We recently connected with Mary C Miller and have shared our conversation below.
Mary C, so great to have you with us and thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts with the community. So, let’s jump into something that stops so many people from going after their dreams – haters, nay-sayers, etc. We’d love to hear about how you dealt with that and persisted on your path.
For most of my career I was a teacher, mostly secondary math, but in preschool, tutoring, homeschooling, middle school, high school, and college. As a teacher my goal was always focused on how best can I help the kids learn. In the public school arena there are often challenges; on day one, at least one student with say they hate math, there are students who struggle, students with learning or emotional difficulties, students who don’t do their work, students who are chronically absent, or who complain every day. After many years of teaching I became a district administrator and unfortunately saw similar behavior among teachers and administrators. When confronted with these types of issues l worked on building positive relationships with all students and teachers. If we could sit down and have a good conversation, if I took the time to listen and try to understand their perspective more often than not we could work through the issues, whatever they were. My husband was a pastor for over 40 years. Complaints come with the territory. Trying to understand, sitting together and hammering out a solution, respecting the other person’s point of view helped resolve the issues most of the time. In my role now as the Board President of Norwood Together I find similar patterns. My personal goal is to try to listen and understand the negative person’s perspective. If they are willing I like to meet in person and hear their concerns. I may have to contact a neutral friend and share the situation to get objective feedback. That at least helps me to formulate my thoughts. Sometimes there is no solution. When that is the case my motto is not to respond on social media, to remember the truth, and just keep doing good things. I realize that it is difficult in a small town to have new people move in and try to make changes. My goal is to honor the past work, and build on it, not to wipe it out and start over. The more people I meet the more I learn about our city and its history. I love to hear these stories and want the people who have lived here their whole lives to feel valued and appreciated. The more conversations I have it seems the smaller the group of “haters” becomes.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Norwood Together began as a grassroots movement in 2017. Norwood residents were invited to come to a meeting to discuss things we could do to improve our city. We met regularly and did things like park and street cleanups, visited other communities to see what they were doing, and met with city officials to hear about future plans. Out of that process this group of volunteers made the decision to work with LISC to develop a Quality of Life Plan for the city of Norwood. We rolled the plan out in 2019. After the rollout, the question was where do we go from here?. The team made the decision to become a 501(c)3 nonprofit. We raised some funds and hired a consultant to help us create a 2 year strategic plan to get off the ground. In 2020 we received our official nonprofit status. Our mission is to grow and build equitable economic and community development in the city of Norwood, Ohio. With that as our goal we met with the city to partner in applying for a planning grant to redevelop Montgomery Road, the main street in Norwood. We held community events focusing on our beautiful historic homes, our growing diversity, and honoring others who volunteer their time in the city. We show up at markets, parades, and other city events, host Get-togethers to connect with city officials and support systems, distribute welcome bags to new residents, continue with street clean ups and park work, work with local businesses to secure start-up funding or a location, and recently started a digital storytelling project focusing on neighbors. Most recently we have partnered with the city to apply for a Congress for the New Urbanism legacy project. Our project was chosen, and we participated in a charrette with Stantec to develop a concept for bike and pedestrian connectivity in our city. The report will be presented at the CNU conference being held in Cincinnati this May. In 2023 we raised funds to hire a parttime Executive Director. Up to that point all of the work had been done by volunteers with the help of Xavier University student interns. Personally I am very proud of how far we have come and how much we have accomplished since 2020. We have a growing group of volunteers and both community and corporate partners. If there is one word I could use to describe what we do it would be connections. Our vision is that Norwood become a diverse destination city where households thrive, businesses prosper, and everyone is welcome. The connections we have made and are continuing to make are helping that vision become a reality.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Build strong relationships – When we started the QOL process we held one-on-one interviews. My husband and I had just recently moved to Norwood from Tucson, AZ. I didn’t know many people, so I interviewed the 15 people I had met. Many of those people are still my friends today. I can call on them when I need assistance and rely on them to show up at events or as volunteers. Some of them are on our board, Relationships are key to being successful. Meeting new people and telling them about what we do is exciting. Never stop building old ones and cultivating new ones.
Establish trust- Do what you say you are going to do, Enlist the help and advice from others. Listen to other people’s ideas and be willing to change yours to one that might be better. Let people know they can rely on you. Don’t be defensive when people criticize you, but ask yourself if they have a valid point. If they do acknowledge it. If not, let it go.
Always do your best – People will judge the quality of your organization by the quality of the work you do. When you start, things will not be perfect, and you may have to change or revise your goal, but keep trying to make things better with each try.
Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
The number one challenge is always financial. We have a strong support base for projects and events, but have had to work hard to secure operational support. We have big goals and know that to be successful in many areas we need more professional staff. For our work to be sustainable we cannot rely mainly on volunteers for the long term. As mentioned earlier we have raised enough funds and have hired a parttime Executive Director which has been wonderful. The new director is working in areas that we did not have the time or connections to invest in, but his role is limited by the amount of time he is working for us. At minimum we need an event and volunteer coordinator, but as we continue to grow we will need funding to secure a development director and larger staff. We currently partner with Xavier University for office space. They have been a wonderful partner in many ways. We know that is not the best solution long term and would love to secure office space on the Montgomery Road corridor to be visible and have a location where people can stop in to connect. Currently we have begun a community partner program where we ask local residents to partner with us by making a recurring monthly donation of at least $20. We are approximately at 40% of that goal. We are also reaching out to potential larger corporate partners or foundations to secure recurring funding. Northern Kentucky University students are working on a project to help us establish a strong fundraising plan. Working with some of our local universities has provided us with resources to develop best practices and strategies to move forward,
Contact Info:
- Website: www.norwoodtogether.org
- Instagram: @norwoodtogether
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/Norwood Together
- Linkedin: linkdin.com/NorwoodTogether
- Other: linktr.ee/norwoodtogether
Image Credits
Dyah Miller photography Maria Williams photography
