Retiring C.O.O. Dan Maddox left an incredible impact on the Atlanta Habitat for Humanity heading into its 40th anniversary.
Tatiania Perry
From the moment Dan Maddox came in the door of Atlanta Habitat for Humanity as the Chief Operating Officer, he had a deep knowledge of the organization and a passion for its mission.
In the late 90s, Dan and his wife got involved with feeding the homeless through his church. He quickly realized that while he was feeding and helping people, he was only addressing a symptom of homelessness.
At the time, Dan was working at Georgia Power – an Atlanta Habitat for Humanity sponsor. He joined a build and never looked back.
“I thought to myself, ‘This is exactly what I’m looking for.’ In seven days, you can build a house and uplift a family. My eyes were opened and I was eager to serve from that time on.”
After the seed was planted, Dan quickly got his family involved and planted seeds within them, too.
While building with his family, Dan began looking for ways to increase his contribution to Atlanta Habitat. He joined the Advisory Board , to lend his expertise and continued in numerous other Board roles through the years including the Finance Committee to the Vice-Chair and, eventually, Chair of the Board.
Atlanta Habitat: Then and Now
During his tenure, Dan has seen considerable change within the organization. When he moved from the Advisory Board to the Chief Operating Officer position in 2011, the organization was building approximately 50 houses each year and had a robust education program.
Many of the people who come through the program are first-time homebuyers who know very little about homeownership. Instead of leaving the homebuyers in the dark, Atlanta Habitat is very intentional about closing the knowledge gap and setting homeowners up for success.
“We would bring them into the building and teach them life skills about maintaining their own home,” Dan recalled. “We taught them how to maintain their sinks, and repair holes in the wall – and they would actually practice.”
At the time, Atlanta Habitat had a $5 million budget and fewer than 40 employees. Now, more than 10 years later, Atlanta Habitat employs almost 100 people with an operating budget of nearly $22 million.
The increased budget has allowed the organization to activate more programs and impact more families annually.
My Money. My Future. (MMMF) is a program that was created to help families who aren’t quite ready to join the homebuying program learn how to improve their financial literacy by helping them learn to build and repair their credit and grow their savings. In some cases, participants will bridge from this program to the Atlanta Habitat homebuying program.
During the height of the pandemic, Atlanta Habitat introduced a mortgage relief program.
“Many of our families experienced significant financial hardship during COVID, so we leveraged $1 million in funding directly from our donors, to help them pay their mortgages while they worked to recover,” Dan explained.
As Atlanta Habitat continued to search for ways to support families beyond the build, the organization created the Vision. Goals. Action! (VGA) program.
VGA is a scholarship available to homeowners and their dependents who want to continue their education. This could include anything from a two-year or four-year degree program, post-graduate education, or even certificate and language programs.
VGA also has an entrepreneurial component. Homeowners can pitch their small businesses in a Shark Tank-style competition. The winner of the competition is awarded money to invest in their business.
All the programs introduced in the last decade came from a community need that Atlanta Habitat had the ability to fill.
“When you’re building a home in a neighborhood, homeowners from across the street and on the block, would come by and say, ‘Can you help me?’”
At the time, the only thing builders could do was suggest the neighbors go to the website and apply for the Habitat program, but they were looking for repairs, not homes. In 2016, Maddox decided that there must be something Atlanta Habitat could do to address this need as well.
“Just building that one home helps change the neighborhood. But imagine if we could repair other homes in the neighborhood,” Maddox said.
The Repair with Kindness program may provide homeowners with funds and guidance around installing a new roof, windows, HVAC, or addressing plumbing and electrical issues within the home. For the neighbors looking for more cosmetic fixes to their homes, the Brush with Kindness program offers qualifying neighbors a fresh coat of paint and light repairs to their homes.
Simple repairs and paint jobs can transform a neighborhood, which Dan has seen firsthand.
“It’s a beautiful thing to drive through all the neighborhoods that we build in, not necessarily in one day, but periodically or driving around to see the change and know we had a little something to do with this,” Maddox said.
Leaving a Legacy
With Dan’s leadership and support through the years, Atlanta Habitat has moved to a new facility, expanded its budget and introduced new programs for homebuyers and their families. When the Atlanta Habitat seed was planted in Dan, the organization became a part of his family, and he watered the seeds for serving others in his own family, too. As a matter of fact, Dan and his siblings honored their deceased parents by sponsoring Atlanta Habitat’s first two-story build.
Although he has retired and moved on to the next chapter, the legacy Dan leaves is overflowing with his passion for the mission.
“I feel like the luckiest man on this earth to have spent 25 years doing something I love,” said Dan.
