Meet Devin Wills | Chairman/Executive Director Hands Across Atlanta

We had the good fortune of connecting with Devin Wills and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Devin, what is the most important factor behind your success?
I believe the most important factor behind my success with Hands Across Atlanta has been in building and utilizing the many great talents of the team members I work with daily. When it comes to scaling any organization, you need a great strategy for recruiting top tier talent that can compensate your lack of connections and skills gap. Learning how to leverage great people and their abilities has been game changing for me at many different levels. When I look at the work we’ve been able to accomplish on the non-profit side with delivering essential resources to children in need, its been truly remarkable.

Our Team created a way to send Amazon Wishlist that featured discounted children’s jackets on sale in July and gave donors the ability to ship them directly to our doorstep. We’re now in the middle of our 2nd annual Jackets in July campaign where we received over 1,000 brand new winter coats for kids in year one and are well on our way to an additional 1,500 jackets this year! it’s very difficult to accomplish feats like that all on your own. Even with our first annual Champions For Change Golf Event, We built a strong team of volunteers and relied heavily on them to perform at their best to help make the event a huge success. Because of the team we built and the trust we had in them, we were able pull off an incredible event which featured 130+ golfers, Vendor sponsorships at every hole, and over $10,000 awarded to players via prizes and raffle items! The best part of it all is that as a result from the events success, we are finalizing the last key elements to our plan of donating an entire Computer lab to a local Boys and Girls club in Atlanta which will feature a Beautiful mural showcasing the Atlanta Skyline and 20 Brand New All in one HP Computer systems with all the software the children will need for proper educational development.

There is only so far you can go all by yourself. It’s essential to step out of your comfort zone and start building teams that have strengths to perfectly compliment your weaknesses and area’s where you lack that could ultimately result in you coming up short in the big projects you have planned.

Please tell us more about your work. We’d love to hear what sets you apart from others, what you are most proud of or excited about. How did you get to where you are today professionally. Was it easy? If not, how did you overcome the challenges? What are the lessons you’ve learned along the way. What do you want the world to know about you or your brand and story?
I believe what makes Hands Across Atlanta special is our size. Still being a smaller local non-profit encourages more of Atlanta’s prominent leaders to embark on projects alongside us because our cost are very low and our impact is very high. We don’t encumber large operational cost. I’d say confidently that less than 2%-4% of all funds raised are used towards our operating cost. The rest goes directly into the major campaigns we focus on. Many people have commented that they love that when they donate $500 they can physically see where the money was spent. They also appreciate campaigns that put them in the driver seat and allow them to purchase the supplies on their own and ship those items to us and allow us to handle the logistics. That’s what i think sets us apart from other organizations.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
We would of course go to a Hawks game. If possible you would want to enjoy as many Atlanta sports games as possible.

In terms of eating, You need to try each of Justin Anthony’s Restaurants located in the city. Yebo Beech Haus is my personal favorite.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Tyler Persaud and Joseph Ferris III get a special shoutout to me for all the hours we’ve spent behind the scenes crafting the charities new vision and message to better serve underprivileged children and veterans located in the Atlanta area. There dedication and leadership towards helping others is inspiring to say the least.

Website: HandsAcrossAtlanta.com

Instagram: @thedevinwills

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinwills/

Image Credits
Photography by: Parth Desai