Catholic Charities of San Antonio began the 12 months underneath new management. Ada Saenz was named president and chief govt officer in January and assumed the place on Feb. 2.
Saenz is a longtime nonprofit chief and native of San Antonio’s West Facet, who most lately served as CEO of the Boys and Women Membership of San Antonio, a task she took on after working for the nonprofit as its chief working officer.
Previous to becoming a member of the Boys and Women Membership, Saenz labored at The Kids’s Shelter as director of contracts and compliance and at Women Inc. of San Antonio as program director.
Breaking into the nonprofit sector got here naturally for Saenz, however as a Latina raised on the West Facet of San Antonio, seeing herself as a frontrunner didn’t come simple.
All through her profession Saenz stated she has realized to say “sure” to alternatives and ignore fears. She’s additionally adopted her mom Marisa Navarijo’s recommendation when even an oz of self doubt creeps in.
“Once I had the loopy concept of making use of for my first CEO function on the Boys and Women Membership I informed my mother, ‘I’m considering of making use of for the place.’ and he or she stated, ‘It is best to, child.’ And I did,” Saenz recalled throughout a latest interview. “Now right here I’m, the Catholic Charities new president and CEO.”
Saenz was raised Catholic, and even attended Incarnate Phrase Excessive College and later the College of Incarnate Phrase the place she earned a bachelor’s diploma in psychology. She additionally earned a grasp’s diploma in neighborhood psychological well being counseling from the College of Texas at San Antonio.
In her function at Catholic Charities, Saenz says she is going to assist steward the group’s mission of offering “for the wants of our neighborhood by way of selfless service underneath the signal of affection.”
She oversees the on a regular basis operations of the Guadalupe Group Heart, Seton House, St. PJ’s Kids’s House, and San Antonio Start Doulas. By way of these facilities, employees and volunteers assist present companies to the neighborhood, together with housing and meals companies, afterschool applications, authorized companies, counseling and extra.
In 2023 the group reported serving greater than 298,000 people, no matter their spiritual affiliation.
Saenz is taking on the reins of a corporation that during the last 12 months noticed its workforce reduce in half as federal funds expired and contracts had been reallocated, leading to a lack of greater than $50 million for Catholic Charities.
Just a few weeks into her function and now put in in her workplace on the group’s headquarters within the Monte Vista neighborhood, Saenz reminisced on her ardour for nonprofit work and serving her neighborhood, the function of Catholic Charities throughout San Antonio and past, in addition to the challenges that she is ready to sort out.
The interview has been edited for size and readability.
Are you able to inform us slightly bit about your background within the nonprofit sector and what led you to Catholic Charities?
It began once I was in undergrad on the College of Incarnate Phrase. I began working as a mentor and a tutor for a federally funded program referred to as Trio Scholar Success, which was a program for first era school college students, college students who acquired Pell grants. I additionally labored in incapacity companies on the college degree. And I caught the bug, immediately. I liked working with that inhabitants. And from there it was very natural.
You construct numerous relationships within the nonprofit sector in San Antonio. From there I moved to Women Inc., which is all about empowering younger women to be robust, sensible, and daring. Then I moved to the Kids’s Shelter and I labored within the foster care system and emergency shelter placements um on the compliance and contract aspect.
Then once more by way of an natural relationships with the Boys and Women Membership, as a result of they had been certainly one of our sub grantees, that’s how I bought linked to that group. I used to be there for 11 years in operations and in programming for the primary seven years, then the final 4 years as CEO.
So, I’ve been within the sector, you recognize, 25-plus years and I’ve liked each minute of it.
What do you suppose made you “catch the bug” about working in nonprofits?
You fall in love with the folks that you simply serve.
First era school college students are going outdoors of their consolation zone to have a greater life for themselves and for his or her future household. And there’s numerous unknowns in going out of their consolation zone for the primary time.
Their dad and mom didn’t know something about FAFSA or the applying course of, or how to achieve success in school, or how one can go to your counselor for assist. All of these issues that people who find themselves not first era take without any consideration. These are college students who’re maneuvering by way of that unknown territory for the very first time. Their bravery spoke to my coronary heart and their need to to have a greater life for themselves spoke to my coronary heart as nicely.
Inform us extra about your new function as president and CEO of Catholic Charities. How would you clarify your new place?
There’s numerous shifting items with this function. It’s not solely the purchasers that we serve and the complexities related to the various wants of our neighborhood. However it’s additionally the employees and ensuring that they’re arrange for fulfillment when it comes to assembly these wants. Then additionally working together with your board of administrators, ensuring you might have actually engaged boards who’re board members who’re in it for his or her mission and are prepared to place forth the trouble for the mission, so that they have it of their coronary heart.
After which working with donors and dealing with different exterior stakeholders to guarantee that we have now the sources to fulfill the wants of the those that we’re serving. So, there’s plenty of complexities, plenty of completely different layers. It’s numerous listening and it’s numerous serving to folks perceive the mission and at all times bringing it again to the why.
What are among the experiences out of your earlier roles that you should use to domesticate these relationships right here as CEO?
So the nonprofit sector in San Antonio may be very small — huge when it comes to impression, however small when it comes to sources.
So we have now needed to depend on one another and we’ve constructed actually nice relationships. And that’s not simply the people who find themselves working in these nonprofits however it’s all of the people who find themselves additionally supporting these nonprofits — native firms, native foundations, native people who find themselves prepared to actually make investments their sources into the nonprofit sector.
So, having constructed these relationships over the course of my profession goes to be extraordinarily useful on this new function.
And even elected officers too. Federal funding, state funding, native authorities funding, these are all actually huge components within the sources that native nonprofits have at their disposal to assist folks. There’s numerous adjustments taking place within the funding panorama.
Maneuvering that collectively and ensuring that native nonprofits are sticking collectively.
Would you say that this funding panorama has gotten more durable to navigate?
Sure, it completely has.
I’d be shocked if diversifying funding streams was not a prime precedence for each single revenue. Not simply in San Antonio or Texas however in all probability throughout the nation.
You can’t be reliant on any single supply of funding however particularly proper now you can’t be reliant on any kind of presidency funding as a result of issues are altering at a fee that I haven’t seen in my historical past in my 25 years of working on this sector.You simply should just remember to have plenty of completely different funding alternatives coming your method and never counting on one particularly.
How laborious is it to diversify these funding streams in a altering funding panorama and the way do you hope to sort out this and different challenges?
When you concentrate on it, there are numerous several types of stakeholders that wish to assist, however when a sure funding stream is decreased, that places extra pressure on the remainder of them to present extra.
And so, native philanthropists, native companies, native foundations, they’re all feeling the impression of federal funding that has been decreased for lots of nonprofits. And they also’re attempting to step up and fill the hole, however there’s solely a lot sources that they’ve obtainable to present yearly as nicely. So all of it impacts the entire system.
I’ve been more than happy to listen to about how robust Catholic Charities is in our neighborhood, each when it comes to the impression with the those that we serve, but in addition within the belief of our funders and the people who find themselves investing in us.
We’ve constructed belief with these stakeholders over many, a few years and I’ve seen our native authorities, our elected officers, individuals who actually care about our neighborhood, come to Catholic charities to say, “Look, we see this want. We wish your assist.”
What are among the most urgent wants in our communities at this time?
Poverty. All throughout. And the tough factor about poverty is that it’s so multi-layered. It’s not simply okay, let’s assist any individual safe a job. There’s numerous generational trauma that’s related to poverty. There is perhaps numerous psychological well being wants that this particular person wants to beat in an effort to um you recognize achieve the boldness to safe a everlasting job.
For working mothers, youngster care is pricey, in the event that they don’t have the cash to place their youngster in care, how are they purported to work?
It must be a system method to true self-sufficiency, to chop that cycle of generational poverty in our neighborhood.
So, what excites you probably the most in regards to the capabilities of Catholic Charities at this time?
The folks. I’m a folks’s particular person and I’m completely satisfied to see that there are lots of people right here who love folks. I imply, when you work for Catholic Charities or any nonprofit, you’ve bought to have a love for folks.
However in San Antonio we have now wonderful leaders who wish to do the proper factor for our neighborhood, who wish to assist folks get to a greater place and who wish to develop our whole ecosystem and the financial system of San Antonio.
I used to be born and raised right here in San Antonio and numerous our native leaders are born and raised in San Antonio, too. So there’s an actual intrinsic need to see our metropolis thrive.
