Rising Stars: Meet Candace Surface

Today we’d like to introduce you to Candace Surface.

Hi Candace, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m a 4th generation Nashvillian, so does that make me a super unicorn? Aside from attending college at Samford University in Birmingham, I’ve always called Nashville home. My parents started a nonprofit when I was just a baby, so nonprofit work has always been in my blood. I got a degree in education, and I started my career teaching, coaching, and working for a nonprofit serving youth across the city. I worked every role imaginable, from programming to managing teams to fundraising, so I’m really grateful for those experiences.

However, I noticed a disturbing trend. All too often I was watching my friends and colleagues leaving jobs they initially loved and felt such strong passion toward. I also unfortunately experienced unexpected burnout from a job I dearly loved. Through that experience and those observations, I felt a call to try and change the cultural norms in nonprofit and ministry work, one where people give all of themselves repeatedly until suddenly they can’t anymore.

I pursued a Master’s in Nonprofit Management from Lipscomb University, and in 2018 found myself leading Day 7. I firmly believe that in order to care for others, you must care for yourself well. I also firmly believe that it’s the responsibility of the organization to care for its‘ staff members to prevent them from burning out. Over the last 6 years, we’ve built a team of wellness providers across the city that offer various types of health resources (physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual) to the helping professionals that we serve.

Through their generosity and offering Day 7 participants discounted rates, and through the generous donations of Day 7 sponsors, we are able to make things like counseling, leadership coaching, retreats, and fitness and nutrition coaching affordable to those that give all of themselves to our community. We also lead regular workshops and retreats for teams on all aspects of creating a healthy and supportive work culture.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Has it been a smooth road…well, yes and no. There have obviously been challenges over the last 6 years, a pandemic is a big one. But to be honest, in many ways the challenges have helped us grow. There were a lot of individuals and organizations that we spoke with early on that felt like they were healthy. Some I’m sure were, but as a helping professional myself, we have a sense of pride in how hard we work and how much we give of ourselves, most often in a pretty unhealthy way. If the last few years have shown us anything, we’ve learned that it’s ok to ask for help, that we all need to take better care of ourselves, physically, mentally, and spiritually….and that we need community in all of it.

As each year moves to the next, we’ve found ourselves serving more and more nonprofit staff, pastors, organizations, and churches, as people are more willing to ask for help. We’ve continued to grow our provider network as more people want to serve our community. And we’ve continued to grow our donor and foundation giving base as funders in town are realizing that in order for nonprofits to be effective in their missions, it’s imperative that the staff are healthy and thriving individually and also working in a healthy workplace culture.

So yes, we’ve faced the challenges of starting and growing a nonprofit, but as connections and pieces seem to have just fallen into place, we truly believe we are here exactly in the right place and at the right time!

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about what you do?
Our purpose on Day 7 is to provide self-care and wellness resources to nonprofit and ministry staff in order to decrease burnout and promote individual and organizational health. We also strive to build a more sustainable nonprofit community at large. We advocate for helping professionals to care for themselves as they care for others. We believe that burnout and high turnover rates do not have to be the norm. We equip helping professionals and their organizations to not simply survive but passionately thrive.

In order to do this, we meet with individuals and organizations to help determine their needs and co-create a custom self-care plan. We then match them with discounted professional resources in our community that will meet their needs. It is also an opportunity for organizations to offer benefits to their staff and improve work culture. We work with over 200 wellness providers across the city to make these resources available and affordable. Providers include gyms, health coaches, nutritionists, therapists, life and executive coaches, spiritual directors, retreat centers, and massage therapists.

In addition to these custom one-on-one self-care plans, we also offer a variety of workshops, training, and retreats. Some of these workshops are taught from our meeting space in Green Hills. Our largest gathering is a 3-day Self-Care Summit (conference) that’s open to the public in January. We also craft custom workshops and retreats regularly for nonprofit and church teams. Workshop topics also vary across the physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and professional development spectrum.

Lastly, we have several peer groups that meet over the course of the year. One is called Sabbath Life, which is a monthly retreat day for 8 pastors. We also have a quarterly lunch for pastors and a bi-monthly support gathering for nonprofit Executive Directors.

We have talked a lot as a board and staff team, especially this last year, about how we want to be known in Nashville. To our knowledge, we are the only organization that provides this type of holistic and integrative care to helping professionals. In fact, people all over the country have begun reaching out to us, asking us about the work that we do and how it could be replicated elsewhere. And while we’ve thoroughly enjoyed those conversations, our work is right here in Nashville, and we want to become a household name here first. We want individuals seeking jobs at nonprofits or churches to say, “Oh, they partner with Day 7. I want to work for them because I know I’ll be cared for in my work there.”

Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
I’ve learned I’ll never have it figured out! The landscape is continually changing in our community and world! People’s individual needs are always shifting. The needs of our community can change on a dime as we’ve all seen and personally experienced. And we can never assume we know what will help someone else, in any context.

And also that we can’t do it alone! At Day 7, we love to partner with other nonprofits and with our provider network. We never want to recreate the wheel or try to do something someone else is doing. It’s way better to let someone else be the expert and just work alongside them, supporting each other along the way.

Contact Info:

• Website: day-7.org
• Instagram: @day7inc
• Facebook: @day7inc
• Youtube: @day7inc