ANNOUNCER: Tonight on Showcase with Barbara Kellar Cincinnati author Judy van Ginkel.

Stay tuned.

Showcase starts right now.

KELLAR: Hi, I'm Barbara Kellar.

Welcome to showcase.

Today my guest is Judy van Ginkel who has been busy doing so many things.

But in addition to everything else, she's written another book and she's here to tell us all about the book, what you do, and welcome to Showcase.

VAN GINKEL: Thank you very much, Barbara, and I am delighted to have this opportunity.

And I will say that you are among the people in Cincinnati who have been the most active, the busiest, and the fact that for so many years you've been able to reflect that on WCET is really wonderful for all of us.

KELLAR: Well, thank you very much.

We are all about education.

We do our best, that's for sure.

And we couldn't do it without the help of oh, so many, many, many people.

But I hope this show is good.

I always say it's good to learn about who's in Cincinnati, because the movers and the shakers, and you're one of them.

And tell us a little bit about your career, and then we'll go to the book.

VAN GINKEL: Well, it's interesting in a sense, because when I grew up in the '50s and '60s, women really weren't expected to work.

You didn't think about careers.

And within about a 10 or 12 year period, a lot of that changed.

But it's very different now for our daughters and our granddaughters.

But I've always loved reading.

I've loved doing things.

I've loved being active.

And at one point I'd been away for most of the summer.

I came back and I resigned from all the organizations I belonged to, and I enrolled at UC in a Master's program.

KELLAR: Yeah.

And that, in a circuitous way, led to a very interesting career, doing a turnaround at Drake, working at the university and then going to children's and starting the program called Every Child Succeeds, which really I think of as probably the capstone of my career.

KELLAR: Yeah.

What was your education before you got your Master's.

VAN GINKEL: English literature.

KELLAR: Oh, English literature.

That's -- You made a definite turn there from English literature.

How would you describe your career now?

VAN GINKEL: With regard to, I focused on health care.

My father was a pediatrician.

When I was a little girl I went on house calls with him, but he was very important to the families that he worked with.

KELLAR: Yeah.

VAN GINKEL: And even during my graduate studies, my Master's and doctoral level studies, I always chose health care topics when it was time to study or write about something.

KELLAR: Yeah.

So tell us about you started a nonprofit called?

VAN GINKEL: Every Child Succeed.

KELLAR: Every Child Succeeds.

And what did that, what did it do?

VAN GINKEL: Every Child Succeeds is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.

KELLAR: Sounds like a success.

VAN GINKEL: And over those 25 years, we saw about, I would say 60,000 people, 30,000 families.

I retired two years ago, but the whole program really began with John Pepper, who came to me one day and talked about what we were learning about the brains of young children and how much nurturing they needed and what good parenting meant in the first thousand days of life, which really is, a lot of people feel the foundation for everything that follows.

So John went to United Way and challenged them to take this on, which they did.

And it led to the program that we now know as Every Child Succeeds with three founding partners: United Way, Cincinnati Children's and the Community Action Agency, which is Head Start.

It's an astonishing collaborative, and it focuses on children and parenting.

KELLAR: What does it do exactly?

VAN GINKEL: We had about 100 home visitors.

They were largely, mostly nurses and child development specialists and social workers.

But there was a program where the women could join prenatally and stay until the child is three.

Weekly, monthly home visits, depending on where they were in the program.

KELLAR: So would people sign up for this or they would be -- Someone would suggest that they participate?

How would they come to your program?

VAN GINKEL: Some was volunteer, some was by suggestion.

But what I think one of the things, Barbara, we were able to do that I am most proud of and really is reflected in the book, is how to manage a nonprofit.

You know, what kind of leadership is required for a nonprofit?

What are the special challenges?

And when I retired and started writing this book, which I never thought would be a book, I went back to papers that I had for years.

I looked at what were the things that we did well, what did we do not so well?

We began with a lot of support from the community, the business community, as well as the nonprofit community and the communities themselves.

And what I realized is that after 40 plus years of my volunteer work with everything from blood banks to the fine arts and social service, was that almost all nonprofits face the same challenges.

We were able to address it in one way with home visiting and Every Child Succeeds.

But there was a lot to learn for nonprofits altogether.

Things that would be important for board members, people studying to work in nonprofits, people leading nonprofits, policymakers, politicians, because there is so much of that imbued in what happens.

As I was writing this, I suddenly had kind of an epiphany.

And I thought, Every Child Succeeds is a good case study, but it doesn't end there.

There's a lot for other organizations to learn.

KELLAR: Mm-hmm.

I think, well at least my late husband always said you have to have a business mind if you're going to succeed.

You have to think business as well as nonprofit because no nonprofit that I'm familiar with works without donors.

And you have to have a support base.

And if you're not cognizant that there are business issues, like where's the money coming from and who's going to get it, and those kind of things.

So those are the kind of things your book addresses, I assume.

VAN GINKEL: It does, because I totally agree with your husband.

KELLAR: Yeah.

He's glad we agree with him.

VAN GINKEL: In 2007, the Wall Street Journal did a front page story about us.

And the reason they chose Every Child Succeeds was that we were using a business model for a nonprofit.

The book is full of a lot of things that I learned from our nonprofit, supporters, primarily Procter and Gamble, but not entirely.

We had volunteers from a lot of places.

And what I told the Wall Street Journal was we were able, through these volunteers to get the kind of minds that we couldn't afford to buy.

And we knew we had to measure what we did.

I think we have to think of nonprofits as investments.

And one thing we learned is you don't just form a program and support a program.

What you need to do is think about the problem that you're trying to solve, and then you move from that to how am I going to solve this?

And it's involved in the same kinds of things that businesses hold themselves accountable for.

KELLAR: Yeah.

What's the name of your book?

VAN GINKEL: Chasing Success.

KELLAR: And it's not your first book.

VAN GINKEL: No.

17 years ago.

KELLAR: Yeah.

Tell us about your other books.

VAN GINKEL: 17 years ago you and I did an interview about that book.

KELLAR: But they -- our audience has changed since then.

So.

VAN GINKEL: Well, and we've all gotten 17 years older.

KELLAR: They don't remember because we -- So tell us about that.

VAN GINKEL: That book was called Life Begins and Ends with Girlfriends.

I wrote it with a coauthor, Betsy Newman.

And that was involved with what we learned from about 100 interviews with women of all ages.

And what we know and maybe know even more emphatically now, 17 years later is that our girlfriends are there for us in the early years.

In the middle years, you get involved with family and a career.

Now, career issues for women and things.

But you need your girlfriends again towards the end of life.

KELLAR: You sure do.

And school friends.

I have lots of friends from, not as many from high school, but college, you know, we are totally bonded for life.

Because you go through, it's four years of companionship and sister love and anything we want to call it.

But it is important.

But we got to fast forward to your current book.

And who would you want this to be?

I mean, you want anybody to read it, but what's your target audience?

VAN GINKEL: I think well, I have two thoughts about this.

One is I think it's the kind of book that people -- That people keep and refer to.

It's not the kind of book that you just sit down and and read and then move on to something else.

Yeah.

Because the book is, is full of a lot of lessons that we learned.

And I have to say that everything I did with Every Child Succeeds we did together.

This was not just me.

This it was home visitors.

It was businessmen.

It was politicians.

All the various people who go into making this work.

So I think it's as much a reference book as it is a book that's enjoyable to read.

And it is because there are a lot of good anecdotes in the book.

I think -- I hope that policy makers and funders will read it because they have a responsibility to keep the organization that they're supporting accountable.

And accountable means being able to tell where you have made a difference, or if you haven't, what can you do to change it?

KELLAR: Yeah.

VAN GINKEL: I think that there's an integrity issue that is also involved.

There's collaboration with organizations being willing to work together and not just having their own little part of the world.

KELLAR: Yeah.

VAN GINKEL: But it's full of business principles that apply equally to a profit or nonprofit.

KELLAR: Yeah, so was it John Pepper that you got together with initially, before -- It was John Pepper, before you did Every Child Succeeds.

VAN GINKEL: Well, it goes back to a book, another book called Inside the Brain by a man named Ron Kotalik, who was the science editor at the Chicago Tribune.

And he wrote this book that he got a Pulitzer for and it all had to do with what was happening in the brains of young children.

John read the book.

He went to United Way and said, "Look, whatever we're doing in this community, we really need to focus on the youngest children."

KELLAR: Yeah.

VAN GINKEL: So it was a challenge for United Way to take this up, and they agreed to do it.

I ended up chairing the steering committee because I happened to be on the board at United Way.

A man named John Haller was head of PNC Bank at that time.

And he led a task force.

So it started there.

But then we went to Children's and said, "Would you be part of this?"

And I knew that for anything to really be sustainable for children in this community, that having Children's Hospital really made a difference.

So at that time it was Jim Anderson was head of the hospital, Lee Carter was head of the board, and doctor Tom Boat was head of the research Foundation and chair of pediatrics.

KELLAR: Yeah.

VAN GINKEL: He said to us, "Children's would be part of this, but you have to do one thing.

You have to have a strong research and evaluation component," which of course was invaluable advice which allowed us to document over these 25 years, close to 700,000 home visits.

KELLAR: Wow.

VAN GINKEL: And have information that would then allow us to monetize what we were doing.

A for profit business wouldn't keep doing something.

KELLAR: Yeah, you don't keep doing what's wrong, regardless of how -- What a great idea it was, if it's not working, you need to do something else.

VAN GINKEL: Exactly.

KELLAR: Yeah.

VAN GINKEL: And there are often political pressures to do other things or to fund something different, even though you have something that's working.

Which is where the systemic approach comes in, or the collaboration among organizations that are like minded or have a similar focus.

The word focus really matters because that's another one that was emphasized by our for profit partners, not mission creep.

Just stay in your lane, pay attention to what you're doing and and do it well.

KELLAR: Yeah, another really important person, and he too has died.

But O'Dell Owens said the same thing about children, "You've got to get them young.

You can't wait until they drop out of high school."

And certainly we never say nothing's -- Anything's impossible.

But the younger you get the child on the right path, and CET has done actually Smart Path, which teaches children, young children about economics and which I don't think schools actually do.

So, I think a focus on younger children is a great one.

VAN GINKEL: Well, it is, I mean, they say that the first three years are more important than any three that follow.

And O'Dell was actually on our board.

KELLAR: Was he?

Yeah.

VAN GINKEL: And in the beginning of the book there are seven people who have died who were involved with us.

And O'Dell is listed there.

O'Dell was a mentor to me.

I first met him when we were in Leadership Cincinnati class 13.

KELLAR: Well, I first became aware of him when he gave -- I went to one of his lectures and I was so impressed.

Oh my gosh, I thought, "I've got to get to know this guy," because I just thought he was fabulous.

So, I made it my business to get to know him.

And so we became personal friends as well.

And he of course did everything for the station.

But his philosophies about how you get children to, first of all, you get their attention, especially the older ones.

I know when he was coroner, he they would take groups of kind of middle teenagers to the place where they did the autopsies.

And he would say to them, "You know, you can -- You have decisions to make.

You can go one way and learn and get a job and lead a nice life, or you can go the other way, be a drug dealer, a thief, whatever.

And here's probably where you'll end up."

So he he was an incredible ambassador to the city.

And what a horrible, terrible loss.

But your book, how long has it been out?

Not very long.

VAN GINKEL: No, it just a couple of months.

KELLAR: A couple of months ago.

Where, is it at Joseph-Beth or where would it be?

VAN GINKEL: Amazon or through -- KELLAR: Of course.

VAN GINKEL: And I'm delighted to say that it was published by UC Press right here.

And when I first spoke to Elizabeth Scarpelli, who is the director of the UC Press, she recognized that because UC Press is interested in how you can bring academic learning to the community.

I mean, that the synergy of those two things, in a sense, that's what my book does because it's got an academic focus in terms of the references and the bibliographies and the ways that a student or someone could further research something if they wanted to know more.

But it also really involves what goes on in a community.

What are you going to focus on and how are you going to do it and how are you -- We're so fortunate in this community because we have a for profit business community that is more than willing, always to go above and beyond in terms of what they they give.

And sometimes it's money, but sometimes it's their good thinking and that's as valuable.

KELLAR: Yeah, and also as volunteers because Procter and Kroger and a lot of the major corporations lend people, their people to some specific nonprofit to help them, like John Pepper for the museum, the Museum Center, and lots of other examples.

But they do their part, not just with money, but with talent because they bring the business.

John Pepper on your board would bring the business aspect as well as the charitable.

Do you have any vignettes about success stories?

VAN GINKEL: Well, several.

And one just happened the other evening.

There was a reception that Children's held.

And what I say about Children's so often is that they gave us credibility before we had earned it, you know, and I appreciated that.

But they had a small reception to commemorate 25 years and talk about the relationship between Children's and Every Child Succeeds.

And there was a woman there who who approached me.

Of course.

Her name is Leticia.

And I had known Leticia for a long time.

Leticia came to us when she was homeless and pregnant.

And she is now a home visitor.

She has a son who's doing well.

She is grateful.

She is a pride, certainly someone we can be so proud of.

Because one thing about Every Child Succeeds is we talk a lot about the children, but it's also the moms, you know?

Are they going back to work?

Are they going back to school?

Are they able to get their lives together?

And one other small one is a little boy who came home from school with a letter from his teacher, and he was kind of concerned because he said, "You know, I've tried hard.

I'm not sure what the teacher wants to tell my mother."

So the mother opens up the letter and it's saying, "Your son is doing so well in school."

And he said, "No wonder I'm an Every Child Succeeds child."

KELLAR: Oh, my goodness.

VAN GINKEL: And as you can imagine, that warmed our hearts.

KELLAR: Oh, yeah.

Do you mentor, so to speak, the mothers as to how to handle their -- Okay.

You've got a pregnant homeless woman.

Do you first find her a place to live and her child?

VAN GINKEL: As much as we can, Barbara.

And that's part of the role of the home visitor.

But it also speaks to what I said earlier about the importance of collaboration, because we might be dealing with the parenting piece and the health piece, but there is the housing piece, there's nutrition, there are jobs.

All these things have to work together.

And you can't just do one without the other.

So the better people and organizations and community are willing to do that and share data and say, "This is working or this isn't," really the more impactful it can be.

KELLAR: Yeah, so if using this woman as an example, if she needs a job, I guess, and so would you work with like the organizations that try to find jobs for people?

VAN GINKEL: Yeah.

KELLAR: So you would collaborate on that.

VAN GINKEL: And with any of those kinds of things that we want and that she may want and certainly, finishing, if it's high school, at least getting her GED.

So that she will be better positioned too.

And about 14% of our families fathers were involved, but a lot of these were single women.

KELLAR: Most are single women.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do you have any more books in your -- in you?

VAN GINKEL: It's hard to tell.

I don't know.

I'm thinking about this one now.

KELLAR: Yeah, you're basking in the glory now of this one.

But when that fades out a little bit, then maybe you'll think, "Oh, maybe I do have one more."

VAN GINKEL: It could be.

I mean, you're not stopping what you're doing, you know?

And somebody said to me once, "Why in the world are you still working?"

And I said, "Because I'm the luckiest person I know."

KELLAR: Yeah, because you want to.

It's good.

VAN GINKEL: It's good.

It's good to do something and be productive.

KELLAR: Yeah, well, you had an amazing career in education and science, health, children, parents.

I mean, you're sort of the Renaissance woman.

And I know your book will help a lot of people who are looking for answers, as you say.

It will be a reference book that you don't throw away.

VAN GINKEL: I hope not.

KELLAR: Yeah, you keep it.

VAN GINKEL: It has questions, because I think questions really matter.

KELLAR: Yeah.

VAN GINKEL: It has the kinds of questions, for example, that a board member should ask himself or herself and they should ask the nonprofit.

On the other hand, the nonprofit should know these are the kinds of things I need to be able to answer.

KELLAR: Right.

VAN GINKEL: And it's a duality that matters.

KELLAR: Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for everything you've done for all those hundreds of people that you've helped and the families and the children.

And you are an amazing person.

And your latest book, tell us the name again.

VAN GINKEL: Chasing Success: The Challenge for monprofits.

KELLAR: Thank you so much for coming.

This is very interesting.

I love what you've done.

And Cincinnati thanks you very much.

VAN GINKEL: Thank you very much, Barbara, and thank you too.

ANNOUNCER: Join us next week for another episode of Showcase with Barbara Kellar right here on CET.