Devon Davey has been partnering with social organizations for 15 years and has worked with EMA for the past two years doing consulting and coaching work, both with EMA team members and with our partners. For Davey, coaching is all about helping others realize their full potential. As reflected in her EMA job title of Director of Partner & Organizational Thriving, her persistent goal is to help build thriving organizations.
Davey attributes experiential learning as what led her to become interested in a career in coaching. At 17 she volunteered at a Ronald McDonald House, helping to take care of kids who were terminally ill. She then interned for dozens of organizations, where she observed many different leadership styles. Prior to adding EMA to her list of clients, she worked for various global human rights groups, local chapters of social service organizations, and community engagement efforts.
After coaching EMA’s Executive Director Bill Meyer, Davey expanded her work with EMA and began to prioritize building meaningful relationships with EMA partners. “When you've seen a lot of processes, structures, and ways of working and collaborating, it's really nice to be able to offer those models and tools and resources to organizational leaders to help them get to where they want to go a little bit more effectively and carefully with a relational approach,” Davey said.
Davey described her work with the EMA partners as transformative. Being able to work with multiple people within a singular nonprofit, to her, has been the difference maker because “the work runs on trust and relationships."
"There's an embedded layer of trust that I get to come in with, which is what helps my coaching relationship and partnership really thrive and grow.”
Baqir Bayani, Global Partnerships and Refugee Participation Lead at EMA partner Asylum Access, can attest to the impact Davey's coaching has had on him, and the role it has played in helping him and his team tackle the challenges unique to their work. "Working with Devon as my coach was a transformative experience," said Baqir. "She introduced me to the concept of Positive Intelligence and the nine Saboteurs, which was entirely new to me. This approach not only increased my awareness of my mental behaviors but also significantly improved the quality of my decision-making and work performance. As a wise thought partner during our sessions, she created a safe and supportive environment for me to explore my thought processes and offered guidance that helped me shift some of my perspectives."
For Chloe Esposito, Co-Director at Lighthouse Relief, learning how to deal with self-sabotage was just one of the many things that she learned under Davey’s mentorship. “I see the value of identifying my saboteurs and continue to think about what I learned,” said Esposito. “Other techniques I find valuable are the procrastination list and just having her ongoing support and validation during a challenging period.”
As her role with EMA continued to grow, Davey also began working with many of the young members of the EMA team in peer groups, meeting with them for weekly virtual discussions and assigning mental strength-building homework and exercises. Through those conversations, Partner Relationship Manager Tracy Tran (they/them) found their own answers about self-sabotage, which they were able to successfully apply to their life outside of a professional setting. “I learned I avoid tasks because my saboteurs tell me I’ll be happier without completing them,” said Tran. “But the truth is that the rewards of completing the task far outweigh just the temporary action of fulfilling the task. I applied this learning most significantly with my gym routine.”
Partner Relationship Manager Julia Minassian’s experience learning from Davey has also influenced the way she approaches challenges. “I value the unique perspective she brings to EMA,” she noted. “Devon asks insightful questions and is able to challenge me and make me smile simultaneously. Her influence encourages me to be a strong leader and take more creative risks in my work." For former Director of Development Sam Silveira, a sense of empathy is a key element of Davey's coaching skills: “She was always willing to meet me where I was at. Our coaching relationship was really rooted in trust and honesty. She’s so great at noticing and expanding people’s strengths.”
Those values of trust and honesty have greatly impacted the way that Davey approaches her clients. As she reflects on her work with EMA and its partners, she notes that it has differed significantly from her other clients, due to the organization’s flat hierarchy structure and empowering environment, which has transformed the way she works.
“Being in such an open, supportive, communicative, and somewhat decolonized environment, I do really feel like while working at EMA I can let go of urgency and perfection that much more. These are all white-dominant supremacist norms that society, the patriarchy, organizational structures, and non-profit structures put on us, and that our family systems also put on us. We have to push against those, and I feel like I can do that so much more with the track record of knowing that EMA has done relationships a bit differently than most organizations and networks.”
Davey focuses on supporting leaders from diverse backgrounds, especially women and leaders of color, who have been historically marginalized. She seeks to help them reach an “abundance mindset.” “Coaching is a really powerful way to do that because leaders hold the structures and processes that create really high impact. If we can create high impact with the leaders who can give what's needed to meet the moment, that's what I want to be a part of,” she said.
One memorable coaching experience for Davey was when she was able to help a former colleague and LatinX business leader who identifies as queer to meet their moment. Seeing how they were struggling with influence and how to encourage people to do what they wanted them to, Davey was able to reframe the narrative and challenge them to see how they functioned as a coach in their own work environment. “That's not their title, that's not their training. That's not how they see themselves," Davey recalled. "And they were like, ‘You just blew my mind that I can reframe what I'm thinking about how I influence people on projects now as a coach'."
Over time, Davey has consistently refined her approach to coaching, allowing her to recognize which aspects of her work enable her clients to thrive. She continues to implement non-judgmental and empathetic listening while striving for an abundance mindset—and always seeking to learn, create, and grow.
