Kelly Fryer (M.Div., MTh) is a teacher, author, and motivational speaker with nearly twenty years of experience leading organizations into renewal. Kelly is a member of the faculty at Spertus College in Chicago, IL, where she teaches leadership and organization in the Nonprofit Management Graduate Program; she has also taught on the faculty of Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN. Kelly is the Executive Director of ARE. She is a member of The Author’s Guild, The National Federation of Press Women, and The National Speaker’s Association.
“I’m a talker,” Kelly says. “And I’m at my best when I’m talking in front of a large audience. That’s what I love. But along the way I discovered people need to do more than just listen if they’re going to learn. They need to have a chance to talk, too. They need to interact with each other. They need to participate. That’s why I never just talk ‘at’ an audience, anymore. I engage them.”
Actually, Kelly has been some interesting places “along the way.” A graduate of Valparaiso University’s honor college, with a concentration in Economics, Kelly has been a camp counselor, a high school Spanish teacher, a group home parent, an environmental activist, a telemarketer, a bank teller, and a muffin-baking entrepreneur - and all that before the age of 25! For over a decade, she served as the pastor of a congregation in the Chicago exurbs. When she arrived in 1992, this congregation was on the verge of closing. The membership had dwindled to about 90 people, there wasn’t enough money to pay the bills, and it had been so long since they had made a loan payment that they were about to lose their building. One of the first things Kelly did was to bring a young designer, with exceptional leadership gifts, onto her staff. Together, Kelly and Tana led this struggling congregation into new life. By 2002, the membership had grown by 500% and the congregation was operating in the black; they had purchased a fifteen acre site and built a new 11,000 square foot community center. They also had started up three successful nonprofit operations including a book store, a preschool, and a counseling center. “
Many of the things I’ve learned about leadership have come from the mistakes I’ve made,” Kelly readily admits. “Everything else has come from the people I’ve had the privilege of working alongside of. And one of the things I’ve learned is that it doesn’t matter if you’re the CEO of a Fortune 100 company, the owner of a small business, the president of a hospital, a school principle, a rabbi, or the manager of a fast food restaurant: Great leaders know how to leverage the Power of Purpose, the Power of Participation, and the Power of Play.”
A natural teacher, Kelly has been using the things she has learned “along the way” to motivate, train, and equip other leaders through not only the work of ARE, but also as a member of the faculty at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN, and now as a teacher in the Nonprofit Management graduate program at Spertus College. She is a dynamic story-teller and humorist who has written several books and produced a variety of resources that are being used by leaders across the U.S. and Canada.
