How For-Profit and Government Jobs Led a Single Mother to Help Others Become More Self-Reliant

ENTRY LEVEL

Karen E. Mecham

Age: 56

First job: Editor, Meridian Publishing, Ogden, Utah

Current job: Founder and executive director, Bringing Hope to Single Moms Foundation, Salt Lake City

At age 38, I was a single mom with five children, half a college degree, and no way to make a living. I completed my first two years of college in 1964, and didn’t go back to school until 1985. It took me four years to finish those last two years, and I vowed right then that if I ever had the chance to help single moms, I would. Fortunately, after graduating with a degree in journalism, I found a job with Meridian Publishing, which produced advertising magazines — magazines that companies could brand by putting their names on the cover. While I loved the work as an editor, I had a secret desire to create an organization to help single moms become self-reliant. I would often think about what kinds of articles and issues would be included if I ever produced a magazine for that demographic.

One of the most important lessons I learned in my first job was to write what you know. What I knew about was the group of single mothers like myself who were hovering right at the poverty line. These were women who had the desire to be self-reliant but didn’t know where to go for resources, women who simply didn’t know what success looked like.

After my job at Meridian, I ran my own publishing business for a year and a half, but I had to stop doing that because my youngest child had a serious heart problem. I needed to get a job with good health insurance so she could have an operation.

A cousin of mine worked for the Utah Legislature, and I got a job in the research department as a secretary for some of the committees. I soon realized I wanted to get a master’s degree in public administration — my supervisor told me it would be good to get that credential if I wanted to work in the nonprofit sector. (I eventually got that degree, from the University of Utah in 1995.) The job in the Legislature was really a gift from the Lord, because it was the perfect place for me to be at the time: All of the information and research I needed for my degree was right there. I also learned a lot about nonprofit organizations because they came there to get tax revenues and to lobby for laws they wanted passed. And I learned to research, research, research. If you don’t know how to do something, keep asking “how” questions until you know how.

At the Legislature, I had 104 bosses — there were that many legislators — who came from many different fields, and I got to observe them all. It was the same at the publishing company; the people we produced magazines for worked in business, health, sports, and even travel. I got to see how all of these people worked, and I would say to myself, “When I’m a manager, that’s something I want to do,” or “That’s something I don’t want to do.”

During my first two jobs, I also discovered some important things about surviving as a single mother. When I worked at the Legislature, I was living on the west side of Salt Lake City and had an hour commute to work. This meant I was away from home for 10 hours a day. Every day at 3 p.m., I had each of my kids call me to schedule his or her chores and activities for the afternoon. I found that reading together with the children after supper helped me manage the situation, and that’s one of the things I now encourage single moms to do.

I found out that if my life wasn’t scheduled, it was an absolute disaster. Consequently, through the Bringing Hope to Single Moms Foundaton, we offer a 10-week self-reliance program to create goals and a financial plan. We also teach our clients problem-solving, job-interviewing, and résumé-writing skills.

I had a mentor during this time, and that to me was the single most important factor in changing my life. My mentor, a friend who lived in the neighborhood, wouldn’t do anything for me that I could do myself. He talked me through everything — replacing the taps in my bathroom, for example. He could have done it himself in 10 minutes, but instead, he spent an hour coaching me through it. He always had an aura of confidence in me that suggested that I was a self-reliant, competent adult, which was a much better attitude than pity. I wanted every woman to have someone like that.

I left the Legislature in 1997 and began putting my organization together, part time. We became a 501 (c) (3) a year later, and I moved into the role of executive director full time. I had no budget, so I found a law firm that would do our paperwork pro bono. For the first two and a half years, I worked alone. In 2000, I was able to hire an administrative assistant and, shortly thereafter, a program director. We now have four full-time employees and eight AmeriCorps volunteers.

Today, Bringing Hope to Single Moms serves some 150 to 200 women across Utah each year and is in the process of expanding to Arizona. Every mom is paired with a mentor, who spends at least four hours a month with her, for a minimum of a year. The mentors help the moms brainstorm effective and efficient solutions to problems and offer emotional support. We also have an annual conference of single moms each year — another idea that came from my time at Meridian Publishing. Meridian sent me to a business conference early on in my career, and I modeled our conference after that. We have about 40 breakout sessions and a huge resource fair that offers everything from how to find good child care to how to find a good mechanic.

Personally, I don’t think it matters what field you start in. It’s yourself you have to watch. You have to give 110 percent wherever you are. You need to stretch yourself to get better every day. — As told to Alicia Abell

How did your first work experiences shape your current nonprofit career? Tell us at entrylevel@philanthropy.com. Your story may appear in a future edition of Entry Level.