Check Out Courtney Thomas’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Courtney Thomas

Hi Courtney, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
In 2002, I took the biggest leap of my life and moved halfway across the country. This 26-year old, animal loving, young woman took her big dreams, NC accent, and her five dogs and moved from Winston-Salem, NC to Kansas City, MO. It was the start of everything that got me to where I am today.

My mom had me when she was just 20 years old. She has struggled with addiction her entire life, and has been in and out of many abusive relationships. At age 20, she was stuck at the intersection of loving me, but not being ready or able to truly be a mom. My mom’s decisions exposed me to domestic violence, drugs, alcohol, and there are countless times I was left alone before I was even kindergarten age. At age 13, I became her designated driver… there are so many stories I could share.

But fortunately, I was one of the lucky ones. With a Grandmomma willing to take me in and care for me as though I was her own, she is the reason I didn’t enter the foster system and how I developed the strength and resilience to turn obstacles into opportunities.

My Grandmomma had a beauty shop in the basement of her home – it was a true Steele Magnolias if you can picture it. After experiencing so many traumatic events when I was young, it’s hard to put into words how comforting it was to have my Grandmomma at home when I left for school, and to have her there when I arrived home from school. Never wondering if there would be an adult I could count, and feeling her love both in her actions and her words, began to restore my ACES (adverse childhood experiences score) score of 9.

Before moving to Kansas City, I was leading a Veterinary Practice and a nonprofit animal welfare group. I was navigating divorce (at 25) from a young marriage that shouldn’t have happened in the first place. I call it my “try it before you buy it” experience with no disrespect to the sanctitude of marriage. Although the marriage really shouldn’t have happened, I have no regrets, because that experience, too, is also part of what got me here.

Living in the constant chaos of my mom’s addictions, the men in her life, and me always being the person she called when she was in trouble, I often wondered when I’d get to live MY life instead of always standing in the shadows with my mop and bucket in hand to clean up the messes my mom would make.

Then it happened – the opportunity of a lifetime. After my divorce my high school and college boyfriend and I reconnected. At that point, we’d been a part of each other’s lives for half of our lives. The why we broke up and how I ended up married is a story for another day, but Chris and reunited – leaning into we were simply soulmates. Life always brought us back together.

I’d flown out to Kansas City to visit Chris and told him he had to take me to the place to get my “animal welfare fix.” He took me to Wayside Waifs, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. No where in NC were 44-acres and a state-of-the-art building dedicated to helping abused and homeless animals. I said, “I HAVE TO WORK HERE!” I looked on their website, and they happened to be hiring for a VP, Chief Operating Officer. I was in the beginning phase of my career and said to myself, “there’s no way they are going to pay attention to me,” but quickly I replaced that thought with, “I’m going to help them see they don’t want to do this work without me.” Much to my surprise, I was the first person they interviewed, and I was one of two finalists for the position. They ended up selecting a candidate with 30 years of experience (I get it), but they called me to share they wanted me on their team and asked if I would consider starting in the Volunteer Manager role. Any opportunity to work there felt like all the stars had aligned. I quickly tendered my two-weeks notice, and within three weeks, I was making the 1,100 mile drive to my dream job.

As fate would have it, in less than 15 months, the person they’d hired in the Chief Operating Officer role didn’t work out and I stepped into the role of a lifetime. I served in that role, empowered to bring about innovation that totally transformed our business model, put us on the national map as an industry leader, and changed the landscape for the entire animal welfare community in Kansas City, for seven years before leaving Wayside to lead the merger of our nation’s first bi-state animal welfare organization, Great Plains SPCA.

In December of 2016, I decided that the “always on button” was running low on batteries and decided to give my heart a break from the animal welfare industry. I was presented with a wonderful opportunity to lead Central Exchange, a professional development organization for women. Shifting the nearly bankrupt agency into a place of vibrant and thriving energy, diverse membership, a new brand, and expanded market footprint, I realized… “this is the third time I’ve shifted organizations from trying to thriving… maybe that nickname I’ve acquired of ‘business turn around expert’ isn’t off base.”

While at Central Exchange, I got to know Newhouse. As a childhood survivor of domestic violence, it has always been a cause near and dear to my heart. While in the animal welfare industry, I developed programs to support families in crisis knowing that statistics show 72% of survivors say they would have left their abusers sooner if they had a place for their pets to go. In 2018, I joined the board at Newhouse, and in the fall of 2019 I was offered the opportunity to lead the organization. It was truly the most beautiful collision of my passion, purpose, and expertise.

Since joining the Newhouse team, we have grown our budget from $2.5M to $5.9M, expanded services, rebranded, renovated shelter living spaces, established new community partnerships, and we’ve unveiled our vision to build a Community Campus that shatters the barriers that feed the cycle of abuse.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Living in survival mode for so much of my childhood and adult life taught me to lean into the saying, “it is what it is” in a whole new way. When most people say that phrase, it generally has a very “Debbie Downer” energy. As you are imagining the last time you heard someone say it, can you hear that tone? But what that phrase means to me is something so empowering and so liberating. What I hear is “it is what it is… now I’m in control of creating what happens next. What do I want to do with that gift?”

Another thing my childhood taught me is that status quo isn’t in my DNA. I’m an innovator, a fast-mover, a complex problem solver, a person who gives and gets energy through people… and if you tell me it can’t be done, I’m going to show you the 14 ways we CAN!

People and organizations aren’t always ready for change, but that’s my gift; helping people and organizations achieve what they didn’t even think was possible. I’ve given myself the title of Innovative, Empathetic Disruptor.

While helping people see that change is possible (and more often than not a very good thing), leading people through change isn’t always easy. Staff, organizations, and communities may fall in varying levels of readiness for change, so leaders must adapt to different learning and execution styles to bring new visions to life. The end result is super exciting, but the path to get there can sometimes be exhausting… even for us galvanizers.

Some of the struggles along the way for me were: (1) inheriting financially and operationally unstable organizations (2) building the new ship while you were still sailing on the open water (3) LOVING my work and my field, but being asked to do something that didn’t align with my personal ethics or integrity – things that are never up for compromise – and making the tough decision to step away. (4) People leadership is one of the things that brings me the greatest level of joy… it can also be really hard. (5) Driving transformational change with little to no resources (financial, time, manpower) so your “scrappiness” has to get even more scrappy. (6) Being disappointed by some of the people you invested the most in (7) learning how to not take things personally and pointing myself back to the things that matter most.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Newhouse is Kansas City’s first and oldest domestic violence shelter. We are a 92-bed emergency shelter for survivors to escape when home isn’t a safe place. Our compassionate team of experts delivered trauma informed care in therapy, case management, recovery services, legal services, 24×7 advocacy, and through our Early Learning Center and school aged programs.

In 2024, Newhouse served 738 survivors. While we are proud of the impact we are making, we need to continue to raise awareness to the prevalence of DV in our community. Missouri ranks 7th in the Top Ten Deadliest States for women to be killed by their abusers. 1 in 4 people will experience some form of domestic violence in their lifetime, which means someone you know, someone you love, maybe even you are experiencing DV right now. Kansas City ranks second in our state for the number of domestic violence calls, and sadly, last year over 20,000 calls for help to shelters in Kansas City went unmet due to the lack of bedspace and resources. Our work literally saves lives.

What am I most proud of is witnessing firsthand the transformation in the lives of the survivors we have the privilege to serve. During my five-year-tenure at Newhouse we have grown our budget by 111%, expanded programs, rebranded the organization, renovated all resident rooms, resident spaces, and our children’s center for education and healing. We have added a full legal team (attorney, court advocates and paralegal), sensory gym, and launched our community activation team to bring to life our Community Campus to revolutionize the delivery of social services, limit the retraumatization of survivors and the risk of them returning to their abusers, and create efficiencies in the entire social services system.

In addition to my work at Newhouse, I founded my own growth acceleration practice, THRIVE 360 in September of 2022. It has been a longtime dream to have my own business, and nothing fills me up more than pouring into people and businesses to help them become the best possible versions of themselves. From executive coaching, keynotes, strategic planning facilitation, my consulting practice is my selfcare and professional development. The social services industry hasn’t yet caught up with the pace of innovation and invention, so having the ability to work with a few clients/organizations a year allows me to fully fill my HAPPY CUP. The added bonus, EVERY organization I work with and talk to gets to learn about Newhouse – and many have become donors, volunteers, and community supporters. I am REALLY PROUD OF ME for not allowing my dream to be just a dream, but instead took the steps to bring it into reality.

We’re always looking for the lessons that can be learned in any situation, including tragic ones like the Covid-19 crisis. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you can share?
One of the greatest lessons from COVID-19 is that “everything is figureoutable.” All the things organizational and societal norms told us we couldn’t do, we found a way to achieve. The other important lesson was the spotlight shined on the reality that people CAN effectively and efficiently work from home, which I hope has created more work-life harmony for people.

Contact Info:

• Website: newhousekc.org and thrive360solutions.com
• Instagram: @courtneyleathomas
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/courtney.l.thomas.14
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/courtneyleathomas/
• Twitter: @CthomasCEO