We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Krissy Goss a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Krissy, thanks for joining us today. Let’s jump to the end – what do you want to be remembered for?

I hope that when I’m gone, people remember me as someone that did what she felt was good and right for others. That I stood up for injustice and not only spoke out about them, but did all i could to make the world a better place. That I cared about the things that truly matter. That i lived out my faith in God by serving, giving, and loving those who deserve more in life. I hope that i will be remembered as a good and loving, a good wife and gigi.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I have been an entrepreneur for approximately 35 years. My ex-husband and started two businesses, one a IT Technology company and the other a commercial sign and graphics company. We built both into successful businesses. But in 2006, my life changed when I met a young couple who were expecting their first baby and were homeless. I talked to them for awhile and got them some water and something to eat. The dad said he had lost his job in the building industry and she had gestational diabetes and was so sick that she was also let go from her CNA position. They had lost their apartment, had been living in their car, which was repossessed and were then living on the streets. I felt compelled to help them and I found a little hotel nearby and paid for them to stay a few nights. I honestly thought I’d make some phone calls and get them into a shelter rather quickly. But in the next few days, I called everyone I knew, and every shelter, crisis center, etc. No one would take a married couple that were pregnant. They could separate into a men’s and women’s shelter, but understandably, they didn’t want to be apart. This was a new crisis in our country, homeless families. At that time, there were no family shelters anywhere in the US, so I made a commitment to help them. n the meantime, I found out that when their car was repossessed the company threw everything away. Their birth certificates, marriage and college documents, clothing, everything was gone. So I reached out to all my family, friends and my church asking for help. I was amazed by the outpouring from everyone. I was given money, food, clothing, baby supplies and we went out looking for an apartment for them. It took time, but we finally got them into a place and he started looking for a job. Sadly not long after that, the woman lost her baby. It was devastating. After going through this with them, I started thinking about what if we could have prevented them from becoming homeless? It was then that I decided to start HOPE.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Starting a nonprofit from scratch is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. There’s not really any books out there that give you the step by step process so I just started figuring it out as I went. I felt called to do something that would be for families in crisis. A place that people could come and get help with whatever situation they were in. Instead of letting them end up homeless, how about helping them through their crisis. I started researching to see if there was any services around our area and there wasn’t. Then right after I started thinking about all of this, my pastor called me and said that there was a lady at church that had a thrift store and couldn’t run it anymore. I met with her the next day, and within two days, I had taken over the thrift store. to say it needed work, is an understatement. It was a disaster. I told people about it, and the next thing i knew, I had a bunch of volunteers show up to help me clean up this store and get it organized. It took us about 3 weeks to clear it out. We took 10 truck loads of trash to the dump and then we opened the store to the community. Not long after that, a group came and asked if I would start a food pantry. I said I didn’t know anything about how to do, but ok! We cleaned out the back room of the thrift store and built shelving and started doing food drives and opened the food pantry a couple of months later. Then, we realized we needed to meet with people to find out what was going on and how to help them. We started doing case management out of the kitchen. this was such a crazy time and things were moving so fast. One day, I saw an elderly lady in the food pantry and I hadn’t seen her in some time, she said she’d been very sick and couldn’t get to the food pantry. I realized we needed to do some kind of home delivery, and we started HENS, and deliver to elderly, non-ambulatory people every week of the year. Then I heard that children in the community that were on free or reduced lunch at school didn’t have food to eat during school breaks, so we started Kids of HOPE and tons of volunteers come in to make lunches for all the kids in the program for all 13 weeks of school breaks. Next we started the Kids of HOPE back to school bash and kids from kindergarten to High School get everything they need to start school. Then we started Christmas in the City, which is the culmination of everything HOPE does. We give food, toys, clothing, resources and a whole lot of love. It’s amazing. All of this is because an entire community of people decided to take action and do something that matters. I know that if I had any idea of what all of this would entail, I’m not sure I would have done it. God laid it on my heart and only allowed me to see one step at a time, and I worked hard at each thing until we were shown the next step and here HOPE is now serving hundreds of families and has a full service Resource Center and food pantry. It is astonishing to me to see what it has become. I’m honored to have been a part of it. HOPE is has been at the helm of Joan Faulkner CEO since 2011 and she has an incredible staff and large team of volunteers.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

Funding a regular business is easy compared to funding a nonprofit. the obstacles to keep a nonprofit are incredibly difficult, especially in the beginning. No one wants to give money to a new organization (understandably). Grant Funders want to see that you are sustainable for 2-3 years before they will award a grant. So, in order to survive, you have to work very hard to bring awareness to what you’re doing, build relationships with everyone that is interested and build your donor base and host fundraising events. I started getting calls to come speak at events, and I while I was surprised that people were interested in what I had to say, i now know that getting out into the community and speaking at civic organizations, churches, business events, is critical to build your donor base, your board, your volunteer team. You have to have a strong board, but leaders and top business people may not want to serve on a new nonprofit’s board, so you have to keep working on that. You need staff, but you can’t afford to hire anyone, so you do alot of it yourself and with the most important aspect of a nonprofit: Volunteers! without volunteers you can’t accomplish anything. They are the backbone of your organization! They are so important! they help with so many aspects, from helping with fundraising, being involved in daily operations, Getting a nonprofit up and running and sustainable is the hardest work I’ve ever done but it is also the most rewarding. It takes years to get to where you can finally hire much needed staff, you have a strong board, and of course, you have an amazing volunteers. When you get to that point, where you have the structure, the programs running, it’s then that donors want to give because they can see that your organization is not going anywhere, you win grants, and you know it is finally sustainable.

Contact Info:

• Phone Number: 407-369-3059
• Email Address: [email protected]
• Website: www.hopehelps.org
• Facebook: HOPE Helps, Inc.