Vanessa McDowell was serving as interim CEO of the Madison YWCA when she was offered the position permanently. It was not an easy decision. She would be the first woman of color to lead the Madison organization in its 108 year history.
“The weight of that was heavy,” she said, during an interview with retired pastor Phil Haslanger for the Faith in the Heart of the City series at Upper House.
She was reading about Esther in the Bible and she also discovered that her mother had at the same age, 36, faced a similar decision to become the director of the University of Wisconsin Multicultural Student Center. “That moment I realized this is a God moment,” she said. “To face the same challenge at the same stage in life and to hear God clearly say, ‘I called you to this for such a time as this.'”
The YWCA is no longer an explicitly Christian organization as it was at its founding but it’s clear the McDowell brings a firm foundation of faith to her job as CEO. Before joining the YWCA in 2014, she served as executive assistant to the pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist Church.
“My parents were my role models,” she said. Growing up she had a choice every Tuesday evening of going with her mother to choir rehearsal at church or going with her father as he refereed ball games.
“I always felt a calling to the church and serving people through the church,” she said she learned through her time in church. And from her father she learned “the importance of a side hustle.”
Known as DJ Ace, she continues to keep the side hustle active. “I tell people I’m probably not your typical CEO,” she said. She also plays bass for services at her church. Staying activey musically helps her deal with the CEO stresses.
Born and raised in Madison, she has a great love for the city but is also disappointed in its shortcomings. “It’s not getting better between the haves and the have nots,” she said. “My dream would be that we figure that out.”
Her position as CEO gives her an opportunity to help work that out. Two of the YWCA’s top priorities are eliminating racism and empowering women, which is done through a number of operations in housing, employment, and transportation.
In the Question and Answer part of the program, McDowell was asked to name some of her favorite hymns. She named “I have decided to follow Jesus,” and “Because He lives.”
She was also asked about some of the innovations she has brought to the YWCA and described what she calls brown bag lunch fish bowls. A panel is convened to discuss ways to bring about change. And then affinity groups in the audience talk about what they heard.
During one of those discussions one of the Black participants noted that Black people typically speak when they enter a room and a White participant said they are taught, “don’t speak until you are spoken to.” To which the Black participant said, “If you’re not speaking to me it means you don’t see me.”
McDowell said, “Now we say hi to each other in the halls. That’s a culture change.”
Asked what she thought she might be doing five years from now, she said she wasn’t the type of person who made five-year plans. “I didn’t plot my life to be a CEO,” she said. “I planned my life to be a servant of God.”