10/25/18 – SAFFT, whose mission is to protect children, rebuild families, and empower caregivers, announces that Founders Brian and Ashley Anderson are stepping down from their roles as Executive Director and Development Director, respectively. Brian, co-founder with wife Ashley, has served as the CEO since 2016. The Andersons formed the organization in 2009 with an idea to make a real difference in foster care. Serving as foster parents themselves for more than four years and eventually adopting, they saw the brokenness in the system and the lack of good foster homes in the area. Ashley formed the 501(c)3 to initially serve foster and adoptive parents. After a few short years, a center was launched with services including supervised visitation, parenting classes, trauma-informed counseling, and comprehensive foster parent support. Today, the organization operates three centers in Georgia, serves more than 800 children annually, and reduces the time children are in the system by an average of 90 days or less (in the areas served).
This past summer, Brian informed the board that he and Ashley were moving on from over 10 years of building and growing the nonprofit to spend more time with family and focus on other businesses. The founders expressed the importance of ensuring that the organization’s legacy would remain in place and that the mission would grow without their direct leadership. As a result, the board selected a fantastic candidate and is proud to announce Natalie Milom as the appointed Executive Director, effective October 22, 2018.
Milom comes to SAFFT with a background serving children and families, a Masters in Social Work (MSW), and many years of non-profit development work. She has a proven track record of building and growing nonprofits that directly serve people in the community. She is a strong leader who understands the importance of further developing the programs and services offered and extending deeper into the local communities. “I am honored, excited, and ready to lead SAFFT into the next phase of growth, community collaboration, and outreach,” said Milom. “I believe that the future of SAFFT is bright, and that together, we can do really great things, not just in the local communities but in the hearts of the families we serve. We owe the children and families of Georgia our absolute best efforts and I am excited to work together to bring about lasting impact that continues to propel the child welfare community forward!”
“Since its founding in 2009, Ashley and I have poured our hearts into SAFFT, along with hundreds of others in our community. We are incredibly grateful and humbled by the support shown to us and to SAFFT over the many years and the encouragement we’ve encountered as we transition to other endeavors. We truly believe that Natalie is the right person to lead this organization to the next level and we appreciate every board member who has served the mission over the past 10 years,” said Brian Anderson, previous executive director for SAFFT. “Our hearts are and will forever be with the foster community. As two young foster parents without any guidance and support back nearly 10 years ago, that is how SAFFT began and it will forever be a part of our story.”
To find out more about SAFFT, go to our homepage at www.safft.org.