Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Elizabeth Donoghue. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Elizabeth thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

We chose to open businesses and structure our prejudice free hiring practices because mental health diagnoses and neurodivergence are prevalent in our family. We feel uniquely experienced to provide employment opportunities for the most underserved community.
We have 4 children who are all neurodivergent, 2 on the Autism Spectrum and 2 with AD/HD. We witnessed our oldest son struggle a bit in typical work environments and thought about what a difference we could make, albeit on a small scale, to offer an environment that’s affirming and accepting . A job learning opportunity that allows people to be who they are, learn skills in the ways that work best for them and doesn’t expect anyone to fit into a rigid box of typical thinking or problem solving.

Elizabeth, 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 really stumbles into business ownership. My husband had been our primary source of financial support for most of our marriage up until his mental and physical health began to decline and after several years of worsening struggles for him we made the decision to remove him from the workforce temporarily, We were fiscally responsible people and we had a decent amount of savings and investments and we, very naively, thought that he would be out of the workforce for maybe 3-6 months, while the professionals figured out what was going on and told us how to address the issues he was facing. It was far from that simple. Three years later, we were out of money and seeing some improvements, but were far from having him healed and ready to return to a regular job in his field.
I have never been the kind of person who could just sit idly by and watch my family circle the drain. We had 4 children, and I had become a stay at home mom during my pregnancy with kiddo #3. In the time that my husband wasn’t able to work, I began taking care of other kids at out home to try to help make ends meet, and eventually I decided to take advantage of a skill other people had always seemed to admire in me, baking and specialty decorating. I was pretty well known amongst our friends and family for making elaborate cakes, cupcakes and cookies and cake pops for our kids’ special events and this was in the height of the specialty baking shows that became so popular.
I launched a specialty bakery from my home in January of 2014. By October of 2014, I was the owner of The Chocolate Caper in downtown Oregon, WI.

My husband began to become more interested and involved in my business as his health began to improve in that year. My success seems to help lift some of the heavy depression he had found himself living with while struggling with his limitations, and he is a brilliant business man. He was looking into making an LLC for me, and we discovered that I need to be working out of a commercial kitchen space. I was still the primary care giver for our young children ( all of whom are neurodivergent) and so I was limited as to where I could work and when, if it wasn’t go to be in our home.
Eventually, I discovered that the original owners of the Chocolate Caper were looking to retire and sell their business, and through a series of extremely serendipitous events, we met and there was magic in the air.
Ellen and Claude taught us how to run the business and taught me how to make their signature products and stayed on through the two busy holiday seasons to help us get our feet under us.
Right away, we knew that as business owners it was our goal to provide a workplace environment that was out of the box and allowed people to be treated like individuals and that was neurodivergent affirming.
My husband has ADHD, severe Depression and Anxiety and BPD. Two of our sons are on the Autism Spectrum, one of our sons and our daughter has ADHD, so we felt uniquely qualified to provide and environment where people could learn in the ways that worked best for them, that gives a lot of grace to each person’s humanity. Where you are free to make mistakes and learn and grow and miss work if you’re not up to it, without being penalized.
Many years later, we had the opportunity to open a cafe on the other side of the building that our artisan chocolate shop inhabits, and so we set about specifically creating a space dedicated to inclusion and neurodivergence affirmations, most specifically within our hiring practices.
We believe that it’s not enough to make a living, we feel it’s very important to give back to our community and to lift up those who need a hand, when and where we have the opportunity to do so. We have been blessed to be in the postion to serve, what we feel is one of the most underserved populations, even though neurodivergence is, in many ways, the great equalizer. It exists within every demographic, every race, every religion, every socio-economic status, and yet, most employers are afraid to hire folks who think and operate differently. Most employers aren’t familiar with “reasonable accommodations” for various disabilities, particularly invisible ones, and are intimidated by the idea of needing to offer a little more compassion and training and not being so rigid with their hiring practices and training expectations, but I have found that making these genuine connections with individuals on their levels, and being able to offer people the most basic human right, the right to make a living, to be one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.
My cafe, Kickback Cafe, has a partnership with our local high school special education department, and we helped them to open a little cafe in the school where some of the special education students are able to work and learn real world job and social skills. We sourced all of their equipment and we keep them supplies with the same coffees that we source.
This spring, we partnered with The Layered Onion, an artist collective that supports artists with mental health issues and neurodivergence, and are pleased to be showcasing their works on our walls as well as hosting a few art show/sales a year.
We look forward to more opportunities presenting themselves for us to more for our community as we grow. Fingers crossed!

Have you ever had to pivot?

Like many small businesses based in a brick and mortar, 2020 took a giant toll on us. Unable to welcome our customer base into our store, and having to keep most of our employees away for everyone’s safety was a huge blow. Fortunately, at the time, we were primarily running the Chocolate Caper, and our three main employees were myself, my husband and our oldest son, so we were able to continue working together, We already had online ordering and shipping available, but we had to develop new campaigns and exhaustively post to social media reminding folks to shop local and keep small businesses going. We developed local contactless delivery policies we hadn’t had in the past, as well as curbside and contactless pick-ups.
We started programs to deliver to first responders and essential workers based around community donations. We even secured Easter Bunny costumes and offered a Bunny delivery service that year to bring some joy to families stuck at home. It turned out, the more we gave back, the more our customers showed up for us.
It still wasn’t easy, and we needed to avail ourselves of all of the governmental subsidies and loans that were made available to small business owners during that devastating time. We were, and are, lucky that we were able to remain in business and re-open through it, however, the economic bounce back hasn’t been as prosperous as we would have hoped and at this point, a business that had been debt free for some years now has $160k of debt looming, and that’s quite daunting.
We expanded into our cafe, in the hopes of creating more jobs and more income.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

My management style and philosophy is to never ask someone to do a task I wouldn’t do myself. No matter what my position within my businesses, I’m not better than anyone else and I’m not above anything that needs to be done. It goes a long way towards employ retention when they can clearly see that you’re there showing up for them every day, just as they show up for yo, I take the time to get to know my employees and I ask them questions about how they learn best and I accommodate those styles. This starts at my interview process, which is more like a get-to-know-you conversation than a rigid interview with scripted questions and pre-approved answers.
I treat my employees as the individuals they are, and I find places where they shine and help them work toward those goals. Everyone has strengths, and we find them and we play to them. We don’t keep someone in a spot that doesn’t fit, we allow them to move within the workplace and grow their valuable skills. We let them take steps back when they feel overwhelmed. When we need to course correct, or discuss something that isn’t going well, I make sure to also mention all the things that ARE going well and the special ways that employee brings their gifts to the workplace. People want to do a good job, and if you take that extra time to make sure they have all the tools and training that they need to succeed, they will excel and they will be fulfilled and they will be happy within your employ.
I find that the single best way to maintain high morale is to treat people – like people.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.kickback,cafe http://www.chocolatecaper.com
• Facebook: Kickback Cafe. The Chocolate Caper