Yvonka MARIE Hall

I attribute my success to my mom. My mom was murdered when I was young in front of myself and my younger brother, and I promised that I would use my life to help change the lives of others. This has led to the creation of cutting-edge programs that address the unique needs, particularly of women and children, in communities of concern. That will always be my North Star - how do I do this enough where people know she lived and existed, and that I use the things from my experience so that other people won't have to experience what I did. The best advice I ever received was from my grandmother about me wanting to start a business. I didn't have a job, and I said I want to do this, but I only have this amount of money, and when this amount of money runs out, then I'll go get another job. And she said, nope, you're gonna do it until it works, because it's gonna work. That advice kept me going.

The best advice I ever received was from my grandmother about me wanting to start a business. I didn't have a job, and I said I want to do this, but I only have this amount of money, and when this amount of money runs out, then I'll go get another job. And she said, nope, you're gonna do it until it works, because it's gonna work. That advice gave me the determination to keep going even when things were uncertain, and it's been fundamental to building an organization that has now been around for 15 years and is nationally recognized.

I would tell them that it's not easy. Don't think that this is something that you can just walk into and not have the skills that are needed. You need to be determined, but also do your homework. A lot of people see me doing this stuff and they think that they could do what I do because they think it's easy. And that's because I think I make it look easy, but people don't know - they're not here with me when I'm up at 2 o'clock in the morning. I don't go to bed at 2 o'clock in the morning, and then I'm up at 5. Unless you understand what it takes to do this work, it can be fleeting. Particularly our young people don't think that skills matter, they don't think that education matters. If you're at a point where you're like 'I know it all and I have it all,' then you don't know half of what you think you know. Because I don't know it all, I don't have it all, and I'm never gonna know it all and I'm never gonna have it all. But what I can do is make sure that I'm sharing what I have with other folks and trying to help them grow in their journey. For me, education should never stop because you should always be growing. My work ethic is different because I'm an African-American woman in this space, and one mistake could cost me everything. This isn't a job - this is my life.

The biggest challenge is funding. That is the absolute biggest challenge, because with the attacks on DEI, which in the construct that African Americans created, we didn't - a lot of organizations that are working to do work in the community, and I don't just work with African Americans - because of these whole misconceptions about what DEI is and who it has benefited, it has deeply impacted the bottom line of organizations like mine. The last time we saw things like this happening was between 1968 and 1972, when a lot of organizations were literally under attack when we looked at the Civil Rights Act, because people were like 'oh, you got it because of preferential treatment.' It's like, no, we got it because we earned it. There's nothing I didn't earn. I didn't just walk into this. I worked really hard in order for me to have an organization that is flourishing. It wasn't an overnight success. There is no such thing as an overnight success, so if people tell you that they did it overnight, that means they already started off with millions in the bank.

Trust, compassion and respect