Adam Powell didn’t exactly stumble into Tarrant County — he marched in with a plan. The new president and CEO of United Way of Tarrant County has spent two decades turning nonprofits into lean, impact-making machines. Before landing in Fort Worth, he nearly tripled the revenue of Communities in Schools of the Dallas Region, proving he’s just as comfortable with spreadsheets as he is with social work. Recognized by Fort Worth, Inc. and Forbes, Powell is the kind of leader who can juggle a five-pillar strategic plan while keeping one eye on a pickleball court.
Fort Worth Magazine: Can you share a bit about your background before joining United Way?
Adam Powell: “I’ve been in nonprofits for over 20 years. Most recently, I was the CEO at Communities and Schools of the Dallas region. When I got there, we were about a $4 million organization, and when I left, we were about a $12 million organization after five years. Before that, I oversaw internal operations for College Possible, based in Minneapolis. I was back and forth between DFW and Minnesota, working with kids all over the country to help them access college. Then, before that, there were a variety of other nonprofit roles. Went to Jackson State University, undergrad in communications, master’s degree in social work, and working on a doctorate now in leadership and innovation.”
FWM: How would you describe the biggest shift in your leadership style?
Powell: “For 103 years, we’ve been a trusted partner throughout Tarrant County, and I like to think of United Way as a professional problem solver. What’s different is the timeframe — technology, AI, virtual reality — and as a problem-solving organization, we have to figure out how to use these tools. It’s a shift from business as usual to embracing innovation across education, health, and financial security.”
FWM: How have town halls shaped your approach?
Powell: “Any good leader, the first thing you do when you come in is listen. We’ve listened to staff, community members, and other nonprofits in Arlington, Fort Worth, and Northwestern Hills. That feedback shaped our new strategic plan and how we serve all communities.”
FWM: Can you walk us through your five pillars that define the organization’s renewed focus?
Powell: “The first three are largely about the brand and who we are internally. So the first is around leadership development. So, really how we build up our internal staff to have the skills, the knowledge, et cetera, to really be the best versions of themselves. We understand that some of our staff are going to leave and go do other things, and we want them to be equipped with knowledge and skills to be able to do that. So think of us as a General Electric is known for producing CEOs. We want to be that in the nonprofit space as well.
The second piece to that is how we diversify our funding streams. So one of the things really interesting about United Way is many people that know us, know us through our corporate campaigns, and while we’ll continue to focus on corporations as being an integral part of how we raise money, we also want to diversify that. We want to think about how we tap into individuals, how we utilize family foundations, how we think about earned revenue models. If we’re going to do this work and innovation and do it well, then we know we’ve got to diversify our funding streams.
The third is really around how we augment the brand. We want to be as visible and as ubiquitous as we could be throughout the county. So we want to make sure that going back to the town halls, that folks in the northeast Tarrant County understand and have some value that they get from United Way. What do folks in the Southern sector of Tarrant County needs in Arlington? So really making sure that the brand is visible everywhere and that we’re doing all we can to serve all kinds of people throughout the county.
And then the last two are really about impact. Truly serving as a capacity-building arm in the realm of research and innovation. So again, how do we bring this cutting-edge technology? How do we think about these emerging technologies and problem-solving tools? And then really being able to do that not only internally for us, but doing it for the entire, again, nonprofit ecosystem.”
FWM: How is technology like AI or VR being used?
Powell: “I’ll just give you one example. There’s a lot of talk around workforce development and how we take 16 to 24-year-olds and really prepare them for the future. And the basis of that is really about their ability to interview and get in front of a company and express to that company or that corporation that they’ve got the skills to do the job. And virtual reality can be really useful in that space. We can create virtual reality interview sets where students and young people can come in to interview and practice their interviewing skills. So, by the time they get into an actual interview, they’ve got so much time on task because they’ve practiced this skill, they’ve done it, and they’ve gotten the feedback that they’re able to really excel at that.”
FWM: How is United Way addressing maternal health disparities?
Powell: “Maternal health is a big thing. Tarrant County has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the state, unfortunately. We have historically over the last couple of years, really, really been plugged into that space, bringing partners to the table. We’ve been hiring doulas, looking at specific zip codes where maternal mortality is at its highest, and really saying, ‘What are the things that we can give these women that they need to successfully go through a child birthing process?’
And that has led to things like teen birth, where we are now partnering with hospitals and helping them to integrate that, which is a very complex communication system to ensure that mothers and expecting mothers are having everything, all the resources, all the tools that they need to be successful in that process will continue to invest in that. But we also want to do again is think about how we bring AI into that, right? Are there things that we can do using emerging technologies that really help bridge some of the gaps even beyond maternal health, thinking about healthcare in general, thinking about community dashboards, thinking about things that we can deploy that makes our community a more healthy community and helps ease with the access to information that people have.”
FWM: Can you give an example of United Way delivering rapid impact?
Powell: “We understand that there are times when our community just needs action and needs action quickly, and the Cooper [Apartment complex] Fire was unfortunately a good example of that. When that building burned down, there were people that were in need and we were able to mobilize support pretty quickly, raising over a hundred thousand dollars in just under two weeks, and all of that money, every dollar that was given to residents that were impacted by the fire. And I think that is again, a microcosm of who we are as an organization, whether it’s a tornado, whether it’s in that case, a fire. Whenever something happens and our community is in need, United Way of Tarrant County is an organization that will respond.”
FWM: What should residents know about United Way moving forward?
Powell: “We’re still the trusted partner we’ve always been. But we also want to innovate, bringing emerging technology to Tarrant County to help accelerate problem solving, making the community healthier, more educated, and financially secure.”
FWM: Outside of work, what do you enjoy?
Powell: “I’m a pickle baller. I try to play three, four times a week. I’ve not gotten good yet, but I’m improving, and I love it.”
FWM: Any final thoughts?
Powell: “I have a 14-year-old son who’s mildly autistic, and one of the things he has historically struggled with is math. And I’ve tried a bunch of different things, tutors, et cetera, to really help come overcome that. And then a couple of years ago, I just saw this exponential turn where he had figured it out and was doing incredibly well, and I had no idea what was going on. I jokingly say I just assumed he was cheating, and at some point I was going to catch him, right? I go into his room one day, he’s in the shower when he leaves his phone on the bed and it’s like face up, and he has GPT up on his phone and he has taken the math equations that I guess his teacher had given him or whatever, and plugged it into chat, GPT, and was basically teaching himself by reading the narrative how to do this math problem things.
Something he has struggled with for the last six or seven years was using artificial intelligence, ChatGPT, to teach himself math. And I tell that story because I think it’s a powerful story about how if we use this right, we can deploy these tools in such a meaningful, such a useful way to help kids learn.”