Erika Debrick Kelly has a phrase for what it's like to lead a young statewide initiative. She says she is “building, leading, and doing all at the exact same time.”
Hunger Free Kansas was created in 2023 to unite public and private partners around one enormous goal: ending food insecurity in the state. Erika was named Executive Director in March 2025, stepping into an organization still in its foundation-building years. She was developing a long-term strategy, running daily operations, and traveling across Kansas for conferences, summits, and partner meetings. And she was doing all of it as the organization's only full-time employee.
CLIENT STORYHunger Free Kansas Has One Full-Time Employee. She's No Longer on an Island.
Erika Debrick Kelly
Executive director
Before Nicole, logistics were competing with leadership.
Erika is an exceptionally organized leader. It’s important to call this out, because more organization wouldn’t have solved it. These were scaling pains, and they needed a different kind of help.
A statewide leadership role comes with statewide relationships. She was coordinating meetings across Kansas, building travel itineraries, booking hotels, and navigating calendars that were already packed. Those responsibilities are important, but they were consuming time and attention that could have been invested in the relationships, strategy, and advocacy only she could provide.
As the organization continued to grow, so did the volume of moving pieces. It became increasingly clear that administrative coordination and executive leadership couldn't continue to be Erika’s responsibility indefinitely.
What prompted her to bring on support wasn't burnout. It was clarity about her capacity. As Erika put it: "Doing those tasks wasn't how my time was best spent. In order to speed up, I needed additional support."
There was another reason the decision mattered to Erika.
The organization's general inbox receives messages from partners eager to get involved, community members looking for resources, and individuals navigating food insecurity themselves. Hunger Free Kansas can't always provide the funding people are hoping for, but it can always provide a thoughtful, timely response and point people toward the next best resource. Erika wanted every interaction with Hunger Free Kansas to reflect that level of care and compassion.
Bringing on Nicole created the capacity for both operational excellence and human connection, ensuring that the organization's day-to-day experience reflected the same values driving its mission.
Nicole came on as Erika's dedicated EA in September 2025.
Within the first week, Nicole had cleared the inbox backlog, built time blocks into Erika's calendar so her highest-priority work had protected space, and created a weekly snapshot report recapping key meetings and previewing what was ahead. She also began scanning partner organizations' social accounts so Erika could show up and engage statewide without scrolling through every feed herself.
As they found their rhythm, the support grew into the daily fabric of the organization. Calendar management is a big part of it, because Erika's schedule never slows down. In their weekly meetings they talk through follow-ups from the prior week while looking ahead to make sure event RSVPs, reservations, meeting rooms, and catering are all in place before the event. Nicole also plays a steady supporting role in the organization's monthly, ten-part webinar series. A teammate leads the content while Nicole handles the mechanics: setting up the Zoom meetings, tracking registrations and submitted questions, monitoring the sessions from the Hunger Free Kansas account, and compiling the shared resources for the follow-up newsletters.
The Data Walk posters are a good example of the difference support makes. Erika identified an opportunity to make this statewide resource more accessible, and Nicole helped turn that idea into a sustainable process. Together, they created a reservation system, clarified the logistics, developed the customer service flow, and documented the steps needed to keep everything running smoothly. The result is a resource that can reach more organizations across Kansas while creating a consistent, thoughtful experience for everyone who engages with Hunger Free Kansas.
Erika shared something about the way Nicole works that has become one of the hallmarks of their partnership.
Early in her career, while interning for a congressman, Erika was asked to read an essay called A Message to Garcia. Its lesson stayed with her: when someone entrusts you with a responsibility, the goal is to move it forward with initiative and excellence. Over time, she’s learned there is another important piece to that equation: knowing when a thoughtful question will create clarity and lead to a better outcome. That balance is rare.
Nicole, Erika says, understands that balance instinctively. She knows when she has enough information to take something and run with it, and she knows when a question will save time or prevent misalignment. The proactive communication they value on their team was intentionally built through trust, awareness, and care.
Nicole has full visibility into Erika’s calendar and understands the many competing priorities she is carrying. She has a way of stepping in to say when the vision for the week may exceed the available capacity. In Erika’s words, Nicole is supportive, protective, and an advocate for her time and energy. The care runs in both directions.
And that matters because leadership, especially in a lean nonprofit environment, can feel incredibly isolating. The decisions, the responsibilities, and the weight of the mission often rest with a small number of people. Erika said it simply: she no longer feels like she’s on an island.
That's what a right-hand partner provides. The tasks get handled, and the leader gets the space to focus on her strengths, expertise, and vision.
In her own words:"It is so helpful to have someone who can be my sounding board and task supporter. There is a real freedom in being able to focus on where your strengths and your talents can be used as a nonprofit leader. And it's not just the executive that this supports. It supports the entire operation by allowing the team to just be more organized.
The greatest value has been the extension of my capacity. The day-to-day organization has freed me up in so many ways, and I don't feel like I'm on an island or alone. When you're talking about donor-directed or grant dollars and the limited expenses we have, this is so worth it. It just allows us to better help more people."
If your week looks anything like Erika’s used to—building, leading, and juggling the operational details all at the same time—we’d love to talk about how our team can help create more capacity for the work only you can do.