Before launching her nonprofit, Adam’s Purpose, Shay Jacobs found herself struggling to find resources to support her family’s journey through their pregnancy loss. She was able to find grief support groups for parents who had lost their children, but nothing for their unique loss of their unborn child. As Shay shared, “Every kind of grief and loss needs its own space and pregnancy loss is different, It needs its own loss. It needs its own space.”
This experience drew Shay and her husband to launch Adam’s Purpose. Shay related, “We launched out of a community meeting that was based on our own needs. We noticed a greater community need of having more grief resources accessible and having them culturally responsive for the African American and minority communities.”
Finding Purpose through the Pain
Through leading the work of Adam’s Purpose, Shay has seen beauty come from ashes. As she shared, “I raise Adam now through this organization. This is how I raise my son, and this is how I help support other people. And so to me, it’s a great joy and a privilege to do this work and to find purpose even through the pain.”
SVP Denver: A Timely Experience for Shay
Adam’s Purpose had been growing but had reached an inflection point. Shay said, “I was having a hard time conveying the heart of Adam’s purpose. I could do it verbally, but not in written form.”
SVP Denver’s Theory of Change program helped to fill a void at Adam’s Purpose. As Shay explained, “It was right on time for us as an organization. We were trying to walk through some strategic planning and telling our story and some grant writing, and I was finding it to be extremely challenging to summarize who we were, what we did, what we wanted to do.”
The cohort proved to be pivotal for Shay and her ability to share about the work of Adam’s Purpose. She explained, “I felt like Adam’s Purpose had accomplished something really great that we had been talking about and desiring to do, but the theory of change gave us the framework to be able to produce it and have something completed on paper. It’s in my head, my heart, and it’s on paper.”
SVP Denver: Creating Meaningful Connections
Sometimes telling the story of SVP Denver can be served through sharing statistics, but what is often not fully appreciated are the ways that SVP Denver creates meaningful, heartfelt experiences and connections. During the cohort, Shay connected with Gwen Bonilla from the Denver Family Institute (DFI). Shay explained, “We clicked in one of the breakout sessions. She just hit it off. We found synergy. We are definitely nonprofit dating. I’ve become a guest speaker on post-traumatic growth for DFI and DFI was a partner with our recent Wellness Fair. The relationship with Denver Family Institute that was fostered through SVP Denver has been key.”