Community & Relationship Building
Dr. Kelly’s community and relationship-building experience reflects her ability to enter complex community environments, build trust across diverse stakeholders, and align people around a shared mission. Her work demonstrates a practical understanding that lasting impact depends on relationships — with residents, families, funders, government leaders, service providers, media partners, faith communities, businesses, and grassroots community members.
These work samples highlight Dr. Kelly’s ability to elevate community voice, create public trust, tell a compelling mission-centered story, and build partnerships that move projects from concept to community impact.
‘Ohana Hope Village
Date: August 2023–Present
Organization: Family Life Center
Role: Chief Operating Officer
Leadership Focus:
Community Development | Strategic Partnerships | Resource Mobilization | Stakeholder Engagement
What It Demonstrates:
This demonstrates Dr. Kelly’s ability to build a shared vision and mobilize local, national, and international partners around an urgent community need. Following the Maui wildfires, she helped develop ‘Ohana Hope Village, an 88-home interim housing community for wildfire survivors. The project broke ground just 11 days after the fire and secured more than $20 million in financial and in-kind support within approximately one year.
Through strategic relationship building, Dr. Kelly connected businesses, nonprofit organizations, government leaders, faith communities, and individual donors to the recovery effort. A relationship developed with the Hungarian ambassador led Hungary’s Minister of Defense to authorize the donation of NATO flight hours to transport the first homes from Hungary to Maui. She also developed a partnership with Japan Platform, which provided approximately $300,000 to construct a playground for children living in the community.
The project has been recognized by industry and disaster recovery leaders and was presented in Washington, D.C., as a best-practice model for rapid interim housing deployment.
Key Strengths Highlighted:
Community and relationship building
Strategic partnership development
International stakeholder engagement
Resource development and fundraising
Rapid project mobilization
Cross-sector collaboration
Community-centered leadership
Relevance:
This shows Dr. Kelly’s ability to unite diverse stakeholders around a common mission, translate relationships into tangible resources, and lead a highly visible initiative under urgent and complex conditions. It is especially relevant for a role requiring community credibility, fund development, strategic partnerships, and the ability to mobilize people and resources around transformational priorities.
Disaster Case Management
Date: August 2023–Present
Organization: Family Life Center
Role: Chief Operating Officer
Leadership Focus:
Community Partnerships | Program Development | Disaster Recovery | Survivor-Centered Leadership | Systems Coordination
What It Demonstrates:
This demonstrates Dr. Kelly’s ability to build and coordinate relationships across federal agencies, national nonprofit organizations, local providers, and disaster recovery networks. Following the Maui wildfires, she helped establish Family Life Center’s Disaster Case Management Program through partnerships with St. Vincent de Paul, the American Red Cross, FEMA, philanthropic organizations, and other recovery stakeholders.
Family Life Center was the first local organization to begin disaster case management services following the wildfire. During the program’s initial development, Dr. Kelly prioritized hiring wildfire survivors as case managers to ensure that the voices and experiences of those directly impacted helped shape the structure, priorities, and delivery of the response. This survivor-informed approach strengthened trust, cultural responsiveness, and engagement with affected households and was later referenced by the American Red Cross as a best practice.
Key Strengths Highlighted:
Community and relationship building
Federal and nonprofit partnership development
Disaster recovery program design
Survivor-centered leadership
Cross-agency coordination
Culturally responsive service delivery
Program implementation and scaling
Relevance:
This shows Dr. Kelly’s ability to establish trusted partnerships, develop new programs in response to emerging community needs, and ensure that those most affected have a meaningful voice in organizational decision-making. It is especially relevant for a role that requires collaborative leadership, community trust, systems coordination, and the ability to represent an organization effectively to government agencies and funding partners.