going up? Are you? Are you doing more and more every year? Is it starting to feel like, hey, it’s getting, it’s getting a little bit, maybe even challenging to keep up with the need in the community?

Dave Schunk 28:12
Such a great question. Steve, the need is greater than ever. I always tell people it’s a little bit like a sink or a basin and you have the faucets on, but you have the drain open, and you know, we’re getting people out of homelessness and we’re getting food insecurity handled, but it seems like more come in. In Colorado, as you guys know, we have, we’ve had a significant increase in the migrant population, but we still have fundamental issues across America and in Colorado with fentanyl and other you know, fact factors causing homeless, the cost of housing, yeah, all these things are still producing that. I mean, education is a factor, you know. And even Barack Obama said this several back in 2008 where you look at education and you look at marriage, you know, these are big factors for keeping people out of homelessness, and those, those aren’t moving the right way, but we still see, in fact, this interesting statistic, one in seven Coloradoans deal with food insecurity every every day, and that’s defined simply as the decision made between paying, say, a utility bill and putting food on the Table. That’s one in seven. And for veterans in Colorado, that’s one in four. So 25 veterans, those that have served our country. And veterans are one of the biggest populations we serve, that and seniors are our two biggest and it’s a big issue. So food insecurity is a bigger problem. Is growing you wouldn’t think it would with being the most wealthy nations in the world, you wouldn’t think, but it is. And so Stephen, the second question is homelessness, and you guys have heard the stories there for all the reasons I said earlier, yeah, continue to see that. So one of our big program, a number of our programs, are a rapid re housing program, where we work with veterans and others experiencing a homeless. This. We get them into housing. We stand in between, say, a landlord and the tenant and help them, and we bring case management around them to help them get to position where they can do that on their own. Our whole goal is to get them independent, self sufficient, and that could be physically, mentally and spiritually. We do have a ministry that helps them spiritually, if they want it, sure, yeah, we’re talking about that earlier.

Steve 30:25
Yeah, you got you serve everyone in the community, everyone there’s not some litmus test of you must be a veteran, or you must be a senior, or you must be a certain faith. There’s none of that, right?

Dave Schunk 30:35
None of that. Everyone and anyone served. No questions asked. If you are of faith, and if you desire that, we’ll provide that, but we do not. I think it’s a really unique thing that we do here at VOAC. At the VOAC organization is actually organized as a church, but our employees do not have to take a faith statement. There’s no requirement there. So we have we’re very diverse, we’re very wide. We’ve had to learn how to navigate that. And I feel like the culture here, we haven’t done it perfect, but I feel like we’ve really, really, our focus in our ministry is really on serving those in need, period. In fact, it’s even called Ministry of service. I think that’s one way we’ve been able to work it through, where you can bring your faith. But as what is it? Francis Assisi once said, Preach often and only rarely, use words. It’s by our actions, right? It’s by our actions that we do that. So if we’re acting and loving on people, caring for them, doing that in a sacrificial way that speaks plenty, that’s where we focus.

Trish 31:40
I’m glad that you share that, because I think that so often in the workplace, especially in the for profit part of the world, we’ve sort of come to a time where you’re really not supposed to talk about religion at work, right, or politics or any or anything that’s going to be divisive potentially. But what I find intriguing is that you’re sort of telling us how you can do that by creating a culture where there are many ways to show that faith through service, right? I worked for a nonprofit myself, and we were all about servant leadership, right? And I sort of see that’s what you’re doing, right? I’d love to hear your thoughts if I’m an HR leader or a CEO even, or another C suite member, and I’m listening to this episode and I’m thinking, wow, we’ve kind of shied away from letting people be their whole selves at work. What are some easy ways they can kind of start tweaking their culture to make people of faith feel like they’re able to have moments to share that. Is there any tips you have for that?

Dave Schunk 32:46
You know, we do. It’s, it’s an interesting thing, and we’ve, we’ve had to kind of find our way, navigate our way to this couple things. One is in our culture, we do have it’s in our policy, and we do practice it. It’s actually a Patrick Lencioni theme, and it’s the ideal team player. And it’s called Hungry, humble and smart. And these three components, he teaches these virtues, where it’s the balance of the three. And so that’s one of our culture items that allows us to bring these things in in a safe manner. I think two is, we do allow people to put personal expressions of whatever it is. Again, we’re a Christian background organization, but we do allow, I mean, it can be anything that the only there is a couple of rules around it. One of them is, is that, as long as it’s not anything violent or degrading another faith, so somebody can have a, say, a Buddhist or a Muslim, and we have that representation in their office or their cube space, that’s totally fine. It’s totally fine because it’s who they are, or it could be, it could be something else. It could be an expression of the of the rainbow, the pride flyer, whatever it might be. Again, that’s their personal expression. So we do allow that in the public spaces. We keep those free of those kind of things. So in the built the bulletin boards that you guys are HR people. You know, we have all the HR related stuff. Have all that up. We have anything else going on. We have birthdays, we have anniversaries, we celebrate all that stuff. But really, we try to keep anything related to, I don’t know, anything that could be divisive. We keep out of the public space, which we also carry that out to. And we adopted this from Vanderbilt. And this would be one message I would say to CEOs and those out there. And it may work for someone, it may not work, but Vanderbilt has a policy they called institutional neutrality. And what that means the outward expression. So the outward expression of VOA Colorado, if it’s anything within our core box. So if it has to do with veterans, we’ll advocate for veterans. If it has anything to do with hunger or seniors, we’re on our pedestal saying, hey, help us. We want to help them. And blah, blah, blah. But if it’s anything else, right, no matter where you come from, um. We really shy away from any of the big social issues of the day, any of those kind of things from a public perspective. And while sometimes employees say, Hey, I wish you would have done more here or there, they also understand that that works two ways. We also encourage our employees take off your VOA Colorado shirt and go do whatever advocacy you want to do outside of work. We, in fact, we’d love for you to do that, because that’s the American way. Yeah, and it’s not always. Sometimes we get some complaints about that, but I think generally, it’s the way to navigate through and we’re seeing some of the big corporations do that. We’re seeing some you see John Deere, and we see some others that are starting to say, you know, look, that’s for individual, but from a corporate side. And same with us as an agency. If I were to take a stand, if we were to take a stand on a policy, about 50% of my donors and about 50% of my clients would be upset, the others would be really happy. Yeah, yeah, not veterans or not. You know, homelessness, then really, that’s where we’re going to stay in.

Steve 35:59
It’s a compelling argument, Dave, for just kind of focusing on the mission, right? Why are we here? We are here to serve veterans, to serve seniors, to help people with homelessness. We are here to make sure people aren’t going hungry, right? That’s why we’re here, and let’s keep that our focus and our mission in which and hopefully, is what? John, I don’t know exactly, Dave, how many full time staff you’ve got at VOAC, but you’ve got a number of them who, most of them, I’m imagining, were drawn similarly to how you were drawn there, right, to serve in those capacities.

Dave Schunk 36:33
We’ve got 420 employees throughout the state and 42 locations. Yeah, they are the most, hardest. I mean, they’re incredibly hard working employees of the 400 plus that we have, about 150 of our crew, case management, frontline staff, and these are the most amazing individuals they they they’re on the front line. They’re seeing, you know, they’re seeing the fentanyl and the other tough stuff that folks experiencing homelessness are dealing with. They see sometimes the violence, and they see sometimes the all the downside of the human spirit and the human nature. But they are amazing folks, and we just want to encourage them, and we need more of that, that spirit, and help them out in any way we can. And so we work hard on our compensation programs for that well, for everybody and also keeping them safe.

Trish 37:23
Yeah, you have so many ways that people can get involved in help. What can organizations do? Maybe someone’s listening and whether they’re in a position where they can make this decision or not, or maybe they can be an influence to it. What can they do if they are either based in Colorado, or have employees, maybe just based in Colorado, who they’re kind of looking for something to get involved in and a way to give back to the community. How can they get involved with Volunteers of America Colorado, or Volunteers of America, if they don’t have that Colorado connection, what’s the best way for them to learn more?

Dave Schunk 37:59
Trish, yeah. So the remember the four things we do? We do housing, we do hunger, and that engages now allows us to do community support services. And then the other one is volunteers. It’s in our name. We believe so much in the volunteer, what it does for the volunteer, and then also what it does for the client. And so we have a number of different volunteer programs. We have a fully staffed and a director level led volunteer leader, and their whole job is to come alongside corporations or individuals that want to have a an experience, a volunteer experience, safe, but yet huge in their developmental and their exposure to what it is. So whether it’s a specially designed program or just helping serve at one of our shelters that’s there. We have a number of corporations to do. We have, you know, I can name a bunch of them, banks and private corporations and developers and government entities. And here’s what’s great about it. A lot of them will come in and do a, say, a half day of service. And it, by the way, we handle groups from three, three, it could be a three employee, a little branch outfit, say, somewhere we can handle that all the way. We just had a huge group in a resort services hospitality entity come in, well known here in Colorado, great company. They brought 80. So we had 80, Oh, wow. You may put them in different facilities. And then they all came back together. And this happens a lot, and they get one of our conference rooms or a space, and then they talk about their experiences, and you can see team bonding happen. People feel good about what they do. They’re helping those in need. They’re helping us. We had over 200,000 volunteer hours last year. That’s ours. Otherwise we would have had to pay additional staff for so and in this business, it’s margins are tight. So this is to us as well, but it’s great for the person in the corporation, team bonding, retention, we think it helps retention and just the opportunity to do some good in the community.

Steve 39:57
Yeah, yeah. I’d encourage everyone. Whether you’re in Colorado, certainly to connect with VOA Colorado, or to look for these kinds of opportunities in your local area. We’ve, we’ve been fortunate enough Trish to work with some of our partners who do wonderful things in the community, but there’s certainly opportunity to do more. And I was thinking about this as we’re, you know, the show post in a whenever a week or so, and we’re getting into the fall, and then we’re starting to close in on winter and holiday season and things like that. And it’s, it’s really a time where organizations and individuals can really, should be really thinking about, hey, what can we do? Can we do more? And I think the answer is, typically Yes, you can do more, but with, with organizations like VOA Colorado, like they they’re there to help you right? If you don’t know where to go and where to start, like you had 80 volunteers from that one organization. Dave, you guys were able to make that connection between those 80 individuals right and the places where they were needed right away that day, right? And allowed them to do great work. So I think making that connection so powerful and important. So, yeah, lovely stuff Dave.

Dave Schunk 41:02
We love to give the corporation publicity. They go onto their social media, and they can see Company A is we do the big check thing, and we do whatever it is that does that. So we have contact information. I’m happy to provide that for you. For Can I do that now? Yeah, absolutely. Dave, so, so if you are interested in volunteering or donating, because that’s very important for us, but especially just in this case, since we’re talking about volunteering, you can reach us at 303-297-0408 just ask about that. That’s 303-297-0408 or probably better these days, go to our website at VOA colorado.org VOA colorado.org there’s a volunteer tab on there. It has list out the organizational contacts. You can email, you can call. I would say this, Steve, to your good point about coming into fall and then into the holiday season, if you’re a corporation and you want to get involved with any number of people do it earlier, because once you get into holiday, I mean, it seems like people, and this is maybe a human tendency, between October and December, this is when they all want to do their volunteering. And it’s great. Problem is we run out of spots like everyone else, but it’s in the Januarys and February, and it’s even in the Septembers and August, when we’re thinking about other things, yeah, and a lot of open spots, we can design something special for you. It’s easier for us to do that. Yeah, makes sense. Encourage people to go early or go after the holiday, but yeah, we’ll still take it whenever we can get you.

Steve 42:34
Love it Dave. Thank you so much.

Trish 42:35
I also love the idea of when you were talking about the grandparent program, I mean taking people who might be lonely and have certainly have skills and love and and things they can share with others. It’s such a good way to get the seniors back involved in something important. You know, I have retired parents myself, and I’m certainly going to reach out to them and give them an example, like they, you know, they, they don’t want to just sit home, right? They want to go out and be involved in their communities. So if you’re if you’re at retirement or near retirement, you’re thinking about, like, what am I going to do next? What a perfect opportunity.

Dave Schunk 43:11
We’ve got a number of different I just mentioned one program. There’s so many others that, especially for seniors, that will take and employ the skill, skill sets you have. And it’s a wonderful things.

Steve 43:21
It’s so much great stuff. I did spend some time on the website that Dave mentioned this morning, VOAcolorado.org, I’d encourage folks to check that out. Some great stories, some great personal stories. I read a few of them this morning as well. But some of the individuals Dave that your teams and your volunteers have helped and impacted and how that’s changed their lives, very moving stuff, and we could probably do in a whole nother hour on some of those stories, but I’d encourage folks to check that out. So Dave, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. It’s been a pleasure to meet you, learn about you, learn about the story, and really just be inspired by it, quite frankly, because that’s kind of my big takeaway here, and inspired by what’s possible and what we can all do to make a difference in our community. So thank you so much.

Dave Schunk 44:03
Thank you, Steve and Trish, I can’t tell you, I’m I appreciate this, and your questions are just wonderful and spot on. Really loved it.

Steve 44:09
Thank you, Dave. We loved it. Great to see what’s happening in the community. And I want to do more shows like this. I really do. So let’s, let’s continue these conversations. We’ll put the links that Dave mentioned in the show notes, as well as ways you can get involved. And I hope many people take listen to the show and really push themselves and their organizations to to do what they can, for sure, because the need is there, as Dave said, the need is there and it’s growing. Yeah. All right. Great stuff. All right, Trish, we will let Dave go. Thanks again to Dave and Trish, thank you. It’s been a wonderful conversation. We remind everybody to check out all the show notes at hrhappyhour.net and thanks to our friends at Paychex, of course, for all their support for our guest, Dave Schunk for Trish Steed. My name is Steve Boese, thank you so much for listening. We will see you next. Time and bye for now.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai