Bosses for Babies

How This Boss Makes an Impact for Children in Florida

Barbara Evans and Champions For Learning fully embrace several family-friendly policies that are designed to support their team in balancing work and family responsibilities. These policies not only benefit team members with families but also improve workplace morale, productivity, and retention. They offer short-term disability coverage for eligible mothers that is 100% covered by the organization, and when short-term disability does not apply, PTO may be used. For all new parents, either adopting or with a new baby, unpaid parental leave is available.

In addition, they offer flexible work arrangements that allow employees to work remotely or adjust their hours to better accommodate family responsibilities, including options like telecommuting, flexible start and end times, and compressed work weeks, all of which are utilized as much as possible based on the requirements of the job and the needs of the organization. The organization also aligns emergency office and inclement weather closures with the public school system so that parents do not need to worry about childcare in an emergency situation or inclement weather, and team members are encouraged to enroll their children in Champions' student programming based on eligibility and the number of open seats.
 

Bio

Barbara Evans has served as president and CEO of the Education Foundation of Collier County - Champions for Learning since September 2022. Barbara is a well-rounded non-profit executive with twenty years of experience in nonprofit leadership, having previously served as chief development officer of Harry Chapin Food Bank, director of development of Sarasota Memorial Healthcare Foundation, and chief development officer of Grace Place for Children and Families. Barbara earned her Bachelor’s degree from Florida State University, and in 2018 became a Certified Fund Raising Executive. She is also a graduate of Leadership Collier’s Class of 2018 and now serves on the Leadership Collier Foundation Advisory Council. In addition, Barbara is a member of Leadership Florida’s Cornerstone Class 41, Florida Gulf Coast University’s College of Education Advisory Board, and the Association of Fundraising Professionals, where she was selected as their Collier-Lee chapter’s Outstanding Fundraising Executive in 2017.

A fourth generation Floridian and Italian, Barbara resides in Naples with her husband, Jonathan, and their two school-age children. She is a member of St. Monica’s Episcopal Church where she serves as an acolyte, and she loves to be on the water, to travel (especially to Tuscany) and cook with her family.