Her Story
About Kiara
My journey in the nonprofit sector began back in high school when I was required to complete community service hours for graduation in Maryland. I reached out to the Correctional Education Association to volunteer, starting by doing artwork for directory covers and designing awards. My mom was working at the company at that time, and it started as a summer internship. After I graduated from high school, they asked me to come on as a part-time seasonal employee, and then offered me a full-time position in 2011. Since then, I've grown tremendously within the organization. In 2015, when the association downsized, I picked up significantly more responsibilities. Now I handle all day-to-day tasks, manage our membership database and workflows, work with the Standards Commission as their recording secretary, and serve on committees as needed. Over the past three years, I've been deeply involved in strategic planning and our overall workflow association program. I just recently completed my master's degree, and I greatly benefited from working at this association because a lot of the work I had to do was directly based on an association I'm familiar with. Creating new systems and implementing new processes within the association and our membership database has been the highlight over the past year and a half.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Kiara
01What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
If she's looking to go into the nonprofit sector, make sure that the mission of the organization is something that she can stand by and be a champion of. And if she's going into the education sector, understand that the impact that she makes is far greater than she'll mentally comprehend. Overall, you have to learn to be able to say no and really prioritize what's important. And also, throw yourself into situations that make you slightly uncomfortable, because that's when the greatest change happens professionally and personally.
02What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Patience and gratitude are essential values for me. Just being a wife and a mother with a big family of four kids, I understand that you have to have a certain level of patience and gratitude in order to get through the day. I also believe strongly in helping people that are closest to you in your own neighborhoods and cities, instead of just looking at national policies. It has to start on a small scale before we can make a large impact. I think it's important to bring a voice to the people that are normally overlooked, only because they keep their contributions quiet. When you have people that work behind the scenes, the people at the forefront don't know how much time and effort they have to put in for things to move smoothly. That level of validation and credibility speaks volumes.
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