Tina Greene

I attribute my success to my faith-based approach and the foundation I received from the women who raised me. My mother died when I was 5, and I was raised by my grandmother and what I called second mamas - neighborhood mamas, church mamas - all these women of various ages who were always pouring into me. I grew up in a community where people worked together and supported each other. That experience shaped everything I do now with Nana's Foundation. I believe in the Titus 2 principle of older women teaching younger women. Even though I didn't always listen to those women when I was younger, their collective wisdom and support gave me the model for how community should work. Now I'm trying to recreate that village mentality because I see how much we've lost it. We've become so self-focused and isolated, forgetting how to have face-to-face conversations and work together. My success comes from understanding that we need each other and that building authentic relationships is the foundation for everything else.

The best advice I can give - and I wish someone had told me this - is to be your authentic self. I spent probably 25 years behind a mask. When I was in insurance, it was mostly a male-dominated industry, very formal, and I felt like I could not be who I was. Most times, I was the only woman, and especially the only Black woman in that space, and so I thought I had to go along with the guys. But that's not who I am. My brother told me when I got up to management that I was going to hate it because I'm too much of an individual and don't go along with the crowd. He was right. I did it for a number of years, but I got to the point where I realized insurance is supposed to be a service industry, but it's become big business where we're more concerned about profits than the people. That's not me. So my best advice is be authentic. Know what you want and be authentic in that. Stop trying to be somebody else. That's another reason why I started the nonprofit - I kept seeing all these people on social media trying to be somebody else. No, be you! That's your superpower. Be yourself.

My advice is patience. The one thing I have found, because I am very action-oriented, is that with every business endeavor I've done, it's been quick and very progressive for me. But what I find in the nonprofit space is it is not a sprint, it is a long-distance run. You have to be patient, and when you think that you should be further along than what you are, know that it's going to happen. As long as you keep striving, it's going to happen. It will happen, but it takes time. I've met with nonprofits who have been around a lot longer than I have who still aren't as progressed as we are. I think a lot of people go into nonprofits because they've been sold a bill of goods where they think they can get tax breaks and be paid and all this. If that's the mindset you're going in with, instead of realizing the nonprofit space is because you see a need and you want to be a part of helping that need, fixing that need, don't do it. Just don't do it. That's not what this is about.

One of our biggest challenges is fundraising. Because of the current economy and with the changes in the administration, dollars that were being given in the nonprofit space have been limited. So it is finding creative ways of how to get people to give to your effort. It is really becoming a storyteller, really trying to explain to people, hey, this is what I'm trying to do. My husband tells me almost daily that I need to do a better elevator pitch, because as you can tell, I can be long-winded and I like to talk. So it is trying to be succinct and purposeful and say, hey, this is what we're here for, this is our niche, this is where we fit in. But it is more about collaboration and being a resource referral than it is for us already doing something that someone else is doing. I truly believe in not recreating the wheel. It's like, listen, it's been done, you're doing it. How can I support what you're doing to make it greater, to make it have a greater impact?

Definitely faith is number one for me. Number two is being trustworthy. I tell my husband, because sometimes he says I over-promise, but when I give that yes or I say I'm going to do something, then I have to follow through with it unless something really catastrophic is happening that I can't do it. I want people to understand that if I say I'm going to do something, count on it. So it is being trustworthy. Again, it is being very intentional. It is being honest, and even if that means you have to be a little vulnerable, because there are times, even like today in this conversation, where I don't know the answer to that. I don't know, and it's okay to say I don't know, but let's try to find out together.