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

Lisa, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

Colby’s Army is named after my son Colby, who died in 2009 at age twenty-three of an opioid overdose. From the time he was small, he championed the underdog, and made friends with those no one else wanted be friends with. Colby also envisioned a world where everyone was valued and respected, and where everyone got along, and he loved animals and nature.

Colby also suffered from mental illness and spent the last few months of his life on the streets. When he passed, those who knew him thought we should continue the good works that Colby had done, and would have done, and we knew it would take an army of people to make that happen, so Coby’s Army was founded.

Today, our programming surrounds those things that were important to Colby: helping those in need, valuing all people, embracing the gifts that animals and nature give. We do this through homeless outreach, feeding hungry individuals and families, helping those in need, gardening and growing food organically; and learning life lessons through therapeutic equestrian programming such as therapeutic riding and equine assisted learning.

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Lisa, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a life-long lover of horses and spent more than a decade as an internationally award-winning horse trainer and riding instructor. Eventually I moved into therapeutic riding, and into writing books about horses, horse training, and horse behavior. My horse fiction includes the Cat Enright award-winning equestrian mystery series, which is set here in Middle Tennessee, and the series has been optioned for television. I also am a podcaster with the Horse Radio Network, and my show, Celebs with Horses, features celebrities who are true horsemen and women.

When Colby passed, I took my knowledge of the nonprofit world, gained as a therapeutic riding instructor, and jumped into nonprofit management. Our Colby’s Army founders asked what Colby would have wanted us to do, and we unanimously decided on street outreach, because helping the most vulnerable of people is what Colby would have done.

While in a Metro outreach meeting about 2011, I learned that only roughly 76 percent (the national figure at the time) of newly housed stay housed. I asked why that was and learned that many did not have the life skills to stay housed. As a therapeutic riding instructor I taught life skills every day, so we added equestrian programming to Colby’s Army. The gardening came about because we were feeding hungry people and had trouble obtaining fresh produce, so we decided to grow it ourselves.

Our clients and the people we serve tell us that we have heart, and I think they are right. We care, From fielding panicked phone calls on a Sunday night to delivering a food box to someone in need on a Monday morning, our staff and volunteers truly care. It isn’t easy work, what we do, but we celebrate each small step, each small success with our clients and try to make them feel special. It truly is an honor to help make a difference in the lives of those others do not, or no longer, care about. And when someone we serve gets housed, finds a job, or learns to problem solve life’s challenges through their experiences with our amazing therapy horses, we are all so thrilled to have had a small part in making a positive difference in the life of another.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

COVID hit us hard, as it did so many others. As a volunteer-driven organization, our entire world suddenly was on lock-down and we went from about forty-five active volunteers to eight. I am still not sure how we survived. Donations of food and clothing and finances were way down, and many of the grants we usually received were put on hold.

Some of our programming, such as therapeutic riding, had to pause, but our horses still had to be fed and cared for, and the sixty-plus in homelessness we cared for still desperately needed our services. Our solution was to work more closely with our partner organizations––those nonprofits who do similar work to us––and our volunteers.

The executive directors of the therapeutic riding centers across Tennessee got on regular zoom calls to troubleshoot shared problems, and share resources. We worked closely with other homeless providers and handed out shared literature, shared resources, and worked together to maximize housing, health, and other efforts with our homeless. We did regular Zoom calls with our volunteers, those who were still with us, and those who stayed home. We also sent cards and letters, and were creative with videos on social media.

We, along with most other volunteer-driven nonprofits lost many volunteers during and post-COVID, but eventually new people surfaced and some of the old are now returning. It really was all about engagement. How could we keep our clients, donors, and volunteers engaged during a very difficult time.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

It’s very simple. We do what we say we are going to do. If we tell a client in homelessness that we will meet him on Tuesday with a pair of work pants so he can go to a job interview, we are there, exactly where we say we will be, with the pants. If we tell donors that their contribution will help a child with cerebral palsy build core strength through therapeutic riding, what’s what we do.

Our vulnerable population has had so many let downs, so many people promise them things that never happen, but we come through. Always, Over the years this has build trust, and we treasure that.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.colbysarmy.org
• Facebook: http://www.Facebook.com/ColbysArmy
• Twitter: @ColbysArmy
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkoYAQeh0U-23xd2QwDy0iw

Image Credits
Photos courtesy of Colby’s Army Inc.