Capstone's Minter is moving on
November 22, 2024 | By David Delcore | Times Argus staff writer
Sue Minter, who has been at the helm of Capstone Community Action for the last six years, has announced she is stepping down from that role next month. Photo courtesy of Capstone Community Action
BARRE — Capstone Community Action will be in search of new leadership because, after six successful years, Sue Minter is stepping down as executive director of the organization that got its start as the Central Vermont Community Action Council in 1965.
Minter isn’t calling it a career but she said she is ready for a breather, and plans to pivot away from Capstone at the end of the year.
“I am not retiring, just stepping back to recharge,” she explained on Monday. “I look forward to finding new ways to serve my community in the challenging years ahead.”
So, Minter assured, does Capstone, which is a point of personal pride for its suddenly outgoing executive director.
“I feel very proud of what we’ve accomplished at Capstone,” she said. “Capstone has been a statewide leader through a pandemic and natural disasters, as well as a trusted partner and friend to vulnerable Vermonters.”
That won’t change, as the nonprofit, which was rebranded a decade ago, prepares to celebrate its 60th anniversary, and Minter, 63, of Waterbury, ponders her “to be determined” future.
“The timing is right for me personally and for Capstone,” she said, adding: “I think we’re in a good position in terms of the organization’s stability I feel like … we, during my tenure, have been able to accomplish a lot of what I personally set out to do, which is to make sure people know about Capstone, make sure Capstone is on solid financial footing, has a great leadership team and is kind of ready for what comes next.”
Minter said she believes all of those boxes are checked — an assessment echoed by Jon Valsangiacomo, chair of Capstone’s board of directors.
“Sue (Minter) leaves Capstone on solid footing,” Valsangiacomo said in a prepared statement announcing the looming administrative transition and expressing the board’s gratitude for effective stewardship of the organization.
“We are grateful to Sue for the extraordinary service that she has provided and wish her the best in her next chapter,” he said, praising Minter for her steady leadership during the pandemic and the historic floods that followed.
“(Minter) has worked to ensure that the most vulnerable Vermonters were cared for at a time of great uncertainty,” he said.
Both Minter and Valsangiacomo expressed confidence in a succession plan that will temporarily tap Capstone’s deep bench — providing the board time to conduct the kind of thorough search that ended when Minter was hired in 2018.
The plan to tap two administrators to serve as interim co-directors is the same as it was six years ago, as is one of the people who will help bridge the administrative gap. This time Sarah McMullen, Capstone’s chief of operations, will share the leadership role with Alison Calderara, chief of programs and advancement. Following former executive director Dan Hoxworth’s resignation in 2018, McMullen, then deputy director of operations, split the interim executive director role with Chief Financial Officer Colleen Lafont, until Minter came on board that December.
In the intervening six years, Minter she and her “talented team” have spread the word about Capstone, while growing the organization and the services it provides.
“We’ve really expanded our reach and we’re helping a lot more people, including in new and different ways,” she said.
A former state lawmaker and one-time gubernatorial hopeful, Minter is credited with broadening Capstone’s mission and helping community action agencies become forceful advocates for disadvantaged Vermonters at the State House.
Among other things, that advocacy led to new transportation equity programs like “MileageSmart,” which helps low-income residents purchase energy efficient vehicles and “GOPHER” — an EV transportation service that provides rides to essential services to those who don’t have vehicles.
Launched by Capstone, Minter said, GOPHER, is now its own nonprofit, the latest in series of organizations — from Downstreet Housing and Community Development, and Community Capital of Vermont to the Vermont Foodbank — that can trace their roots back to the Central Vermont Community Action Council, which, in 2014, morphed into Capstone Community Action.
Minter’s tenure marked a period of significant growth for Capstone, which serves vulnerable residents in Washington, Orange and Lamoille counties. When she started the organization’s operating budget was $16 million, as she prepares to leave it is now $25 million. Capstone has added roughly 30 employees in the past six years — pushing the total to 200 across programs that range for home weatherization and Head Start to financial empowerment and heat, housing and food assistance.
In addition to launching GOPHER, Minter said she is proud of Capstone’s work on the food security front during her time as executive director.
During the pandemic, Minter said, Capstone served as a “food hub” for the Vermont Everyone Eats program and responded to a “dramatic increase in need” by expanding access to its food shelf in Barre, launched a mobile distribution program, as well as one that delivers prepared frozen meals in Barre and Morrisville.
Boosting Capstone’s visibility was a priority when Minter was hired, and if you were looking for evidence she accomplished that goal, the “Fuel Your Neighbors” campaign could be Exhibit A.
When Minter started, the annual 100-day campaign raised roughly $50,000 to pay for emergency fuel and food assistance during the winter months. Earlier this year it surpassed $325,000 and Minter is hoping to do that again when the campaign, which is in its ninth year, kicks off on “Giving Tuesday” — Dec. 3.
Though Minter will be moving on long before the fundraising appeal concludes in March, she remains invested in its success.
“It’s a critical, critical campaign, and it’s a really good example of the many ways that our footprint and our impact throughout central Vermont has expanded and why Capstone remains such a critically important organization,” she said.
This story was originally published in the Times Argus.