I Built My Own Table: Why the Next Era of Social Services Belongs to System Designers, Not Paper Pushers

By Giovanne Schachere, MS

CEO | Mystis Adult & Family Services

1. I Didn’t Come From the Top — I Built Up From the Floor

Let’s be clear: I didn’t start in boardrooms.

I started in the field — sitting on curbs with clients, trying to keep people alive long enough to see another chance. I’ve been the one calling shelters at 2 a.m., the one explaining to a mom why the voucher didn’t go through.

And through all that, I realized something that still fuels me today:

We don’t fail because we don’t care — we fail because the system isn’t built to care efficiently.

Most agencies measure “how many people we served.” I measure how many lives we stabilized and sustained. That’s a completely different language — and that’s why the next generation of leaders must be system designers, not caretakers of broken frameworks.

2. Compassion Without Architecture Collapses

You can have all the heart in the world, but if your system can’t hold it, it crumbles.

That’s the lesson I learned building Mystis across California and Washington.

We combined recuperative care, ECM, and housing stabilization into a living ecosystem — not a patchwork of programs, but one infrastructure where every service speaks the same language: dignity, accountability, outcome.

This isn’t about being the biggest agency. It’s about being the most connected one.

Because when your contracts, staff, and clients operate on the same framework — compassion finally becomes sustainable.

3. The “Big Wig” Problem — and Why I Don’t Wait for Invitations Anymore

I’ve sat in meetings where people who used to supervise me barely looked my way.

That used to sting. Now it motivates me.

See, I learned that leadership circles often don’t recognize innovation until someone else validates it.

They’re used to big logos, not big results.

So I stopped trying to fit in and started creating new rooms — coalitions, partnerships, and pilot models that prove what’s possible when lived experience meets executive strategy.

If you’re reading this and you’ve ever felt invisible in spaces you helped build — keep building.

The future doesn’t belong to the comfortable. It belongs to the builders.

4. Leadership Isn’t a Title — It’s a Blueprint

Leadership to me isn’t about hierarchy. It’s about design.

Can you take a system that was never meant for people like us and rewire it so it works for everyone?

That’s real leadership.

At Mysti’s, we don’t “serve clients.” We architect outcomes.

We teach our teams to think like designers — every intake, every referral, every data point is a brick in a bigger structure that outlives any single person.

That’s how you go from being another nonprofit… to being a movement.

5. A Global Call-Out to the Next Generation

Whether you’re running a shelter in Seattle, a youth center in Ghana, or a re-entry program in Detroit — the message is the same:

Stop waiting for permission. Stop asking systems that don’t see you to validate your genius.

Start building frameworks that work, even if they start small.

We don’t need more heroes. We need architects of alignment — people willing to think in blueprints and act in compassion.

When I walk into a room full of senior leaders now, I don’t shrink anymore.

I remember — they operate within systems.

I build them.

That’s the difference.

And that’s why the next era of social services will be written by people who’ve lived both sides of the table — not just the ones sitting at the head of it.

“Compassion isn’t soft. It’s structure with a pulse.”