Chair & CEO Letter

“This proves that Serve Denton’s model works. ” That’s what Tom Newell, the Board Chair of Denton Community Food Center, said to me as we stood in our parking lot, looking at the hundreds of cars lined up to receive food soon after the COVID-19 pandemic began in the Spring of 2020. Facing the challenges of last year was unlike anything we have ever encountered before. It required us to be hyperfocused on a few priorities and to “Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. ” in ways that required creativity, innovation, and an abundance of hope.

Our highest priority became keeping the Serve Denton staff, their families, nonprofit partners, and clients safe. Thankfully, not one staff member contracted COVID-19 as of this writing.

Next, we sought to help our nonprofit partners to the best of our ability during the crisis. Not only did some of our partners avoid shutting down entirely due to our partnership efforts, but we also saw several partners grow significantly during the pandemic.

Third, we had to keep our doors open both operationally and financially, which included continuing the Capital Campaign. As you can imagine, this was difficult during an economy rocked by uncertainty. But the great community of Denton County came through for our partners and us in ways that we could not have imagined. Finally, we launched a major initiative to develop and implement a performance management system. We considered putting this initiative on hold, but we believed it would improve our ability to pivot and meet the new challenges we faced.

We repurposed, reused, and reworked everything imaginable to help solve our nonprofit partners' problems. New connections were built to solve new problems. Existing relationships were strengthened by doing the hard work necessary to succeed. Old assumptions were challenged and dispensed with to deal with the new realities.

In doing so, everyone overcame the most challenging situation we have ever faced all while continuing to care for others. Along the way, there were failures. But in every failure, there were lessons learned and solutions adopted that helped everyone improve.

As the year progressed, we formed two new vital relationships. The first was with Dr. Nora Douglas and Guillermo Villalobos from CNM in Dallas. They helped us build a model that linked our daily activities to the long-term outcomes that we have always sought to produce in the community.

The work was tedious and incredibly valuable because it allowed us to measure ourselves and articulate Serve Denton's impact.

Speaking of precision, the second relationship we formed was with Toyota's Production System Support Center (TSSC). Widely regarded as the best performance management system in the world, TSSC came alongside us and helped us improve our property maintenance performance. Property maintenance is the one service that touches everyone on our properties. It’s crucial to our nonprofit partners' success that we are excellent in this area.

TSSC has been working with nonprofits for 25 years. Entering into a partnership with TSSC allowed us to improve with their help.

Together, these two initiatives have given us a core competency in performance management that will enable Serve Denton to grow in a sustained manner for years to come. At the same time, it will give our stakeholders—nonprofit partners, donors, and community leaders—confidence in our systems and processes so that they know their investment will have a significant, measurable return.

Lastly, we want to thank the Board and staff that navigated the organization through this time of great uncertainty. With the decrease in revenue, we reduced our budget by over $100,000 through various means, including restructuring debt, changing staffing, and keeping a lid on expenses.

As a result, we met all financial ratios required by the New Markets Tax Credit program, which funded our building renovations and additions. Having a team of talented board and staff members was key to this success. We are very grateful for everyone’s contribution.

We have seen more people find help here than we could have ever imagined—over 17,000 people over the last year. Your support makes this incredible impact possible.

We know the challenges are not over yet. With the vaccines and herd immunity closer than ever before, the effects of these events will be felt in our community for years to come. The work isn’t finished. Nine years into Serve Denton, we’re just getting started.

Denton County needs Serve Denton. And Serve Denton needs you.

Melanie Vest Board Chair 2019-2020 Serve Denton Pat Smith Chief Executive Officer Serve Denton