Throughout the year, especially around the holiday season, many focus on giving back, making a difference in the lives of others, and sharing God-given gifts and skills with the community.
The Stallings family is no exception. This team of family members knows how to make a real impact, create a legacy of giving back, and share in their successes.
The Stallings Foundation, a Frisco-based organization with the mission to empower youth and transform the lives of children and families in North Texas, partners with nonprofit groups that enhance the quality of life for children and provide support services so local families can flourish. The Foundation is a family affair, with three generations currently on the Board of Trustees.
Robert (Bob) Stallings is a businessman and investor with a successful 50-year banking and financial services career. Linda Stallings founded and partnered with Justice and Hoffman Inc., a prominent financial advisory firm in Phoenix, Arizona.
Driven by faith and a deep sense of gratitude to God for their success, longtime Frisco residents Bob and Linda established The Stallings Foundation to share resources with the community. The family’s charitable giving is intended to offer thanks to the Lord, and the Stallings hope their values of family, service, faith, and compassion are always reflected in their giving.
Bob Stallings shares, “In 2001, my wife, Linda, and I established The Stallings Foundation. We both have a deep sense of gratitude to God for our success, and we felt it was important to establish a family commitment to philanthropy. Over the years, two of my daughters, Lindsey and Melissa, have served as executive directors of the Foundation.”
Bob and Linda Stallings, along with their daughters, Melissa, Keri, and Lindsey, have served on the Board since it was established in 2001. Melissa Stallings says, “My sons, Robert and Josh Brutcher, and my nephew, Sean Stuart, expressed an interest in getting involved in the Foundation in 2020. We decided to elect them to the Board of Trustees, and each year, they select a nonprofit within our mission area and develop a proposal to present to the Board.”
Around this time, The Foundation began to narrow its focus on children and their families and modernized its grant process. “We invited our adult grandchildren to join us and find causes they are passionate about. Linda and I are so proud that our family members are interested in helping others, and we feel that our family’s commitment to philanthropy will ensure the perpetual success of The Stallings Foundation,” says Bob Stallings.
He continues, “The Stallings Foundation is highly focused on empowering youth and their families. In fact, we believe that our foundation exists to serve children who don’t have access to the resources they need the most. In 2023, more than 32 percent of children in Dallas live in poverty, and there are more than 30,000 children in the foster care system at any time in Texas. Those are facts a lot of people aren’t aware of.”
Most of The Stallings Foundation’s grant applications in 2023 came from community organizations that couldn’t meet the demand for food and emergency financial assistance. Melissa Stallings says, “We learned that there was an enormous increase in the need for services in Frisco. I don’t think people realize that there are so many families in Frisco struggling due to inflation and the rising cost of food, utilities, housing, and basic needs. We decided to dedicate our emergency assistance budget to Frisco, which is the community where most of us live, and I think we will continue to do that in the foreseeable future.”
Recently, The Stallings Foundation’s generous gift of $1 million to Nexus Recovery Center’s Recovery Rising campaign became the largest donation the foundation has ever granted in its 22-year history!
Founded in 1971 and based in Dallas, Texas, the Nexus Recovery Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit agency that treats the whole woman by offering an array of comprehensive services, including specialized substance use disorder treatment services, trauma-informed treatment, and care for their accompanying children to restore health and encourage resilience – regardless of a woman’s ability to pay. Nexus inspires hope, offers respect, and honors the unique differences of women through the help of a dedicated board, volunteers, staff, partners, and donors. Together, Nexus Recovery Center changes families’ lives, whatever their income, gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.
Nexus Recovery Center Chief Philanthropy Officer Cameron Hernholm shares, “Nexus Recovery Center is North Texas’ leading expert nonprofit agency specializing in substance use disorder treatments for women and their children (including pregnant women at any stage of pregnancy) and has been the leader in North Texans’ recovery efforts for more than 52 years.”
Melissa Stallings shares, “Nexus Recovery Center will always hold a special place in my heart because I began my own recovery journey at Nexus, along with my six-month-old son in January 2011. When I assumed the role of executive director of The Stallings Foundation in 2021, my family donated $10,000 to Nexus to commemorate my tenth year of sobriety. Since then, The Stallings Foundation has partnered with Nexus on the 50 for 50 Anniversary Campaign, the Pathway to Possibilities Giving Society, and, most recently, the Recovery Rising Campaign. I believe that Nexus is instrumental in keeping families together because of the Pregnant and Parenting Women with Children program.”
Substance use disorders know no zip code and are at an all-time high. Ms. Hernholm shares, “At the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, a survey reported that 41.4 percent of 2,784 female respondents experienced at least one adverse mental or behavioral health condition. Nexus’ goal is to treat the whole woman by offering an array of comprehensive services so she has the best chance at success.”
The Stallings fully understand the community’s need for this facility. “When I toured Nexus for the first time, I was impressed by the competence of the leadership, the staff, and their vision for the future. Because of our personal history with the organization, my wife and I have been deeply moved to help Nexus achieve their philanthropic mission,” says Bob Stallings.
Specifically, the Nexus Center’s Recovery Rising campaign, to which The Stallings Foundation made its large donation, will reimagine its 11-acre campus with a design focused on a calm, effective, and efficient space for care and achieves Nexus’ goal of providing a safe, dignified, and sustainable campus. The priceless return on this investment is the transformation of lives and, in some cases, generational change for these women and children.
Phase 1 of the Recovery Rising campaign aims to raise $10 million to construct a new medical facility, the Doswell Medical Building. This 10,000-square-foot building will house an expanded admissions area, a waiting room that provides privacy and dignity, 16 detoxification beds with an adjacent nursing station, group counseling spaces for medication-assisted treatment, and state-of-the-art medical facilities for providers, all centered around a tranquil courtyard.
Future phases of the Recovery Rising campaign will focus on sustainable, safe, and inspiring living and treatment spaces. The campaign also aims to increase capacity, increase operational reserves, address operational annual needs, and build a staff to support the clinical and social best practices of both women and children. As women and their children work together at Nexus to rise up, regain hope, and retake control of their lives, The Stallings Foundation’s investment will help transform the Nexus campus, raise the trajectory of client care and staffing, and, most importantly, save lives.
“With the Recovery Rising expansion efforts, Nexus anticipates it will be able to serve 5,000 individuals by 2031. As our capacity to serve increases, so will our ability to positively impact the lives of women and their children,” Ms. Hernholm says.
Nexus needs volunteers in various capacities all year long and is always in need of supplies for the children on campus living with their mothers as they seek recovery and healing. To find out ways to get involved and to learn more about supporting the mission, visit www.nexusrecovery.org.
The Stallings Foundation devotes many additional resources to the Frisco community, and the team has more recently shifted its holiday season focus to residents of Frisco. Each year, they provide pajamas or gift cards to every individual and family as part of the Holiday Program at Frisco Family Services. The organization has partnered with Frisco Family Services to support its mission to help neighbors in the Frisco and Frisco ISD communities who are facing hunger, homelessness, and other urgent needs to achieve their quality of life and achieve self-sufficiency.
This year alone, The Stallings Foundation provided funds for the Back2School Program to restock the food pantry and $25,000 in matching funds on North Texas Giving Day while also matching funds on North Texas Giving Day to Exodus Ministries, Frisco Family Services, Youth180, and Embrace Texas.
In addition, The Stallings Foundation provided a grant to support the Food Pantry and Emergency Financial Assistance programs at Christian Community Action. Family Getaway, an organization that provides services to families with children who are affected by homelessness in Dallas and Collin Counties, also received a grant from the Stallings Foundation.
The Trustees of The Stallings Foundation’s Next Gen Board exclusively work with Youth180, an organization that provides mental health services to youth and their families, and this year, the foundation provided funding for a bilingual therapist.
Over the years, The Stallings Foundation has also supported CASA of Collin County, The Collin County Foundation, K-Life Frisco, Frisco LovePacs, Frisco FastPacs, The North Texas Military Association, Legacy Christian Academy, The Frisco YMCA, and Parent Teacher Associations at several FISD schools. Other local partners throughout the Dallas/Fort Worth area include Family Compass, Helping Hands for Little Hearts, NOMI Network, Youth World, and Incarnation House.
In considering important plans for the future, The Stallings Foundation will aim to send children who are affected by poverty or adverse childhood experiences to summer camp!
“We are off to a great start through our partnerships with the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, Incarnation House, MentorKids USA, the YMCA, and The Happy Campers Program at Helping Hands for Little Hearts. Each year, we accept applications from organizations that provide scholarships for children to go to the camp of their choice or that provide enrichment opportunities such as college visits or academic programming they would not otherwise be able to receive,” Melissa Stallings shares.
As the saying goes, “to whom much is given, much is expected,” and that is what the Frisco community is all about. Being blessed with resources that can be shared with those in need is just another thing to be so incredibly thankful for this holiday season.
Although The Stallings Foundation is a private family foundation, the community can get involved by inviting 501(c3) organizations to apply for grants at stallingsfoundation.org. The Stallings love hearing about new organizations and can easily be reached on social media pages and at grants@stallingsfoundation.org.
