Michelle Norris
When Michelle Norris started her career in the finance department at National Church Residences in 1993, she didn’t know anything about the organization but knew it was where she wanted to work after seeing its tagline: compassion with professionalism.
Michelle Norris, executive vice president of external affairs and strategic initiatives at National Church Residences
“I knew that I was going to be a working mom for a very long time, and I wanted to do something that I could tell my daughter I was proud of,” she says.
It wasn’t long before she also knew she wanted to be more involved in the Columbus, Ohio–based nonprofit’s day-to-day field operations after attending the grand opening for Abbey Church Village, one of the firm’s new low-income housing tax credit projects at the time.
“Within about a year, I was so in love with the work of the field team,” she says, adding that for her first three years at the organization she had three different jobs working her way closer and closer to operations.
After five years in operations, she moved over to the development side, where she led the creation of a number of cutting-edge projects. She was named president of National Church Residences Investment Corp. in 2014, and a year ago, she was promoted to executive vice president of external affairs and strategic initiatives, a new position to help guide the nonprofit’s mission toward greater focus, impact, and investment.
“My work is very broad now around all of our growth strategies—developing, buying, expanding our senior living campuses, and service agencies,” Norris says. “I work with all the senior team to move these initiatives forward. It’s really different to be across all the business lines. It’s fun to be looking at the whole spectrum.”
The nation’s largest nonprofit provider of affordable senior housing and services, National Church Residences kicked off its new five-year plan in July with plans to continue to grow its affordable housing through acquisitions and new development as well as to examine how it is serving the communities around its developments.
“Especially in the senior space, we cannot build our way fast enough to good solutions. Affordable housing is the key foundation, but there’s going to be more folks looking for housing,” says Norris. “Our long-term goal is to touch as many lives outside of our buildings as inside our buildings.”
That means reaching another 20,000 people in the communities outside its buildings. Norris says the nonprofit plans to achieve this goal by growing its home health-care and hospice programs.
She also remains active helping to further senior housing on the local, state, and federal levels. One priority has been to ensure the preservation of Sec. 202 project rental assistance contract properties. She also has been part of a LeadingAge task force for the past two years to create a proposal for a new Department of Housing and Urban Development–administered program, Service-Enriched Affordable Living.
And, in a case of life coming full circle, the development that made Norris realize she wanted to be more involved, Abbey Church Village, has been refinanced with the rehab slated for completion this summer.
“That was the building for me,” she says. “I’m watching it get rebirthed with a new and intensive focus on families. I couldn’t be prouder.”
