Q&A with Director of Development Claudia Winkler

Claudia Winkler (center right) poses with Project Host staff at the Oscars-themed Volunteer Appreciation Dinner in February 2021.

You may have seen articles about people picking up and moving, sometimes across the country, due to COVID. Project Host Director of Development Claudia Winkler is one such person. She, her husband, and her son left Arlington, Virginia, just outside of Washington, DC, for Greenville, SC, in March 2020.

“There were a lot of things that factored into our move, and the possibility had been on our radar ever since we had our son. We wanted to be closer to family and the cost of living in the DC area is astronomical. COVID just pushed us over the edge in making the decision to move.”

Arlington’s loss was Greenville’s gain, and especially Project Host’s. Since last September, Claudia has been helping run Project Host from behind the scenes, doing our marketing and development work and so much more. We sat down with Claudia to understand a little more about who she is, what brought her to Project Host, and what she hopes to accomplish in the years ahead.

What were you doing professionally in the DC area that put a place like Project Host on your radar when you were searching for jobs in Greenville?

I wound up in Washington in 2010 as a grad student at Georgetown University, and I ended up staying there for a decade. When I finished grad school, I almost immediately got hired as a staff member for the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at GU. During the six years that I worked at the center, I held a number of positions, but all of them had grant writing, communications work, and project management at their core.

When I started looking for jobs in Greenville, the nonprofit sector was a logical place for me to look. I thrive on positions where there are opportunities to expand my role and wear many hats, and, for good or ill, that seems to be a job requirement in the nonprofit world.

So what, specifically, was it about Project Host that appealed to you?

There are two answers to that—a macro- and micro-level answer, if you will.

On the macro-level, while working for the Berkley Center and a university like Georgetown was an amazing experience both personally and professionally, the truth is, it felt like the world was on fire between COVID, the migrant crisis, the domestic and global political tensions, and, and, and… and it kind of felt like the work I was pouring my heart and soul into every day wasn’t really having an impact. I don’t want to knock the role of research—I’m a big believer in the value of higher education and research endeavors—but in our current moment, my work just felt a little too removed from the tragedies unfolding in people’s lives around the world every day. Project Host provided great appeal because it tends to people’s very literal physical needs on a daily basis. How much more meaningful could a job be?

On the micro-level, there were things that appealed to me about Project Host very specifically. The staff was great to meet, particularly Tobin Simpson, who had just stepped into the role of CEO. He was candid with me—told me all of the challenges the organization faced with COVID and leadership transitions, etc.—but also exuded such passion for the work and love for the people served by the mission, that I just knew this was the right place for me. The fact that there was opportunity to improve and grow and bring the organization to another level—and the fact that there was a team in place eager and willing to do that work—is what made me jump at the opportunity to be a part of the Project Host team.

Now that you’ve been in the position for almost a year, where would you say you’ve made gains for the organization?

I think one of my biggest contributions to date is helping tell Project Host’s story. This nonprofit does amazing work, and we are blessed to be surrounded by remarkable, resilient people every day across our programs who have a story to tell. They touch our lives and work, and we, of course, hope and believe that our work benefits them, but Project Host just wasn’t really capturing that anywhere.

I’ve made it a point to interview our culinary students, volunteers, and staff and I’m now working on speaking with our Soup Kitchen guests to begin to convey to people outside of Project Host just what a remarkable place this is. I’ve also tried to help streamline messaging so that people understand that we do not just run an assorted jumble of food-related programs, but that all of our programs are interconnected and support each other in meaningful, mission-centric ways.

What are you hoping to accomplish in the year ahead?

So much, but I’ll try to be brief!

First, working in development in the COVID era is hard. There are so many dedicated supporters of Project Host that I have yet to meet, much less form a relationship with, because events and other opportunities to do so have been few and far between. And that’s not to speak of the wider Greenville community, among which I am sure we would find many more supporters and volunteers, if only opportunities to meet and engage were not still strained by the ongoing pandemic.

A big issue that’s upon me right now is that the Soup Kitchen needs capital improvements that we’re actively seeking funding for, and that’s a huge undertaking from both a fundraising and a project management standpoint. I’m also certain we will be facing the need for capital investment in other equipment and parts of the building in the coming years.

Elsewhere, there’s still so much opportunity for Project Host to work on programs and restructure funding to be more self-sustaining and impactful. Our social enterprises—the Bakery and HostMobile food truck—have a lot of untapped potential, so I see a lot of my role as working with Tobin and Programs Director Michelle Liggett, as well as our chefs, to make those two programs as strong as they possibly can be. That will, in turn, free up funds to invest in growth and nice-to-haves across other programs—improvements that, at the moment, are still out of reach (one hypothetical example would be a transportation or childcare stipend for culinary students and interns).

The culinary school could also benefit from endowment support or a scholarship model to make it more sustainable. The list could go on, but, in short, I won’t be running out of projects any time soon.

What’s your favorite thing about working at Project Host?

This might be the hardest question of all to answer, as there are so many things. I’ll start with the personal, and that’s the people. The staff, volunteers, culinary students, and guests—every single person I have come across in this work is remarkable in big ways and small, and it is incredibly humbling to see the service and dedication of some and the hardships and struggles of others at Project Host.

On a much more superficial level: the food. I’m a big foodie, so what better place to be than somewhere like Project Host?! (My waistline has a differing opinion on this subject.)

It’s also been rewarding to move from a job that spent a lot of time talking on an academic level about how religious communities shape and benefit society to being somewhere where that is playing out every day in realtime. Religious organizations help form the backbone of Project Host, and I get to bear witness to that now in a way that felt very distant and abstract at my previous job.

Finally, from a professional standpoint, it’s the opporunity to be a part of an organization that already does such significant work and to know that I can apply my talents in creative ways to make it even more than it is right now. There is nothing more fulfilling than feeling like your work matters on many fronts, and nothing more satisfying than being on a team that has your back and says, “Yes, and,” when you come with ideas and new ways of doing things.