Storytelling
Shared Housing Center, Inc.
“DSVP has helped us stay on path with forward thinking. They’ve been the vehicle to creating a workable business plan.” – Maria Machado, Executive Director, Shared Housing Center, Inc.
Maria Machado grew up in a small, Catholic family in San Antonio, Texas where she was taught to take care of the senior citizens in her community. She’d sweep their porches, pick up their newspapers, help them out the best she could. For Maria, helping those in need is her “calling.” So, twenty-three years ago when her husband’s job moved her family to Dallas, she wanted to find a job where she could continue doing what she loved to do. For Maria, that job came in the form of Shared Housing, a non-profit organization that provides housing for those who need it as well as training and transitional housing so that they can move upward and onward, where she now serves as an Executive Director.
“Just the fact that they had a roommate program working with seniors was a big push,” she says. “I didn’t want to work for the city anymore like I’d done in San Antonio. Also, they had this program working with seniors. That’s what brought me to Shared Housing.”
Sharon Taulman, lead partner for Shared Housing, says that she has always been involved in volunteer work. “I’ve had a history of working with non-profit organizations. I was a Girl Scout throughout high school and been involved in various things.” She now serves as a Girl Scout leader in addition to her position with Shared Housing. Sharon assists with strategic planning, process improvement, and consulting for the organization as part of her membership with Dallas Social Venture Partners. Her previous twenty-five years of consulting in the business world allows her to bring new ideas to the table with Shared Housing.
Sharon was attracted to Shared Housing after she discovered how involved they are in their own community. “I think they play a very important role in the community as far as helping their target market: families with children—typically with single moms, those who are near-homeless for whatever reason. They provide after-school child care and training for the adults in finances and so forth so that they can become self-sufficient. They are equipping them with skill sets. And those who have been a part of the program come back and share their experiences and continue to be involved. It is a very family-type environment.”
According to both Maria and Sharon, DSVP has had a huge impact on Shared Housing, not only with the funding, but with the expertise they provide to the organization. “[Shared Housing] has been able to grow and develop through the expertise and skill set,” says Sharon. “The money is helpful, but it also helped us to realize this pool of ideas and direction to help them grow their base and funding both from a private sector source as well as HUD grants that have allowed them to provide for more people.” Maria agrees. “The leveraging of resources. That’s one way to look at it. Money aside, the picture is the power of membership. Some of the foundations who know DSVP will say ‘Maybe we should look at you since there’s this group of people who have scrutinized you.’ There are only a handful of organizations that have a discriminating process. DSVP has that, and it allows [other] foundations to look at us closely.”
Sometimes the help from DSVP allows the organization to recognize just how valuable it is to the community. “DSVP has helped us stay on path with forward thinking. They’ve been the vehicle to creating a workable business plan,” says Maria. “I’d been treating this organization as a social service, not a business. DSVP made us look at the roommate program as a thriving business. Bottom line, it is a housing unit saving the community. The whole way we look at this thing has changed. That has been the major turnaround for this agency.”
Sharon has also experienced a transformation from the relationship. “It has certainly made me more aware of the challenges in the community and made me think about how we can help with the education of children who are in these circumstances,” she says. “I’m even more impressed with the level of commitment of the people who are involved in the nonprofit world to their community. It is pretty much an ongoing struggle to find adequate funding, service, delivery, et cetera. You have to really believe to make that commitment and sacrifice. Despite all of the challenges, they have great positive attitudes about what they do.”
The people of DSVP have also affected the two women as they try to come up with solutions to the challenges they face. “[Donna Hectal] has been a jewel of DSVP. She’s soft-spoken, and she’s not scary! She makes us get the work done, but she makes it easy and fun. I continue to implement the great tools she’s given us.” Donna’s most recent contribution is the upcoming 25th anniversary party. “I called her up, and within probably 45 minutes, she came up with a whole plan for our 25th anniversary, and it’s a great plan! She transferred her expertise and applied it to our organization. It’s doable and doesn’t cost a lot of money. She is a great treasure to DSVP.”
Maria acknowledges that DSVP approaches philanthropy much differently than other foundations. “It is way different than anything else....DSVP is like a breath of fresh air. When they pick an agency, there are layers of ways they want to help. They remind us why we are here.”
And why they are there all has to do with how Maria and Shared Housing define success for their organization. “One big way to measure [our success] is the clients’ success,” she explains. “Do they find permanent housing? Do we add programs that benefit the clients? How do we train staff to get them ready to be the front-runners for us?” Even so, Shared Housing wants to keep in touch with former clients and involve them, when possible, in giving back to the organization for the next group that needs help. “It’s cool to see where our clients have gone.” One such client calls Maria from time to time. “She’ll call just to talk,” says Maria. “We’re her sounding board. We are trying to be a part of the community: retaining volunteers and support. The bigger picture is, ‘How do you impact the community?’”
More than that, Maria wants the community to know that Shared Housing makes a difference. “We are a smaller agency because we choose to be. We want to be able to keep up with our people. We are their family. We are trying to keep it at a level that keeps it personal.”
Maria and Sharon simply wish that DSVP was better-known within the nonprofit community. “They’ve got to do something about their image. To let [the public] know, ‘We’re here, and we’re going to be here for a while.’ They need to market themselves.” Sharon agrees. “[The community] needs to understand that there is a group who desires to provide monetary and other services to nonprofits and there is a mechanism, a way, to do that which is very personal. They can be involved as they want to be. I think it’s a unique organization with a great desire to make a difference.”
The women, through their relationship with DSVP and Shared Housing, have gained a lot of knowledge and experience—not only with the nonprofit world, but with the social world. According to Sharon, teaming up with Shared Housing has an added benefit: “I really enjoy working with Maria. She’s easy to work with and she is very appreciative of whatever contribution people can make. We’ve become great friends.”
Their story is heartwarming and familiar. Through their own personal desires to reach out and help others in need—a senior citizen or a homeless child—they succeeded in enriching the lives of others as well as their own.
