Darlene Bigler, Blueprints CEO, to retire
Darlene Bigler hopes to write the next great American novel.
“I just never really had a chance to spend a lot of time on creative things,” said Bigler, who will retire after 30 years as Blueprints CEO at the end of December. “I hope to do a lot of writing. I’ll be doing some stained glass, which I’ve always wanted to do.”
And traveling.
“My husband and I have a camper van, and we plan on taking six-month trips across the country and Canada,” said the avid reader and explorer.
Bigler is looking forward to filling her retirement with quality time with family and friends, creative endeavors and everything she never had time for in her three decades as CEO of a large area nonprofit. Of course, she’ll miss her work and the people who make going to work every day such a joy.
And after 30 years, she’s leaving behind quite the legacy.
Bigler began her tenure at Blueprints in 1993 after serving for a couple of years as executive director for a different community action agency. When she arrived at the Washington-based nonprofit, which aims to end poverty by providing the tools people need to become self-sufficient, it was an $11 million organization with about 120 staffers struggling through uncertain times.
“The agency was really, at that point, really experiencing some growing pains and had been without a leader for a while. There was a lot to do and a lot to work through,” Bigler said.
So Bigler got to work effecting change.
“I remember in the early years, working in my office until like 3:00 a.m., just trying to solve big problems, and doing that for a significant number of years before the agency really started to shine,” she said.
When she began at Blueprints, Head Start, which prepares children for pre-K, kindergarten and beyond, offered half-day programs in local church basements.
“On Friday afternoon, the staff would have to tear apart the whole classroom because the churches would be holding Sunday school. And then on Monday morning, they had to come back and put the classrooms all back together,” Bigler said.
Today, Blueprints’s Head Start programs are held in high-quality classrooms, including in school buildings, making it easy for children to transition from the program to kindergarten.
“We really expanded. I think we served 500 kids when I started, and we serve 1,200 children now. I’m especially proud of that,” Bigler smiled.
She’s also proud of the fact that in three decades, the nonprofit has increased its staff to about 330 employees and its budget to $34 million, and has expanded the number of people it provides services to, from a couple thousand a year to 20,000 each year, Bigler said.
Perhaps her biggest accomplishment is the expansion of Blueprints services into West Virginia in 2015, which allowed Blueprints to expand its services and the number of lives touched.
“We acquired another nonprofit agency — Try Again Homes. They were kind of just at the size where they needed a lot of administrative services but couldn’t really afford them. Our boards worked together, and we merged the two organizations. That added a whole new book of business to what we did. We had to learn all about foster care, adoption, truancy prevention and all the services they provide,” Bigler said.
The merger offered Blueprints the opportunity to rebrand, which has helped the nonprofit become better known in the community.
“When I first came to the agency, we were known as Community Action Southwest. We’d had another name prior to that: Washington Greene Community Action Corporation. Often people confused us with a government agency, and we’re not, of course, we’re a nonprofit,” Bigler said.
West Virginia has its own community action agencies, and Bigler and her team jumped at the chance to rebrand.
“We really wanted to clarify who the organization was and be able to talk about all our programs and services. We changed our name in 2017 to Blueprints and completely rebranded. I think that did have the impact of getting the organization out there in the community more and really enabling people to learn more about us,” she said.
This year, Blueprints was named the Observer-Reporter’s Best of the Best nonprofit agency and the number one business in Greene County, “which, for a nonprofit, is really pretty phenomenal,” Bigler said.
“It’s just been gratifying to see the community really recognize our expertise and help us share in that pride.”
Bigler herself was named the person of the year at the Best of the Best awards. Though the accolades and the nonprofit’s growth are tangible and rewarding, for Bigler, the real reward is witnessing firsthand the impact of her work.
“We really work to empower the people we provide services to to speak up for themselves and to become involved in the community,” Bigler said. “We have folks who have worked with us on our board of directors, on what we call our Head Start Policy Council, who gain leadership skills and then have moved on to be on their PTAs, to be on school boards, to really take an important role in our communities and continue to advocate for themselves and their families. I’m always really very proud of that.”
So, too, is Jeff Fondelier, vice president of operations, who will step into Bigler’s shoes on Jan. 1, when he takes the helm as Blueprints CEO.
“We have a staff person right now who was a Head Start child. She idolized her Head Start teacher. From the time she was four or five years old, she wanted to be a Head Start teacher, and now she is,” Fondelier said. “As a Head Start child, she was growing up in poverty, and now she’s about to buy her first home. It’s those kinds of stories that are just amazing to me because it’s not easy to escape poverty.”
Fondelier began his career at Blueprints nearly 20 years ago. The enthusiastic hiker, homebrewer, husband and father of two is invested in the nonprofit and the community, believes in Blueprints’s programs and appreciates the workplace culture.
“I think I would make a mistake if, come January 1, I make sweeping changes across the organization. This is a 30-year icon in the community that I’m replacing. It’s a daunting challenge,” he said, adding he has plenty of ideas but will implement them slowly.
His first focus is “looking at diversifying our funding so that we can continue to advance our mission” (because Blueprints is largely government-funded, constant funding changes are something the organization continuously juggles to ensure all who live within the service area get their fair share of services).
He also hopes to cement Blueprints’s reputation within the community.
“We’re a large organization. We do a lot of things for the community. Some people know us as Head Start, some people know us as WIC, some people know us as the housing people, the tax people. We do all of those things. I’m proud that when I talk to people, and I say ‘Blueprints,’ there’s recognition. But it’s not crystallized,” Fondelier said. “I’d like to encourage people to learn more about what we do and get involved in what we do.”
During his time with Blueprints, Fondelier has made connections within the community, including with local banks and corporations that understand the organization and support the nonprofit’s work. He may be filling Bigler’s big shoes, but he’s up to the task.
“Darlene has made it look effortless for 19 years that I can attest to,” Fondelier said. “You don’t know what you don’t know, and the minute you think you have it all figured out, you’re really in trouble. There’s a lot of things that I don’t know. I’m comforted by the fact that we have a strong executive team that has been here for decades. I know that there are tremendous challenges in front of me, but I’m ready, willing and able to lead.”
Fondelier certainly is ready, willing and able to lead, and Bigler is ready for her promotion to “retired” after working for 30 years to grow Blueprints into the reputable community asset it is today. She’s confident that she is leaving Fondelier in a good place with nowhere to go but up.
“To be absolutely honest, in ’93, when I started, we were somewhat of a troubled organization. There were a lot of problems. To get to this today, I never imagined that we would be recognized in such a way,” she said, alluding to the recent Best of the Best honors. “You can’t do anything by yourself. You need to surround yourself with really good people who are dedicated to your mission. It really does take a community and an excellent staff to move things forward.”