Conversations with the CEO: Mary & Bill

Earlier this month Bill Meier, President and CEO of Kingdom Workers, sat down with Mary Lindloff, VP of Mission Programs, to learn more about why she decided to work for Kingdom Workers and what she hopes to accomplish in her time at the organization. The following is based on their conversation and has been edited down for clarity. You can watch their full conversation here. 

Bill: Can you share a little bit about yourself. 

Mary: I live in the United States, in Wisconsin, with my husband John. We have two kids, a six-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl. When I'm not working I am normally with my family. We love to be outside when the weather is nice here. You can find us in the backyard grilling, gardening, or kicking around a soccer ball. Two of my siblings also live in the same town as me and have children of their own, so we like to get together often and have all our kids running around together. 

That's a little bit about me outside of work. Otherwise, as the Vice President of Mission Programs I'm staying busy helping grow mission programs and overseeing the teams of people who are doing all the work around the world.

Bill: I want to reflect, momentarily, on how you got involved in Kingdom Workers. Could you please lay that out for everyone, how you became involved?

Mary: I've always known about Kingdom Workers and had an interest in it. When an opportunity presented itself in 2014 to go to Malawi as a volunteer I got my friend to go along with me, and it was a wonderful experience. That was my first time as a volunteer with Kingdom Workers and I came to love the organization after that. From there I started to volunteer my time to help with some marketing and program evaluation, just on the side, working with Kingdom Workers staff. From there I joined the Board of Directors for a few years, and then about three years ago I joined the Kingdom Workers staff.

I'm very grateful for the time that I've spent connected to Kingdom Workers in some way—either as a donor, a volunteer, a board director, or as staff. It's all been a wonderful experience.

Bill: Thanks for sharing, Mary. You've been a blessing to everyone. And in the relatively short time that you've been with us you've been in three unique roles. Would you mind talking about those roles for a bit? 

Mary: I started as a director, leading our analytics work which includes program evaluation and all things data across the board. Whether that's looking at our donor database and trying to make smart decisions or whether that's looking at what we're doing in mission programs around the world by doing something we call program evaluation—seeing if our programs are having the positive impact that we want them to have. So we're having conversations with people, collecting qualitative data, we're collecting quantitative data, like numbers, putting that all together to tell a story about the positive impact that we're having on people's lives. And we can take all of that and optimize what we do, and do things better. That's where I started. 

Then I moved into a role that was overseeing both analytics and our US based programs. We have a few different programs here in the United States, construction, foster support, supporting survivors of domestic abuse, and we also have some programs on the Apache reservation with gardening and some other things. I oversaw those programs. 

And then most recently I moved into my current role which is Vice President of Mission Programs. In this role I oversee all of our mission programs that we do around the world and underneath there is all the analytic work as well. 

Bill: Thanks, you're in charge of the largest team here at Kingdom Workers and are a real blessing. One thing that I just wanted to touch on—you volunteered with Kingdom Workers in 2014, but you were also recently trained as a victim advocate too through our Empowering Survivors program. Can you please share a brief description of what goes into that training and your main takeaways from that? 

Mary: I went through the training to be a volunteer advocate for survivors of domestic abuse. What that means is that I am there to support anyone who has gone through abuse or is currently going through abuse. I can help connect them with experts in the community if they need legal help or counseling. Otherwise I can talk with them and support them one on one by giving them spiritual encouragement, encouraging them as a support person they can go to when they need someone.

There was a whole online training that I went through in order to do this. This is definitely not something I had expertise in beforehand, but there is a wonderful training module that you go through which is interactive. It teaches you everything you'll need to know to be an advocate. 

Bill: I'm grateful for everyone of those volunteers. Thanks for being part of that. Can you reflect on your education experience before you accepted a role on the operating team at Kingdom Workers and how that set you up to do the work you are doing now.

Mary: I have a master's degree in social psychology. When most people think of psychology they think of counseling, but that's not the case for me. Social psychology is really research based. It's about understanding how people interact with others, how groups of people influence how people act, and why people act in certain ways, and figuring all that out through research. That was a really cool education experience to get expertise in that area. 

Then I spent some time working in analytics, marketing analytics, people analytics by working in HR, understanding workforce trends. I took data and applied it to make strategic decisions about where organizations should go next. I did that kind of work in a few different places. I led teams of people doing that as well which has been really helpful.

And then I think my volunteer experience probably rounded out some things before I came to Kingdom Workers to give me some experience working with kids with disabilities, leading groups of volunteers, organizing events, all sorts of stuff. 

So I think my work experience plus my volunteer experience put together was really nice for me to have before joining Kingdom Workers as a staff member.

Our Disability Ministry work in Malawi connects people with disabilities to volunteers who provide home-based care while sharing the gospel. 

Bill: So now, looking ahead, where do you see yourself and your team going in the next few years? 

Mary: There are so many opportunities right now for us to expand our mission programs. I'm just amazed at how many get thrown at us. Every week there is probably a new opportunity. Right now a key focus is we're hiring for some key positions on my team, key leadership roles, so that we can really build the capacity on the team to be able to take advantage of all those opportunities that come our way.

So I see down the road a ton of expansion. Taking our current programs and expanding them into new places. We have a lot of programs that are really strong, they're doing a really good job at positively impacting people, building relationships with people, they have strong local partnerships, they're just really doing an amazing job. There's a lot of opportunity to take those programs to new locations. And then also growing new work in new countries, in new locations. I think we'll be doing a lot of that in the next five years. 

Bill: Thanks, Mary. I am excited by everything you just shared. And I hope everyone else is excited too. Can you talk about your experience with regards to your faith life and how it impacts what you do? 

Mary: I'm incredibly grateful to work for Kingdom Workers for that very reason. Your faith is always there and it's always active and it's always something you talk about no matter where you're working, but Kingdom Workers has given me a wonderful opportunity to continually be strengthened by my colleagues. In calls I am reminded about our shared faith, we pray together, we have bible study together. There are amazing opportunities to grow in your faith and to share your faith and be encouraged by each other every single day. So for me personally I love going to work every day.

I've enjoyed my other jobs too, where there weren't as many opportunities to do those things. But I'm grateful to be here now with these opportunities to share faith and bring one another up. 

Bill: Is there anything else you would like to share that we haven't already touched on today? 

Mary: Just that Kingdom Workers is a lovely organization. If people are looking to spend their time in some way or spend their money in some useful way, Kingdom Workers is doing good work and making a positive impact on people's lives. I can say as a staff member, board director, previous volunteer, and all of those things from every perspective I just saw the good that is happening as a result of this organization.