Leading Beyond Resilience with Tonia Wellons

Mission Forward with Carrie Fox · Mar 5, 2026 · 33m · transcript

In a recent staff survey at the Greater Washington Community Foundation, 100 percent of employees said they were clear on the organization's mission and vision.

Six years ago, that number was 39 percent.

That gap is what happens when an organization decides, at the height of a pandemic, to stop thinking in three-year cycles and commit to a ten-year framework instead. Tonia Wellons was thirty days into her role as president and CEO when COVID hit — canceling a 600-person gala, sending staff home, building a crisis response from scratch. And then, as the uncertainty stretched on, she and her…