As President of Omega CDC, Vanessa Ward leads the organization’s mission of breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty by catalyzing change in Northwest Dayton.
Join us for an inspiring conversation all about Vanessa’s journey, the ongoing impact of Omega CDC, and her vision for bringing hope to Northwest Dayton.
Learn more about Omega CDC and follow Vanessa on LinkedIn.
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Episode Transcript:
David Bowman: Hi, everyone, and welcome to Creating the Future. I’m David Bowman…
Evelyn Ritzi: and I’m Evelyn Ritzi,
David: And today, we’re joined by Vanessa Ward, president of the Omega Community Development Corporation. As President of Omega CDC, Vanessa oversees the organization’s mission of breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty by catalyzing change in Northwest Dayton. Under her leadership, Omega CDC has helped thousands of children and families access education, economic stability, health and well-being, and community. We are thrilled to welcome Vanessa on the podcast today to hear about her story, the impact of omega CDC and her vision to bring hope to Northwest Dayton. So without further ado, let’s get started. Vanessa, welcome.
Vanessa Ward: Thank you so much, Dave. It’s such a joy to be with you and Evelyn this morning.
David: It’s truly an honor and a pleasure to have you. So in this podcast, we really like to highlight leaders who are using creativity to solve problems and transform their community. So your leadership is the perfect example of that. Tell us a little bit about your background and how Omega CDC was founded.
Vanessa: I’d be happy to talk about that. You know, Omega CDC is the sister organization of Omega Baptist Church. So it was started by the church in 1997 and it was really inspired by the examples that we saw of churches that were doing really effective work in their communities, deciding that the work of the church was not just to have worship on Sunday mornings, but actually to make the world that surrounded the church a better place. And one of the ways that we saw this happening through models around the country was through the creation of a nonprofit, 501(c)3 that was able then to garner support, partner with collaborate with others, build investments that would allow for the services that the people in the community needed to come to be those services like food for food insecurity in the community, educational support, opportunities for people to get jobs and develop work skills. There are churches that are doing that kind of work around the country, and we saw that my husband and I said, you know, we really need to bring that kind of model to Dayton, and Omega Baptist Church was very open to it. The congregation said, yes, we want to try to achieve something different than and something better for our community. It ought to look better around the environment of the Omega Baptist Church. And so the CDC was developed at that point.
David: And so I guess the notion would be to not just tell the story of bread and fish, yes, right, but to provide people with bread and fishes, fish, fish, yes, yeah, but then even go a step further and teach them how to fish or bake or any number.
Vanessa: I think we are ready to do a sermon, so you know. And I was trained as an ordained minister. And also, at the time, I was working on my doctorate in Hebrew Bible Teaching at the seminary was kind of the goal I had in mind. That’s where I thought I was going. And lo and behold, I was asking in 2015 to come and spearhead the work of our nonprofit. The nonprofit, as I said, had been in existence since 1997, but we had various leaders throughout the period of time, and at the moment in which the church asked me to consider this transition, it was an opportunity for me to get involved in a project that we were spearheading for the building of Hope Center For families. So that became, kind of my main project as of 2015.
Evelyn: And that was many years in the making. I think when I first met you, we were getting ready for the opening Yes, of the Hope Center, yes, which, as we know, brings together services from Dayton Children’s, Mini University, Sinclair College, and, of course, Omega CDC. Let’s talk about that, and the collaboration involved, and why it was so important to bring these services under one roof for this specific community.
Vanessa: Sure. Well, as the community talked about ways to develop a community center, we kind of positioned an opportunity for the community to engage in communication and talk about, what would you see at a community center, they talked about services. And so one of my first goals was to kind of research, what does a community center that brings services and not necessarily recreation? Because we had a recreational facility in the neighborhood that was quite beloved, the Princeton Recreation Center, and we didn’t want to compete at all with a very strong organization and a presence in the community. So the idea of community services made an opportunity for me to kind of research, and I found this model. It’s called a two-generation model for the reduction of poverty that was first proposed by the Aspen Institute, and it really talked about bringing services under one roof that supported intergenerationally of a whole family. So rather than having a siloed service that was just for children or service just for adults, this opportunity to bring all of that together. So I began to envision what would that look like. The community was up for services. And so I proposed this model, and began to explore who might be interested in bringing those kind of services to Northwest Dayton at the time. As we researched and looked at the demographics, we realized that the community was suffering from many disparities, disparities in education, disparities with health and well being for the community, at that time, we didn’t have the loss of a hospital, but we knew that the community was suffering, that there were many people who had, you know, issues with heart disease, issues with diabetes, issues with, you know, just all of the medical kind of centeredness that we needed to think about. So there needed to be a partnership with an entity that had an interest in bringing medical services to that particular region, and it became, then the quest to try to find partners who thought this was a great idea, to bring those services to a geography Northwest Dayton and Mini University was one of the first we knew early education was was suffering. A lot of our children started in kindergarten with deficits. We know a hard stop or a difficult start of life in education was going to mean that they would have a trajectory that would be difficult for the rest of their educational experience. So a good start was necessary, finding Mini University and hearing from them that they had an interest. Wow, that was our first partner. I was able to say then to the next partner, which was Sinclair College, speaking with President Steve Johnson, and saying, hey, you know, would you be interested? We need adult education while we’re also teaching children, we need to simultaneously make a better way educationally for their parents. And he said, Yes. So that had two and then, you know, Dayton Children’s had a conversation with a leader there who came to me, actually, and said, you know, we’re serving 3400 children from this region every year at the main hospital, sometimes in emergency room settings. What would happen if we were able to do well visits, as well as address some of the medical concerns in this area? It seems like we need to have a presence. Wow. That sealed the deal. So when we had those, those that type of support from those partners, in particular, because of the work that they had done in the past, the work that they continue to do in the communities, it was a sure, kind of a confirmation that we were doing the right thing by trying to bring the Hope Center into fruition. And so partners agreeing, then the rest is history. A lot of hard work and trying to build a financial model, a stacking of finances to ensure that we could build the building. But it happened, and here we are with a wonderful facility. And I think what is unique and what really captures the initial concept in bringing these partners together is that these partners wanted to be in that setting. And you know, it makes all the difference that they did not just come to do their particular specialty, but they came with the concept of, how do we make the world better? How do we make this community better. We know that the needs are there. We know that we can supply it. But what do we need to do to make this work? And so honestly, they have been meeting monthly representatives from each of these partnering agencies. They meet monthly since 2017 still meeting and the good news is, because of those meetings, we have created ways in which there is cross-referrals happening. So a person may come in one door intending to come to Mini University, for example, and enroll their student, but once they get there, they find out, oh, Dayton Children’s is upstairs. Do you have a pediatrician? And they can then, in a very easy way, refer them to Dayton Children’s. Dayton Children’s, then is able to support that parent, and then we might find out that they have some other insecurities. Then there might be a cross reference then to Omega CDC, which provides wraparound services in the same setting. So, in other words, under one roof, a family could be supported in many ways, depending on their need. And as those partners talk to the actual patient or talk to the family and find their needs, they’re actually making solutions happen in one place, versus sending someone across town. They may have transportation insecurities that is mitigated because you’re in one building and the services are happening kind of seamlessly through someone who either a coach that has been assigned to the family as a conduit to kind of bring that whole world together. It is the best realization of a vision that I could ever imagine. And I want to tell you, I didn’t know it was possible. I just thought, let’s try it. Let’s see. And because every partner came 100% into this model and has given 100% I will say it is working in a tremendous way.
David: I love that just, let’s try it, and we’ll see, yeah, like it’s, it’s a combination of, I guess, realism and also dreamer at the same time, right where it’s like, okay, it might not work, but it’s definitely not, if we don’t try.
Vanessa: Absolutely, absolutely.
David: I just love that one of the things you talk about too, and I think it ties in with this. But is the idea of place-based right? A place-based model? Talk about how that ties in with this.
Vanessa: Yes, well, this now place based models are, it’s, it’s a movement that really has been supported through a successful model, the Harlem Children’s Zone. In that Jeffrey Canada began over 30 years ago, and it was really the Harlem Children’s Zone model that informed this place-based kind of theory that more can be done if we concentrate resources and concentrate time and concentrate even the the sense of model of looking at the metrics and the data very focused in one area, and allowing that data to inform how you deliver services in one location, you see greater impact. For Jeffrey Canada, he identified 90 blocks. So now they have 97 blocks in Harlem, in which they are. They have scaled services over time, but they started the model block by block in one region, and that has really informed how we are doing our work. Omega CDC, in its early years, was pretty much doing nonprofit services in education, economic development as we were invited, or we committed ourselves to do the work based on grants and dollars that were made available. And so we might be doing a service on one side of town, and then we moved to another site. We might be in the north side, but then we’re on the west side. We were trying to serve where we were invited to serve and where there was opportunity to serve. When we became very laser-focused on Northwest Dayton, it became clear that we could see that deepening versus broadening our approach to delivering services was the most effective way to do the work. It also allowed us to see data and allow the data to inform our success. You know, we read this book, Trying Hard is not Good Enough, and I can’t remember the author, but I had all the staff read it, in ‘17 or so. The importance of that is that nonprofit work, a lot of times we can walk away because it’s so tremendous, the amount of concerns you’re trying to that you’re trying to resolve, or the help that you think you need to give, and oftentimes you end up working, and then you might not see impact, or the impact is so small, but you could walk away and say, Well, we tried this. This writer says, you know, really trying hard is not good enough. You’ve got to go deep enough, and you have to see some results. So it’s called, kind of, from there that was produced kind of an evidence-based reflection and tool that’s called results-based accountability, and now all of our staff has to go through that training, because essentially, what we’re trying to do is measure our success, and you can’t do that on the surface. You must go deep. You must go deeper. And so place based work allows you to go deep, deeper in an area, in a region. So once we focus around 215 or so, even as I was beginning to raise dollars for the Hope Center, I was very clear. It’s a Northwest Dayton approach. It’s not to say the rest of the city, the rest of the communities, can’t be touched, but we’ve got to go deep enough and make enough results, or see enough results, that we can then help replicate whatever is working in other areas. It’s not ignoring the rest of the city, who in many instances, the same issues are apparent in on the east side. The same issues are apparent in the deep west side. But how we impact what we’re able to do in this place, if we go deep enough, and we keep measuring results, and we see results, and we adjust our services to accommodate those results, we are able then to share research and support that would allow for the replication or the deepening of work across this region. And that’s our goal.
David: Yeah, it’s really about, like focus and discipline, right?
Vanessa: Yes.
David: And that focus and discipline paid off in 2023 when Omega CDC was one of just a half dozen organizations in the country to be awarded a grant from the US Department of Education, Promise Neighborhoods program. So for those who don’t know what that’s all about, can you explain the significance of that funding and what kind of services that has helped you to provide for Northwest Dayton?
Vanessa: Yes, that’s wonderful. So the Promise Neighborhood. Promise Neighborhood Grant was first developed under President Obama’s administration about 2010 and it really was inspired by the Harlem Children’s Zone. And the concept was really, if you could support a community that was going deep in a neighborhood, that there could be with resources that would deepening the investment and allow them to scale the work to a larger number, particularly of children. Children are the heart of promise neighborhoods, and that’s again awarded through the Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Education. It’s how do you change the trajectory for children, a massive number of children. The goal is, whatever your goal is. In our case, we wrote an application that said we wanted to go deep in Northwest Dayton, and that we wanted to touch 6700 children, 3400 families over the course of five years, in which the actual grant allows for funding. The funding was totaled 20, a little over $28 million over the next five years, and it gave us the opportunity to scale the work that we were doing in just a few blocks around the Hope Center to 17 neighborhoods and a little over six-mile radius of the Hope Center. And wow, that’s where we are. We’re in year two, and we are seeing we had measurable outcomes that we were trying to achieve each year over the next five years. Our first year was to touch about 800 kids, and we’ve exceeded that a bit. This next year, we have 1250 children. I have numbers in my mind, and I keep those numbers before the staff as well. It’s not just about numbers, but what is our touch? How do we know? Know that we’re impacting these families, and we’re doing it through school-based work. We also partner with about 33 organizations that collaborated with us on this particular grant, and I think that’s why our grant was so strong, and it also speaks well of our community, because our community, I think, is an amazing community in the sense that we do collaborate, we find ways to work together. I think when vision and goals are clear, people get a sense of how to get on board, and they do. We saw that in the Hope Center and in the collaboration of the partners that I’ve spoken about, and that you’ve talked about, the hope, the Promise Neighborhood is a collaboration, and through that collaboration, we believe that we can scale our impact across the 17 neighborhoods and ultimately to touch 6700 kids, 3400 families. That’s the North Star. And we stay focused on that. I want to say that the Promise Neighborhood Grant was the first awarded in the state of Ohio. So a lot of eyes are on our work, from the governor’s office and the state legislators, as well as from a national perspective. And that’s a bit uncanny most days, but it I think, you know, I walk, I said, I’m a minister to whom much is given. I stay with that scripture. Much is required. We are required to make this work. We need to make it work, because there need to be more Promised Neighborhoods, award grants, awarded the importance of a nonprofit receiving that deep investment allows for you to scale the work. We’ve hired more people. There are more boots on the ground, working either in the schools or working with families through a program that we do called Student Success Navigators that provide one one-on-one mentors that came completely out of this program and out of this investment of Promise Neighborhood dollars, we reinvest about $11 million into the community through organizations that are partnering with us. They are also receiving dollars to deepen impact around literacy, around wellness, health and wellness, we have about 10 different indicators that we are responsible and accountable to the US Department of Education to report on, and we’re doing it.
David: Oh, and you talk about I mean numbers and numbers equating people, right? And yeah, with the Student Success navigators, like helping kids who are nearing the end of their high school career, yes, get the credentials, get the requirements they need to graduate to get that diploma right? Yes, you’ve done that.
Vanessa: We’ve been doing it absolutely. And, you know, it’s in partnership with the Dayton Public Schools, and I do want to lift that as one of our, one of the pivotal partners that we have, because that’s where our students are. And that partnership, I think, is, is deepening as we work together to try to move the trajectory. We are very pleased this year, through this partnership, we added some supplemented what the district was already doing. But in one of our population schools, Fairview, the reading proficiency for third graders went from 10% in the fall to 27% this spring, which is huge it’s not where we want to be. It’s absolutely not where any of us are pleased to be. But that increase was tremendous, and we want to continue to do that. And that came through partnership with Dayton Public Schools, their teachers, certified teachers on the ground, working, but also our teams surrounding them with either navigators assigned to students to make sure they got to school. Attendance is important for us, that they’re productive when they go to school, that their reading capacity is increasing. So we did reading boot camps, and we had reading buddies, and so it made a difference. We believe, I don’t know that one element was more important than another, but I do know the effort was 100% focused on making that difference, and that’s one of the milestones we’re trying to report on to the Department of Education. We were able to give a good report for this year, and we only want to climb and do better.
Evelyn: That impact is really only possible with, as you said, a clear vision and goals and as someone that we would consider a visionary leader, how do you balance really having a big-picture vision with the need to have concrete steps in the here and now and leading folks day to day. What does that look like for you? And on a day-to-day basis?
Vanessa: I think it’s, it’s the team. And I would, I think I have the best team in the world. You know, honestly, I just, I am so grateful for the people who have decided to join this work. I think they are not just people who come to work. They are people who embrace the vision, who are clear about their presence in the work right now that they are important to the work, and I think and valued. And as a leader, I believe it, and I try to message that as much as I can. I think it means being present, so showing up, you know, as opposed to kind of giving direction for people to do something and never showing up. You know, I’m, I’m in the schools as much as I can get in the schools to see the work. If there’s a project that’s being done that’s created by the staff themselves, I try to support that. You know, we, this year, did something that we hadn’t done before, which is we keep adding and building infrastructure. And you know, administratively, we’re the strongest that we’ve ever been. I have to say we have a really great person leading that, and that’s Dave’s wife, Colleen, is tremendous, and her work, you know, in keeping tying all of the ends together, and anticipating where we will possibly have a barrier or a conflict. You know what’s happening when you’re growing so fast, there’s and you don’t really have a model to follow in terms of how to run the day to day. You’re just creating it on the spot all the time. So we have to have creative people who are also given permission to use their creativity. I think that’s my role. My role is I have a clear, the vision has to be clear, the direction that we need to go in. And I will say that I would be nowhere near where we are without our Vice President who happens to be my daughter. This is a family affair, but her expertise, her skills, her ability to stay on the map, create a map and stay strong with it, and message that across the next tier of management is really where we’ve seen, I think success building infrastructure with people who get it, who are given license to move ahead, keeping the North Star clear, I think that that’s been our success so far. And we keep tweaking. You know, you mentioned before, Dave, you know, what does it work? You kind of figure out, well, that didn’t quite work. What do we do? We’re small enough, getting bigger, and that’s harder, but keep people still thinking about, how do we make it better, and giving them opportunity to do that.
David: So you’re someone who is just such an inspiration, right?
Vanessa: Thank you.
David: You motivate people, you inspire people. So how do you find inspiration and keep motivated? Right? You’re you’re on a long journey, a steep climb. So where do you find that hope and strength and inspiration. What are sources of that for you?
Vanessa: So I have to say my spiritual walk. You know, I’m a person of prayer and a person of faith and faith often my faith. Often looks at an obstacle and says, Okay, it’s an obstacle. So I’m going to need help. Kind of call on a higher power for that. I think also, I’ve been so blessed by, you know, the people that I keep company with. You know, I was just at a conference with Jeffrey Canada, for example, two weeks ago, and he found the time to sit down with me, one-on-one for, you know, 30 minutes and just kind of talk, how’s it going this? And they provided a lot of technical assistance and support along the way. That is such an inspiration and gives me hope. You know, I’m not relying on any one source, but I’ve just been really blessed to have people along the way who check in, you know, even from the leaders locally, who are part of the Hope Center, you know, if I see Debbie Feldman, it’s like, hey, what do you think about this? She’s already on it, you know. She’s already talking to me about it, you know. And then the other piece is to see results. Yes, you know, there are stories that we can tell of real people who, you know, a mother, a single mother who didn’t have enough confidence to plan for the future and made plans with the coach that we have to go through a credit recovery process, and now is in her first home, you know, it’s just that’s, that’s the reason you know that we’re doing this. And it just gives me hope that, you know, the rest of the world is kind of, you know, we hear some messaging that is, that can be very distracting, frustrating, painful. I tend to spend a little time looking at that, because it does give awareness and gives an understanding of the context in which we are working. But I can’t focus there. I have to focus on what is working. And there’s a lot working.
Evelyn: And it’s inspiring, and it makes makes people want to get involved, and to support the mission and to help you and take action. What are some of the ways that folks listening could get involved, whether it’s volunteering or supporting in another way?
Vanessa: Sure, well I think certainly providing resources. You know, the work that we do is hard work, and I’m going to give more definition to resources. I’m talking about people resources. So you talked about volunteering. That’s certainly important. In the fall, we’ll start advertising for reading buddies again, or something to that effect. And you just don’t know what a difference it makes for a child to have someone to look to, who comes in on a Tuesday, comes once a week, but they know they’re going to come and they’re going to sit and listen to them read. It’s 30 minutes. It may be 45 minutes, but it’s that amount of time that could make the difference for a child. And so those resources of people, we’re building a community garden right now. So some folks were there a couple of weeks ago, helping to put the beds in place, you know. So we are working to build a real army of volunteers, and we have assigned someone just to that work right now. So it’s really early in the stages. We’ve been doing it all along, but we’re trying to build more of a structure around doing that, so we’ll continue to do that kind of thing. Those are resource people resources, human resources. There’s also financial resources. You know, we’re still a nonprofit. We still are fueled by grants. Even this big grant is very targeted and it’s restricted. Unrestricted resources are very important because it allows us to build the team and go deeper and be innovative in the work that we’re trying to do and we’re trying to build for sustainability. This grant is five years, but we have every opportunity, and I think that’s what I pursue right now, is really working on, how do we sustain the work beyond the five years? And so the importance of resourcing that allows us to build a stronger infrastructure is absolutely what is needed, and research is important our part in contributing to the model of place-based work is significant and it’s worth investing in, because we see the results. So we want to make sure we tell that story in the best way possible. Grateful for the partnership with Ohlmann Group, because we are able to build out a concept around our marketing and our communications plan. I think we’ve grown tremendously in branding who we are, and I think there’s more work to be done. So there you go. Those are the ways that that’s what I think about every day when I’m not trying to just make it through the schedule. That’s what I’m working on well.
David: So the name of the podcast is Creating the Future, and we always like to finish with the same question with all of our guests, and that is, what’s the future you want to create in date?
Vanessa: Well, I have to really say, I think about Northwest Dayton that it becomes, and this is what I’ve said to my staff. We’re working to make this a destination, place, destination for people who are of all walks of life. I think that’s the best community that one could have. It’s not just of people who have resources, people of wealth, but they’re living alongside people who are who are also struggling with see the opportunity to lift, to be lifted, or to lift themselves up, because the resources are that we. Resources are there, the assets are there. My and I think by that, we become then the best-kept secret, but at the same time, one that gets spread abroad so that others see that they can do it as well. So an example, but one that says it’s possible, that gives hope.
David: I love it. That’s beautiful.
Vanessa: It’s coming. It’s coming.
David:Well, thank you so much for joining us today.
Vanessa: Thank you for having me. I’m so honored that you invited me to be here.
