The Nonprofit Administration Program is very excited to share that for the second time this year a Nonprofit Administration graduate student has been named Executive Director. Charles Stehlik has been selected as the executive leader of All God's Children Ministries. He will graduate from the Nonprofit Administration Program in the fall.
Charles has had a circuitous route to nonprofit leadership. In 2009, Charles was a Hospital Corpsman, Navy enlisted medical, with a specialization in psychiatric care. That experience he said allowed him to "see humanity's diversity and pain in intimate space, working in inpatient and outpatient settings... the military gave me a rich set of experiences that put the world I knew into a much broader context. It taught me about human nature. It gave me both administrative experience and clinical experience. It was formative."
After Charles served, he finished his undergraduate degree in psychology and his first Master’s in Theology and Religious Studies at John Carroll University. Charles continued "The transition from the military life to a civilian's life was challenging and isolating," but he believes that John Carroll was a "safe place" to undergo this transition. Finding people with shared values expressed in different ways than Charles was accustomed helped his transition. He also began attending services at Redeemer UMC.
Charles said John Carroll's Nonprofit Administration program has helped this transition as well: “Dani and the other instructors work hard to connect students to a tremendous network of practitioners in the field-- over the two years this program takes, students will have had focused, fruitful discussions with literally dozens of active leaders in the field with myriad talents. This means that we get to mine practitioners' minds for answers to practical, theoretical, and existential questions without needing to learn those answers experientially ourselves-- this frees us up to make bold, new mistakes of our own into novel learning experiences, rather than recreate those of our predecessors.”
Charles became the Executive Director of All God's Children Ministries (AGCM) earlier this month. AGCM is a Methodist nonprofit that advocates for and provides services to persons with disabilities. Their flagship program is Ramps of Hope, which builds ramps onto people's homes. They also provide a respite center for families who have a child with a disability and participate in overseas mission work distributing mobility devices.
Charles has also begun the candidacy process for ordination as a Deacon in the UMC. His ambitions include wanting to make a career of mobilizing people to leave their comfort zones to serve people on the margins.
In citing Khalil Gibran famous poem likening love to bows and arrows. Charles said, "there's no person without other people, and there's no "me" today without countless people who have invested in my development. John Carroll has been a fine bow, Dani, an exceptional archer. I'm grateful to be your arrow."
Please join us in congratulating Charles. We are very proud and honored to be part of his exciting journey. Charles truly is an "unapologetic social justice leader!"
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