We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Tab Howell. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Tab below.

Tab, appreciate you joining us today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

Our “business” is a non-profit called Noah’s Ministry and starting a non-profit was a big risk. We rely 100% on donations from individuals, businesses or churches. I have a special needs son and it is certainly a challenge to be a special needs parent, we have overcome many obstacles with him. While I was working for Fellowship of Christian Athletes, a well-established and successful nonprofit my wife and I started feeling called to start our non-profit to help support special needs families and to help churches develop special needs programs. We could see a lack of support because we experienced it personally and other families would share the same struggles with us. As a former minister, I also could see how the church as a whole did not have ways to accommodate my son and those like him so we could participate in church attendance and fellowship. The statistics we found regarding special needs individuals and their families and the church at that time were staggering and we felt we needed to do something about this! With my experience as a pastor and having to make space and ministry for my child at every church I led, my family understood how to create a ministry for our kiddo and we wanted to help others experience the same. So, my wife and I had to take the risk, the leap of faith, to start this non-profit from nothing! We moved the summer of COVID July 2020 to Texas to start our nonprofit. There was so much uncertainty at this time because of what was going on in the world, it seemed like a crazy time to start something new. When you have a strong enough conviction about your purpose, you cannot let fear keep you from acting. Know what your Why is! If your Why is strong enough that will empower you to continue to solve problems that you will encounter as you move forward.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Our goal at Noah’s Ministry is to see special needs individuals and their families to flourish. We help with accessibilty, especially at churches by increasing awareness, education and training so that they can develope special needs ministry to reach those in their community with unique needs. We help special needs families that are struggling by walking shoulder to shoulder with them through resources, mentoring, education and home adaptations. You can check out our website Noahsministry.com for additional information. We got into this nonprofit because we often felt like we were drowning and didn’t have the support we needed. As parents of a special needs son we are in a unique position to help other’s like us by shared experience alone. We saw so many special needs parent struggling from caregiver burnout that needed to know that they are heard, seen and not alone. We are just happy to have impact, to save others like us from drowning.

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

Being a special needs parent is one of resilience. Our son is primarily non-verbal and requires one-to-one supervision while awake to keep him safe; his needs are extensive. We are often just trying to survive the day. The Why is the key to perseverance. The Why has to be strong enough to fuel you. Quitting is not an option when your why is strong enough. Why are you here? Why are you doing this? Our son is a gift, he is an awesome, smiling, young man, and though there are challenges we won’t give up on him. This is the same Why that fuels our non-profit, we hate to see others like us struggling when we can help, support, and love.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

I reach out to our partners in non-profit by email. text, calls, and in person. At a minimum, I contact 2 churches and 3 individuals per week. In addition to this, I send out a weekly update text to 67 of our supporters to let them know what we have been up to that week and what they can pray about in the upcoming week. Relationships are key, the deeper the connection, the higher the percentage of loyalty. The people who know us personally and who we know are the ones who want to support us in the vision of our ministry. I believe in the ministry of presence, It is the people that we invest in that also want to invest in us.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://noahsminsitry.com

Image Credits

Family photograph by Renee Hansen