Lisa Tatum

Lisa is the Senior Manager, Disaster Preparedness at the Volunteer Center of North Texas. She coordinates volunteer recruitment and management for a local high-impact collaboration called the Mass Care Task Force. In addition to her daily life of service, she leads the AmeriCorps Alums of North Texas local chapter and serves on the Board of Sustainable Education Solutions, an effort to launch an environmental charter school in the Great Trinity Forest area.

Lisa’s work with the Volunteer Center goes above and beyond her role managing volunteers for disaster preparedness. She liaises with local VOAD, COAD, Citizen Corps, and Regional Emergency Managers to ensure that the collaboration extends across all networks. Additionally, she supports her work by maintaining her standing as a Red Cross volunteer for fifteen years and serves in a leadership role with the Red Cross DFW’s Volunteer Services Department. By building cohesiveness between AmeriCorps programs and AmeriCorps Alums, North Texas has been able to work to host a coordinated MLK Day of Service Project, Life After AmeriCorps Seminar, and various AmeriCorps Week activities. Lisa has been instrumental in establishing this foundation for collaboration.

Lisa is wholly committed to service. Her work with the Volunteer Center helps to meet a great need for disaster preparedness in a community like North Texas with such high risk for being affected by a disaster. As the leader of AmeriCorps Alums of North Texas, she is responsible for planning and strategy, and creates a vision for the leadership team to execute on. Her work to create the vision for a North Texas community of committed national service alumni encompasses local AmeriCorps Programs, nonprofit organizations, and AmeriCorps Alums. She has worked to engage One Star Foundation on a state level to ensure support for all chapter activities. As a Board member for Sustainable Education Solutions, she provides her expertise in nonprofit management. The need for environmental education and the void that the organization can fill by creating an environmental charter school that takes advantage of the Great Trinity Forest is great.

Lisa has a heart for service, and this commitment can be seen in every facet of her life. Even greater is her willingness to see strong collaboration in communities and work to build that in every situation she is faced with. Lisa inspires all of us work towards a better community together, and her spirit of collaboration and her ability to organize people and bring them together to effect change is unique.