Leadership Development Spotlight: Meet Susan D. Richards of Circles Ashland
- Circles USA
- Sep 23
- 6 min read
At Circles, we know that leadership is more than a natural talent or a paid professional role. It’s the cumulative process of weaving each setback and success we meet into a consistent, goal-focused practice that benefits the whole collective. The more deeply we root our identity in service to our families, chapters, and communities, the more we distinguish ourselves as leaders within these groups striving to move from surviving to thriving.
Circles USA’s new Leadership Development Spotlight series spotlights graduated Circle Leaders who have stepped into challenging service roles at the chapter, regional, and even national levels. Among the most skilled, dedicated participants in the Circles network, these big-L Leaders’ stories offer insights and hard-won lessons guaranteed to inspire us all in our shared mission of building community to end poverty.
Please share who you are, where you’re based, and what you do there!
My name is Susan. I’m part of Circles Ashland in Ashland, Virginia. I currently serve as the Board Chair, and I have served in that role since, I think, 2021.
Susan, will you tell us when and how you got involved with Circles?
Oh, it was…2017? 2018?
Wow! It’ll be your 10-year anniversary before you know it.
I know, right? And I didn't intend to be this involved for that long, but I guess it's just, you know, where God's led me. I was there for a year before I had a major situation happen in my family. Circles supported me through all of that, which was awesome.
My sister-in-law was in the very first cohort of Ashland Circles. She had been telling me about it for years or whatever and I was just like, “Oh, I'm too busy.” My profession is in human services, and then I have three biological children. At the time they were in grade school; we were doing sports and stuff. Just did not have the time to commit to something like that! So I kind of kept brushing it off. Then in 2017, I was in human services in another locality. I began to realize that some of the issues that we were having financially…well, we were just completely financially illiterate in some ways. We were making pretty okay money, but somehow we were still living paycheck-to-paycheck. It seemed like we were just always fighting an uphill battle.
So I said, “Well, let me try this out. Even if I don't learn anything, I can do some type of community service—I'm just a service-oriented individual. So I put the application in, got interviewed, and then got accepted to the program. I was in the program actively when COVID hit. I graduated during COVID as well. It was a great journey, I would say. I've learned so much about myself as well as, you know, the personal growth that I've gained from being part of the organization. I will say, deeply: Circles helped me get the confidence to be able to go out into the community and advocate for others.
You mentioned Service as one motivating factor. When you look back to that time when you were starting out as a Circle Leader, what were your financial goals for yourself and your family?
Well, financially, you know, we just wanted to be comfortable. We didn't want to have to live paycheck-to-paycheck; yet we're both working, we're both making money. How is this possible? That kind of was our biggest challenge, trying to navigate all of that—just knowing that we had the capability to be able to do things. We didn't know what that meant at the time. Our kids were teenagers; we weren't necessarily aspiring to own a home. It was something that we had thought about…but it just [didn’t] happen. And part of that was because of our financial illiteracy, you know—not realizing the value of being a homeowner and what that would mean.
So as you've progressed from being a Circle Leader to this governance role, how have your goals changed?
Well, shoot. Every goal that I set, I achieved…not to be boastful about it!
I wanted a better job. I worked for social services; I actually processed SNAP and Medicaid and different things like that for folks. And I also come from a lower-income environment. So I knew that side of life. But for me, I just always envisioned myself professionally being able to interact with multiple people on a larger scale while being able to advocate for the needs of folks. It was always my goal (or my dream, professionally) to have a job where I was in an outreach position [rather] than behind a desk processing paperwork.
Prior to Circles, I had applied every year for the position that I am currently in since I began work in Human Services in 2014. I could never get in there. I could just never cross that threshold for some reason. But when I started Circles and began learning, growing, and getting help with job readiness, I was able to successfully obtain the position I am in now. My Ally helped me construct my resume and I did mock interviews with our coach. Prior to that, I was traveling for like 30, 45 minutes to go to work. But when I got the position here, I could walk to work if I wanted to—at that time, I was less than five minutes from my job. My title here is Senior Services Specialist from the county, but I interact with all citizens on an information and referral basis. I'm also in charge of a specialized transportation program for older adults and persons with disabilities. And I run that single- handedly. This is something I dreamt of having, you know: the freedom, the closeness to the community.
Then, once I did start to learn about finance and worked with my Ally to craft a realistic and doable budget, my husband and I were like, “Okay, we could own a home. What would that look like for us?” So I began to pursue that. In 2022, we purchased our first home.
Accomplishing all of that [meant facing] a lot of adversity. In 2019, me and my husband took in my nieces and nephews from Pennsylvania. There had been a very traumatic situation in my family that resulted in us having to take custody. And so I'm dealing with that in the [Circles] program, and I'm like, “Wow, how am I going to navigate all of this?” And everyone there just kind of surrounded us with love. We had to travel to Pennsylvania often to go to court to get custody of the kids. I was still working 40 minutes away, but the kids needed to get some extra services and stuff like that. So Circles volunteers would pick up the kids, take them to their appointments, and bring them back home for me while I was at work. It was that kind of support, just always, “Hey, how you doing? How are things going?” And then, once the kids did get here, it was even more of them surrounding us and treating us like family. I’m so, so grateful for that. In the midst of all of that, I still had a lot of successes and I owe that to the program.
I will say, deeply: Circles helped me get the confidence to be able to go out into the community and advocate for others.
You weren’t kidding when you talked about adversity over many years. What would you say to Circle Leaders who are maybe doubting themselves, or getting discouraged by that kind of long haul?
You know, sometimes I still catch myself doubting myself. I think that, a lot of times, it comes from the environment that we’re raised in…a lower-income environment with a lot of oppression, and just that suppressed mentality of “I can't do better, I won't do better.” Not wanting to aspire for greater things, to do more. But I'm actively engaged with the leaders that we have and a few that we just graduated—as a matter of fact, my daughter just graduated as a leader last year. And I tell them, “Hey, if you have a support network, you can do anything that you want to do. With the right support and the right people surrounding you, you can achieve whatever you set your mind to.”
Would you like to share some appreciations for people in your support network?
My co-Board members! I'm the youngest one in the room. The other board members are a bit more established in their careers and with their families. We've got an attorney, we've got a real estate agent, and here I am in human services. A lot of times, that'll make you look at yourself as if you're less-than. But this group of individuals saw something in me that I didn't necessarily see in myself, and that was the ability to lead an organization. It was more them pushing me to become Chair rather than me wanting to do it, if that makes sense.
I'm just so grateful and so humbled for my journey through the program. And even where I am now, my goal as a leader is to give the same opportunity to the next leader coming in the door that was afforded to me. In turn, they'll be able to achieve whatever it is that they want by having that same circle of support.
Read the other installments in our Leadership Development Spotlight series:
Building Community to End Poverty in 25 States
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