Board member profile: Meet Charrissa Klander

Nellie’s Board of Directors is comprised of incredible women in our community who are passionate about ending violence against women and children. At our AGM in September, Charrissa Klander, our newest Board Member at Large, joined our efforts.

“I think that every woman and child deserve to feel safe and live a life free of violence and be treated with dignity and kindness,” says Charrissa, who lives in Riverdale. “Nellie’s is an organization that is committed to achieving social justice for women and children and I wanted to be a part of that.”

Charrissa, who is married with three kids between the ages of 12 and 20, first reached out to Nellie’s about volunteering opportunities about a year ago. She toured the shelter, helped out where she could and then offered her expertise as a government relations consultant in guiding Nellie’s towards securing additional funding. That’s when she started to think about the possibility of joining the board as a way to further share her expertise.

“The more I thought about what I could bring to the table in order to help Nellie’s achieve their mandate, the more I decided that joining the board would be a good fit for me,” says Charrissa, who, prior to becoming a consultant, worked as a senior policy advisor to the Minister of Finance where she advised the Government on policy and funding pertaining to social services, children and youth, and poverty reduction. “And, there’s so much I can gain from Nellie’s as well. The women who sit on the board are fantastic and I’m going to learn so much from them.”

Working with Nellie’s, where she will also join the Fund Development Committee, almost brings her full circle in her career as early on she worked as a Child and Youth Worker in a number of treatment settings in Toronto and Eastern Ontario.

“We all go through different phases in our life. I started my career in child and youth work and then took a different path, which I enjoyed. But now I’m at a point where I want to get back into social justice work and I’m at a point in my life where I have more time to give to take on a role like this.”

Welcome Charrissa! We’re so happy you’re here.

New Strategic Plan helps Nellie’s take brave steps towards the future

Our job at Nellie’s is to make sure the most vulnerable people in our society don’t fall through the cracks. Even more so, it’s to make sure they have access to the best possible services to meet their specific needs and access to the most valuable thing in their lives —a safe place to live. Nellie’s as a shelter is there for each and every one of them, and as an organization, we strive to serve as a role model for the sector as whole.

We are meeting that challenge with our new three-year Strategic Plan that commits us all to the vision of moving Nellie’s to the next level. The immense need for our services hasn’t diminished in over 45 years, it has only grown. Our Strategic Plan creates the framework to organize ourselves in new and different ways in order to move our agenda forward and attract funders, while remaining committed to our principles.

Strategic Direction 1: Improve organizational capacity and resilience.

Women’s Shelters Canada More than a Bed Report highlighted that insufficient funding was a major challenge faced by shelters across the country. The trust and support of our donors last year, and every year, means that we can augment our funding to offer the programs and services that build confidence and help women to take the brave steps towards accomplishing the next chapter in their lives.

As a board, we acknowledge the need to expand our capacity for fund development and strengthen our branding and marketing — because having one of our best ever fundraising years simply means we need to raise the bar to enhance what we do and how we do it. To expand our horizon, we are committed to putting the right number of people in place.

Strategic Direction 2: Expand and improve the physical space to better serve Nellie’s priority populations.

For almost half a century, Nellie’s has sheltered women and children in a beautiful, historic residential building. But for many years now, we have wished to improve the living conditions and offer greater accessibility for those in our shelter. Our space, after all, was designed for 16 beds not 40. We have already found a new building in our same east end neighbourhood. It will be accessible to everyone and has the space for all of our residents to have privacy as we continue to provide them with support. And while it meets all of our needs, it still retains the charm, comforts and homey feeling of our current building. In the coming year, we look forward to making this transition to our new building.

Strategic Direction 3: Strengthen expertise and leadership around women and children with complex needs, from a trauma-informed, harm reduction and accessibility framework.

Our role in the community is a demanding one and other VAW organizations frequently look to us for information, guidance and expertise. It is time we positioned ourselves as the leader in the VAW and shelter network. Through actively engaging in robust training and healthy discussions we are strengthening the expertise of everyone working at Nellie’s to boost their leadership role from a trauma-informed, harm reduction and accessibility perspective. Ultimately, we want to not only be a leader but to formalize our service delivery model to promote, share and teach others in the sector as well.

Thank you.

Donna Kellway and Sherece Taffe,
Co-Chairs, Nellie’s Board of Directors