Meet Natasha Leonard of Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition

Today we’d like to introduce you to Natasha Leonard.

Hi Natasha, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Graduating early from Charleston, IL, I had dreams of entering the world of politics. I knew since I was in fourth grade that I wanted to be involved in government, specifically lobbying because of my Dad. He took me to the capital one time and I was completely in love with the hustle and bustle. I begin my higher-education journey at Millikin University in Decatur, IL where I majored in Political Science.

During my education, I had the chance to study abroad in London which ignited my passion for international politics and community service. After returning to the United States, I obtained a few internships with Millikin Alumni that were lobbyists. My first full-time internship and most enriching were at the City of St. Louis Licenses Collectors Office.

There I met two of my greatest mentors, Michael McMillan and Charlotte Ottley. In this experience, I learned so much more than a textbook could teach. They were the foundation of my professional career and introduction to social services and non-profits. With their leadership, I fell into the world of nonprofits and never left. Although I loved politics, I found myself making a direct impact daily working with the office and his non-profit arm at the time, St. Louis Community Empowerment Foundation. Charlotte took me under her wing teaching me networking, media, stewardship, strategic planning, and overseeing large projects.

She truly changed the direction of my career path for the better and I still seek her guidance often now that I’ve transitioned into senior leadership positions. After leaving the City of St. Louis License Collector Office, I went to the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis Head Start Program. This was completely out of my element and education. In this position, I was a family service worker. I worked alongside the teachers and family to create goals and empower them to reach those goals whether it be housing, jobs, or meeting their basic needs. This position shaped me and introduced me to the needs of the people in the St. Louis community. It showed me how I could be effective in helping those around me. This position also introduced me to my passion, child welfare advocacy.

I loved my job, the kids, and the families I worked with but I knew it was only a transition point for me. I enrolled to get my Masters’ in Public Administration at Lindenwood University after 15 months, I graduated. I wanted to push myself into a leadership position within nonprofits. Most people ask, how did you get into Development work, well like many others, I did not intend to I fell into the work. After receiving my master’s, I knew I wanted to stay in non-profits but I wanted to be more on the administration side. I applaud social workers, they are on the ground daily making the change but for me, the heartstrings that this work took were a bit overwhelming. I knew I wanted to make a difference but it had to be from a different perspective.

That is when I applied to work at Annie Malone Children and Family Services as the Director of Development. This was my first leadership role in my career. It was a huge learning experience for me, how to fundraise, steward donors, make community connections. I had mild experience with it from my other position but this was full-time being in charge of a multi-million dollar budget. I called this year and a half my, “Year of Yes!” Every opportunity I could get my hands on I said yes, galas, community events, volunteering, interviews, and town hall meetings, joining young professional groups I was running 24/7 and loved every bit of it. Which lead me to join one of my most cherished young professional groups, Young Friends of the Ville located in the Ville Neighborhood of North City St. Louis. Young Friends of The Ville is a network that supports the historic African American St. Louis Ville neighborhood.

I sat on the annual 5k run fundraiser supporting logistics and fundraising and chaired the annual trivia fundraiser. These funds go to a bigger initiative, Northside Community Housing, a housing organization located in the Ville providing support to youth programs, community gardens, housing initiatives, and other community initiatives in North Saint Louis City. This group is where I met people who pushed me in every way, I met peers who now will be lifelong friends. Their passion and dedication to making a change in the Ville Neighborhood showed me what a community can do when we all pull together, use our networks, and decide we are going to make an impact to support the needs of the community we love, share, and cherish.

After 1.5 years at Annie Malone, I transition to my position now, Director of External Relations with the Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition. I met them at a community event and started to attend their Development round tables. This was a chance for me to engage with other development directors. Being new in the field this resource was invaluable! I found myself reaching out to them often, specifically, Debbie Genung Sr. Director of Development for guidance. The entire agency gives without hesitation, as soon as you walk in you can feel it. Everyone there is willing to help you, stand beside you in your journey. Shortly after, a position came open at the Coalition. I wasn’t looking at the time but they had a meeting with me to ask me to apply. I was shocked. The agency I had grown to love so much and have bounds of respect for wanted me to work alongside them.

I gratefully accepted the position in 2018. This position, agency, and opportunity are priceless. In the 2.5 years I’ve been with the Coalition they’ve truly shown me how a non-profit can be run with compassion, integrity, and making a national impact for our most vulnerable kids. What I love most about this agency is that the passion is driven by LIVED experience, many of the people working there are foster/adoptive parents, have been in foster care, or have some direct connection. In this position, they pushed me to blossom to my full potential. My supervisors gave me autonomy in my work, taught me to use my voice more, in turn, I shared my knowledge of stewardship and corporate relations, government affairs, and community outreach.

In my position, I have the honor of telling the Coalition’s story, bringing in new donors and business, and being the face in the community. To say I love my job and my co-workers is an understatement. I learn daily from those around me, and the leadership is unmatched. When they said you must lead by example, that’s what Melanie Scheetz, Executive Director, does. Whether it be answering phones, manual labor with our events, writing letters/grants, or coaching you through your own professional goals and connecting you, she’s more than willing to help. Her leadership style moves with a sense of urgency but never lacks compassion and grace in the process.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
During my journey, I am blessed to say I’ve had wonderful opportunities, leaders, and mentors. My mentors and bosses lived by, “We rise by uplifting others. “- Robert Ingersoll, and they showed this every day. I know for a fact, without these people lifting me I never would have gotten to where I am today. They brought me into rooms with people I never would have come into contact with if I hadn’t been with them. My mentors and bosses have always been supportive of my journey and what my end goals were. They never stopped helping me reach those goals even if that meant stepping away from them to take a new opportunity.

Were their struggles, of course, but it’s how you overcome them and don’t let them shape your outcome. One of my biggest struggles is Lupus, I was diagnosed after my senior year in college. Most times, I am completely normal but there have been three major times where lupus stopped me from my normal work and life. At 22, I had my first transient ischemic attack (TIA), I was on the phone with my mother, and all of a sudden I couldn’t speak. I was rushed to the hospital to find out I had a TIA. Immediately, the anxiety and panic set in. How could this happen to me and so young, your mortality sets in that it can all be taken away in an instant?

Although I recovered, again around two years later, I had a Lupus flare that put me in the hospital for 30 days and then out of work for an additional 2-months. During this time I was at Urban League, and I was so blessed to be surrounded by the leadership and staff I had. There was no question if will I be let go, the message given to me was do what you need to get better. My entire team at Head Start took over my center and caseload and allowed me to slowly transition back into my full-time role. For that grace and respect, I am forever grateful.

On my birthday in July 2020, I had another TIA this time it appears much more like a stroke, slurring my words, slanted facial features, I was terrified. This time, the recovery wasn’t so easy. It brings me to tears often to think of how wonderful my supervisors and my co-workers were to me when I was in such a trying time. Their genuine care and compassion knew no bounds. My teammates picked up my work without question or hesitation they allowed me to heal and come back to my work when I was in the right headspace.

I’m so glad I could be open and honest with my co-workers and that they support me through my ups, downs and cheer me on during my triumphs. Another huge healing factor and a part of my success is my family, no matter what I chose to do, they are always there supporting me 100%.

Lupus is a part of my life, not my entire life. Because of these episodes, I became a lupus advocate and continue to help and support other women affected by this disease. Is Lupus a burden, yes, but it taught me to be grateful for each moment, relationship, and experience that I have.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition?
The Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition (Coalition) strives to create permanency in foster children’s lives by recruiting and supporting foster and adoptive families in the metropolitan St. Louis region. Our vision is “For Every Child… A Place to Call Home.” Our vision is for a community that embraces its most vulnerable members, ensuring that each child in foster care has an opportunity for a healthy, successful life by providing: Safe, nurturing homes, and; a support system for foster and adoptive families as they fulfill the physical, mental, and emotional needs of the children in their care.

My role at the Coalition is Director of External Relations. My specialty is creating lasting relationships with corporate contributions departments and maintaining and telling the story of their impact in our region. I believe my years as a case manager gave me a wider understanding of the grassroots of non-profit agencies and how I can educate the donors, community, legislators, and companies to make a valued impact that will be long-lasting versus temporary supports.

I have been fortunate to work alongside the best, who have coached me to push my own boundaries and refuse to settle for mediocrity, and support and lift me to where I am today. I get the pleasure every day of telling the story of wonderful non-profits and communities in the St. Louis region, one rich in philanthropy and love for the area and its people. With my job daily, I get to empower kids and families, remove barriers to healing, and make St. Louis a more just and equitable community.

My most proud moment just happened this past year in 2021. At the Coalition, I had the honor to establish relationships and liaise with key legislators to help secure $5 million in additional, ongoing funding for the Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition in the next Missouri budget. This funding will double the Coalition’s existing budget and will represent the most transformative investment in Missouri foster care in decades, as well as being the largest single funding increase ever secured by the Coalition.

In addition, I will continue working with St. Louis legislators and the Coalition’s Management Team to ensure new state funding will focus on increasing racial equity in the foster care system, which has struggled since its creation with systemic racism This new investment from the state, combined with sustained philanthropic support, will provide a solid foundation to fully address the length of time children languish in foster care. This effort to help kids would not have happened without a bi-partisan effort from all 197 lawmakers in Missouri. Specifically, the leadership of House Speaker Rob Vescovo, House Budget Chair Cody Smith, Representative Kimberly-Ann Collins, Senate Appropriations Chairman Dan Hegeman, Senator Karla May, Senator Brian Williams, and countless other staff members who worked tirelessly to make this possible.

A key expansion includes the Coalition re-establishing RESPOND, a model developed in the 1990s by Howard and Vickie Denson to recruit African American foster parents for African American children. In St. Louis City and County, 70% of children in local foster care are African American, yet only 13% of foster parents are African American. Missouri Representative Kimberly-Ann Collins (District 077) spearheaded the effort to include funding for RESPOND in the annual state budget. Rep. Collins was herself adopted by a RESPOND family when she was a child. 

The Coalition offers many programs and services to recruit, train, and support foster and adoptive families. Because many of our staff are foster/adoptive parents they understand firsthand the barriers and hardships our children and families go through. If you are in need of support, are interested in fostering, or finding out more on how you can help, give us a call at 314-367-8373 or find us online at www.foster-adopt.org.

Who else deserves credit in your story?
Michael McMillan, President & CEO Urban League Metropolitan St. Louis & Charlotte Ottley, Strategic Consultant, Urban League Metropolitan St. Louis- Mr. McMillan and Ms. Ottley were/are the foundation of my career. They taught me professionalism, stewardship, community, and how to live to impact and empower people daily. If you’re ever in a room with either of them, you’ll never forget the way they make you feel, heard, seen, valued. They were the start of where I learned true leadership and how it looks. I’m forever grateful for the spaces they placed me in and the people they introduced me to. I always tell them they are my forever mentors, they can’t get rid of me!

Mr. Lou Brock and wife, Reverend Jacqueline A. Brock- I met them at an Urban League Whitney Young fundraiser. They both were so lovely as they asked me what I wanted to do with my career and education. I mentioned going to get my master’s and how I wanted to continue to impact the St. Louis community. A few weeks later, I got a call from Rev. Jacqueline Brock herself saying they were awarding me a Lou Brock scholarship for my master’s degree program at Lindenwood University. I was speechless and overwhelmed with their generosity. Without them, I may not have gotten my master’s degree. When people say there are angels walking on earth every day, those two are definitely some of mine.

Melanie Scheetz, Executive Director, Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition, and all of my Coalition colleagues. When I think of Melanie I think, lead by example. Melanie shows all of us daily from answering the phones, setting up at events, writing content, she does it all! She is willing to show you the way. She leads with grace, transparency, compassion, and gives you autonomy in your work. When I was doing my first check-in at the Coalition called, “Mocha’s with Melanie,” she asked, “What are your career goals and how can we help you get there?” She gives me constructive criticism to grow in my field and role and continues to challenge me. She and the Coalition as a whole are a gem to the St. Louis community. I am grateful every day to work alongside such wonderful and bright people that are fighting daily for the rights of children impacted by foster care.

Dr. Bobbi Gentry, undergraduate professor- There is always a teacher that you will remember and cherish forever. Dr. Gentry is mine, she was my undergraduate Political Science professor and she PUSHED ME TO THE LIMIT. Although we were undergraduates, she treated us like graduate students. She challenged me to grow to my full potential daily. I remember when I gave her a draft of my thesis and she told me to rewrite it. I laugh now but then I was fuming that was 15 pages in rewrite it?!

I’m so grateful for her push, it helped me reach my potential and more than prepared me for my master’s program. I remember sitting in my exit interview telling her, “I’m DONE, I’m not getting a master’s, I’m done with school!” She just smiled and said okay, and handed me a Master’s in Public Administration pamphlet. Low and behold, a year and a half later, guess who got there M.P.A.

My Parents Brian Leonard, Sr., and Tina Leonard- You’ve always let me “live out loud,” from every idea, experiment, to traveling the world, you’ve been my unwavering support. Your love is unconditional. I often say I’ve had the perfect childhood and perfect parents, thank you for paving a way for me and my siblings. Children learn by example and lived experiences, to say you’ve done a wonderful job is an understatement.

Contact information:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nleonardmpa/

Image Credits
Annie Malone Gala and Michael Thomas