Gail Small has spent almost 20 years at Montreal-based Ometz, a community organization that provides employment, immigration, school and social services.
“They knew what it meant to be an adult learner as opposed to some of the other places I visited,” she says. “I mattered, my opinion mattered, I had experience and was actually treated that way.”
Small decided to get her MBA to “round out” her undergraduate degree from McGill University — an unusual mix of a major in physical education and minor in mathematics. “I’m very organized, mathematically inclined, very good at finance, very analytical, but my staff here joke about me being an associated social worker,” she says.
Until getting her MBA, Small’s whole career had been in not-for-profits. She started off as director of Health and Physical Education at the Montreal YWCA, was executive director of the women’s shelter Auberge Transition, and was executive director of the Farha Foundation, Quebec’s leading AIDS fundraising organization.
“During my two years at Concordia, I was provided with ample opportunity to reflect on what I had been learning on the job and to hone a number of skills that I was already using,” she says.
“I was also able to grow my network of colleagues and forged some important relationships that I still nurture to this day. I developed a good understanding of how business management is easily applicable to the not-for-profit sector.”
With her MBA in hand, Small decided to take a shot at private business — a path that lasted just six months before she decided her heart was in the non-profit sector.
Finding ‘courage’
“I think it’s because I can make a difference,” says Small, who next year will mark her 20th year with Ometz.
“It’s about the people I work with and it’s about the people we help. People just keep going the extra mile.”
Ometz, which means “courage” in Hebrew, was formed in 2008 with the merger of Jewish Family Services, Jewish Employment Services and Jewish Immigrant Aid Services. Working with the Jewish community was an eye-opener for Small, herself a Jew.
“I didn’t know about the needs in the Jewish community until I got involved and I’m in the Jewish community. But I guess I just lived more of a privileged life and I was sheltered,” she says.
“There is 20 per cent poverty among the Jews in Montreal, which people don’t really know. We’re dealing a lot with single parents, at-risk youth, larger families, conjugal violence.”
Ometz, which receives both private and public financing, helps families, children and youth who are going through tough times, such as family breakdown, problems in school, financial issues, employment problems or trying to settle in Montreal from another country.
Helping immigrants fleeing anti-Semitism
One big issue the organization is dealing with now is a wave of Jews from France, who no longer feel safe living there. “That’s really picked up over the last number of years,” Small says, adding they have over 160 open files of Jews fleeing France.
“They don’t feel they can be Jewish there anymore. There have been many overt anti-Semitic acts,” she reports.
“These are well-off young professionals from Paris — what an opportunity for Montreal.”
Small says another popular program is mentorship, which attracts volunteers who want to do something where they think they are going to make a difference — and largely they do, with children who don’t have a role model in their lives.
“We can offer volunteers something unique, something hands-on — whatever it is, it’s meaningful,” she says. “It’s difficult with the younger generation to find the time to get involved, but they do and find it rewarding.”
Ometz is also running a literacy program for adults and Small says those involved are so grateful to be able to learn to read.
“We’re giving them a chance, and they felt like they had no chance.”