I have much to say about my first seven months as Executive Director of One Omaha. As a product of this incredible organization’s training, education, and engagement, I look back and think about its positive impact on my life. I have loved this work for 20 years and feel truly blessed to be in this position.

As a neighborhood organizer, I recognize that the training and development I received from One Omaha contributed to my leadership in the East Omaha community and has been a large part of my decision-making processes as an elected member of the school board and president of the South Omaha Neighborhood Alliance.

I want to do what One Omaha did for me for all neighborhoods in our city, and we’ve gotten off to a great start. This year, we significantly increased our visibility and our impact. We held the inaugural three-part From the Ground Up speaker series focused on housing – an issue Omaha residents identified as their most pressing issue. We captured information that can be used to feed into policy and decision-making at the local and state level. We’ll continue this event next year with a focus on environmental justice.

This year, we increased the number of applications for our mini-grant program by over 500%. Earlier this month, we were able to award $5,000 to local organizers. We also increased our Giving Tuesday donations by 800%. This is exciting news for our team.

I’m amazed at our work with the North Omaha Redlining Commission through a partnership with the UNO Service Learning Academy. I get excited when I think about the fantastic group of people One Omaha has helped bring together to address such an impactful issue that affects so many residents we serve.

I look forward to our work program for 2024. One Omaha will continue to live out our mission of empowering you right where you live. We know that knowledge, relationships, capacity, and community ownership are the keys to creating and maintaining connected neighborhoods and building powerful communities. We hope y’all are ready for 2024 ’cause we sure are here at One Omaha!

– Kimara Snipes, Executive Director