Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ashley Jones. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Ashley, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
When my 2-month old daughter was diagnosed with a terminal illness, my entire world seemed to collapse. The doctors told us Skylar would likely not see her first birthday and there was nothing anyone could do.
I was 25 years old, many of my friends in their early to mid twenties as well, and none of us had been taught what to do in grief. Many disappeared, but one of our friends gifted us a professional portrait session. I knew those photos would be a gift, but little did I know they would set me on my path to revolutionizing the way we heal in grief.
When we buried Skylar at 21-months old, I was so lost. I would sit in her empty room wondering what to do with myself since I was no longer a full-time mom and caregiver. To say I was depressed was an understatement. My heart felt like it would fall out of my chest every time I looked at her pictures around the house, so I turned them face down. But after a few weeks, I just missed her blue eyes and sweet smile so much, I couldn’t help but turn the photos back up in their frames to see her face again.
Over the nest few months, I realized the photos gave me a sacred space to grieve and mourn. I could ugly-cry and scream, with snot pouring out of my face, and not worry what someone was thinking of me. I could sit and tell her how much I missed her without worrying if someone would think I was crazy. They gave me freedom to feel, which I soon learned was the way to heal.
After the raw first year of grief, I really wanted to help other people with what I had discovered and started offering portrait sessions to anyone I heard of facing a terminal diagnosis. With every family I served, an incredible story of impact would come from it. A mom told me that her daughter would take new people by the hand as they entered the house, walk them to living room, sit them on the sofa, and introduce them to her daddy through the photo book we gifted them (after the dad/husband passed away from cancer). A dad told me the photos opened up conversation with his teenage sons about loss and remembering their mom after losing her to breast cancer. Another mom told me the photos validated her on Mother’s Day after her baby died because she had nothing to prove he existed besides those photos. And then two years later, when she had a healthy baby girl, she told me those same photos were the only way her little girl would get to know her big brother…
Each session and story of impact inspired me to keep showing up and serving families. But my husband came to me and said, “I love you and your giving heart, but you have to stop giving it all away – we have our own bills to pay…” And I looked at him and replied, “I know. I hear you, but I won’t charge these families a penny. You and I both know how hard it was with medical bills, funeral expenses, and the like. If I am willing to give it all away, maybe I can find other people who want to help me give it all away too.” And that’s how Love Not Lost became a 501c3.
I knew from each story of impact it was worthwhile, but I wasn’t sure if I could scale it. I had a vision to do this at a global level from the start, but it’s not been easy. We started by raising $6,000 on what would’ve been Skylar’s 6th Birthday to get our website and promo video up and running. Since then, we’ve served over 100 families in preserving memories and supporting them through grief.
We’ve also seen how that’s only one piece of the puzzle. We’re not typically taught how to grieve and how to heal. People don’t like to face their own mortality or the pain of losing loved ones, let alone, meeting other people in their pain and loss. As we’ve listened to our community, we’ve grown and expanded our vision to bring love and healing to everyone in grief. We’ve created tools to empower people to show up for their own friends and family through www.HowCanILoveYouBetter.com and our Love Well Community (http://lovewell.impact.app). We also offer a grief and empathy training to help leaders in the workplace.
Our mission to revolutionize the way we heal in grief is exciting because there are endless possibilities on how to love people better through loss. We aren’t currently doing grief support well as a society, so it’s been fun to dream up new ways to help people – both those going through it and those looking to support others.
Ashley, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I truly thought I was going to be a doctor from a young age. I knew I wanted to help people avoid pain and suffering, and really make an impact in the world. I loved science, so naturally, becoming a doctor was a logical profession. I even attended camp bio tech by my own choosing in high school… man, did I feel so cool extracting DNA in my white lab coat and my micro-pipettes as a 15 year-old, haha.
But in my first year at Clemson as a BioChemistry major, I learned that every single doctor had to cut on dead people (even if you wanted to stay in a lab all day or just look at x-rays) and that was a total dealbreaker for me. I could barely handle worms and frogs. So I leaned into my creative side and changed to graphic communications, with a business administration minor.
I worked as a graphic designer and then web designer for the first few years out of college before my husband and I were surprised with a pregnancy. I had every intention of being a working mom until we found out our daughter had a terminal diagnosis at just 2 months old. My science nerd kicked in and I researched the heck out of her condition called Spinal Muscular Atrophy. I was the best freaking mom and caregiver I could possibly be and loved every single moment of being her mom – even the end, as we tucked her in one last time in a green cemetery and buried her ourselves.
I am so proud of my husband and I – the parents we were – and the couple we’ve fought hard to become now through the grief and healing. I’m proud of myself for starting Love Not Lost and learning how to lead a successful nonprofit even though I had zero nonprofit experience when I had this crazy idea to help people heal in grief. One of the most surprising achievements is having our story featured by the BBC.
At the end of the day, I want everyone to know how precious life is and how little it matters what other people think. This is your life… your purpose… your time to shine the light that is unique to you. And the world needs that light. We need you in all of your glory – full of love and gratitude that overpowers fear.
And if there’s ever a time you experience loss, and you need support, Love Not Lost is here for you. Whether you need portraits for a loved one facing a terminal diagnosis, support tools to help others, an online community, a book club to discuss meaningful things, guidance for resources, or a grief and empathy training for your workplace, we hope Love Not Lost will be the first place you turn.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
YES! After reading this questions I had about 20 titles immediately scroll through my head. I am a huge nerd and love learning (some people shop for clothes or fancy cars… I spend most of my money on books and online courses, haha).
The first book that massively changed the way I thought about business was Good to Great, which my college professor gave me as a graduation gift (truly one of the best gifts ever)! I quickly became a HUGE fan of Jim Collins. Great By Choice is another incredible book specific to leadership that changed me to my core.
Tribes by Seth Godin, Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek, Storybrand by Donald Miller, The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker, The Gifts of Imperfections by Brené Brown (along with Atlas of the Heart, Daring Greatly, and others of hers), are among the top books that have greatly influenced me and the culture that is Love Not Lost.
One of my all-time favorite books for entrepreneurial thinking and inspiration is Thirst by Scott Harrison. It’s required reading for our board and staff!
Specific to nonprofits, another person who has had a massive impact on the way we think about things is Dan Pallotta. His TED talks are phenomenal and his book, The Everyday Philanthropist, should be required reading for every nonprofit team.
Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?
You would think my first panic attack would’ve been in the midst of my daughter’s terminal illness or death. And although my body took a beating in the stress of all of that, my first panic attack didn’t come until March 6, 2020.
I remember that day because we had just held our first ever grief and empathy training 4-hour workshop in Atlanta and the first two Covid cases in the city were announced that Friday. One of my board members could tell I was stressed and approached me afterwards to ask, “aren’t you relieved the workshop is over with?” and I remember pausing wondering why I didn’t have a sense of relief… “No,” I replied, “we have our gala coming up and I have a bad feeling about this…”
Sure enough, within a week everything was shut down for the start of the pandemic and you know what happened next in the world. We of course cancelled the gala 15 days out, which was the right move, but we had already paid $5,000 for the venue, thousands more dollars for supplies and other expenses, which we weren’t able to recover. On top of that, a lot of people weren’t in a position to donate any more, so over 1/3 of our annual revenue was gone in the first quarter.
By May we were nearing zero in the bank account. I was super stressed, but when I thought about what it would mean to close the doors to Love Not Lost, I knew it wasn’t an option. I had started this by giving it all away, and I would still continue giving it all away – even if I had to pause the larger-scale operations for a time. I would find a way.
I spoke with my board and we made the decision to furlough me, so I could keep our full-time staff member on regular payroll. Thankfully the PPP first round came through for us and I could come back on salary within two months.
I can’t even begin to describe the desperation I felt watching our bank account dwindle, while we were still trying to show up for families and support people in grief. With more and more loss compounding in the world, I knew our work would be needed more than ever.
I was so grateful when Northside Hospital came through with their community grant to support our work and Kalon Creative continued their quarterly gift to Love Not Lost as they were able.
At the time, our monthly givers were called our Foundation Builders. But after we survived 2020, we changed the name to The Heartbeat of Love Not Lost because they truly kept us alive and were such a source of love – for the organization and the families we served. From month to month, we only had two people in The Heartbeat have to pause their gift that year. Some people who faired well in 2020 even doubled their gift each month, which just blew me away.
I will forever be grateful to our generous giving community who helped us make it through a deeply challenging year!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lovenotlost.org/
- Instagram: @lovenotlostorg
- Facebook: @lovenotlostorg
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleynicolejones/
- Twitter: @lovenotlostorg
- Other: Love Well Community: http://lovewell.impact.app Online Support Tool: www.HowCanILoveYouBetter.com