A Profile of Zac Kohl –
What it takes to stabilize a neighborhood after years of disinvestment

The first one that comes to mind is that when we started, I was not in finance. That was not the world that I came from. But hiring an accounting firm as soon as we got our first big donation check was very important, because we always had a grasp on our finances after that.

I think that’s a really important piece of growth, recognizing that this is not my battle, but it’s our community’s battle. And that I’m not alone in the fight. And I think that goes back to adding capacity, more staff, at every opportunity we could. Now I look at a team of full-time staff of 20, waking up every day thinking about the different pieces of the work. I don’t know how people run nonprofits with just one or two other people thinking about this huge vision.

There were a lot of people along the way who believed in what we were doing including the staff that we hired to do it.

It’s never over. There’s never a moment where it feels like we accomplished enough because there’s so much need. We can launch a “60 for 60” campaign to rehabilitate 60 homes in 60 months. We can rehab 60 homes faster than we thought, and it still feels like it’s not enough.

That’s probably the most mentally draining thing as a founder or entrepreneur. We can do so much good work, and it still just feels like it’s not enough. So being able to slow down and recognize the good work that has happened and the impact that is happening along the way can be hard, but it’s really important.

I think about people like James Talbert who has run side-by-side with me for 10 years, and continues to serve the organization and neighborhood as a board member and thought partner. I think about Curtis Minter Jr. and Kelly McHood who were hires number three and four, and they signed on to the work as 10-hour-a-week employees and became the leadership team through the first several years of the organization. I think about Jen Meade and her role as the associate executive director.

I think about project timelines where “10” is the preferred future. I’m really good at the zero to one [starting the project], and painting a picture of the 10 [the ideal finish line]. Then I get the people who I think have been most valuable; they are the people who can help us figure out the two to nine. So people who complement me and the work that we’re doing are people who can be practical and bring execution and capacity to the team.

Then I think about our founding board chair, Tom Strauss, who was the past CEO of Summa Health System, the largest employer in Summit County. He jumped on board right away. I think about people like Tracy Carter, who is our former board chair, who always believes so much in our mission. She has constantly connected us to relational networks and funders and people in Akron who should just be aware of what we’re doing.

There’s a group of people who are part of our circle, 40 or so friends and family, people who are a part of a church community who have chosen to move back into the neighborhood. There’s a community of people who believe so deeply in what we’re doing that it’s a social network, a social safety net that, regardless of the impacts of The Well CDC, we feel like we’re in it together.

There’s three and a half acres of vacant land in our community that we did some initial planning for. We wanted to build 25 new homes. So we sat down with the neighbors who lived around that vacant lot.  And I thought to myself, “We’ve been here a long time. We’re crushing this. It’s going to be great. We’re going to build some new houses.” And I just got blasted.

The neighbors asked how we could think about housing when there’s a waste transfer station that is the neighborhood’s biggest issue right down the street? And so it was a learning opportunity for me. I think housing is really important and really valuable in our community, but if our community is saying that the waste transfer station is the number one need, then The Well CDC needs to think about the number one need of our community, and then think about housing.

It was a learning moment for me: How do we stay connected to the fabric of the neighborhood, even as our organization grows? We did a neighborhood plan in 2019. What does that mean six years later as we continue to evolve as an organization? So keeping our ear to the ground in the neighborhood is a really important piece of the work.

What grounds me as a person is my faith. But then if I look outside of faith, I would say it’s the people. It’s the social network that we’ve talked about and all those names that I mentioned. It’s knowing that I’m not trying to carry this mantle by myself and that there’s a group of people who wake up every day thinking about it with me.

We all have different roles to play and we all have gifts that play out differently. As a leader, how do I play the role that I’ve been equipped to play? And then how do I help release other people to play the role that they’ve been given to play? With nonprofit entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs, there’s this tendency to think, “The weight of the world is on me. And if I don’t do every piece of it and figure out every detail and stay in the weeds, then it’s never going to happen.”

So what keeps me sane in the moments where I get myself wound up too tight? It’s reminders that there are other people who care as deeply as I do. How do I, as a leader, help equip them to be who they are? How do I help release their gifts and skill sets to add to the work, and not make it all dependent on my skill set?

“Welcoming Justice” by Charles Marsh and John Perkins was really influential for me. And “The Color of Law” by Richard Rothstein has also been influential for me.