A Powerhouse Leader For People With Disabilities Shares Keys To Non-Profit Success
Edward Matthews, CEO of ADAPT Community Network, shared keys to non-profit success.
An excerpt from the article:
Kathy Caprino: You have been one of the most respected forces in the non-profit world for over 25 years. What lead you to dedicate your life’s work to helping people with disabilities?
Edward Matthews: Like many people, I entered this world somewhat by accident. I trained to be a school psychologist and worked for the Board of Education for a few months, and realized I didn’t think I could make a difference there. I was networking with some people I had gone to school with, one of whom was my friend Tim McGee at the Association of Retarded Citizens, which was probably one of the largest providers for development disability in the city, and he said they needed a psychologist there. I said I didn’t know anything at the time about the term “retarded people” and he said, because of some federal interventions, there was going to be a lot of service delivery and growth there, so I went there. I worked with kids and families, and did some counseling with some of the more highly-functioning adults and found something I thought I’d be good at and could make a difference in, for a group of people who were underserved and who needed people to be their champion, and I fell in love with it. That was in 1973, so I’ve been around a while.
