Three days into his tenure, Will Jones was asked to sign a letter moving $150,000 from Thompson's endowment to cover a $200,000 payroll.

Two weeks later, the same letter was back on his desk.

Thompson was spending about $5 million a year more than it brought in, and its leaders were telling staff the model could not work any other way.

Will concluded the organization had more people than work. On a three-day beach trip with his family, he told his wife, "I know what I need to do." He would take a reduction in force to the board, and if they would not back him, this was not the right mission for him.

A board member asked whether it could wait six months. Will said it could, but in six months the number would be 50. The board backed him.

This conversation covers what it cost him to be "the heavy" in a leadership team that was "okay with the mission shutting down," and how Thompson innovated to serve more kids that were falling through cracks in the system elsewhere.

He also talks about why he stopped his executive team from voting on decisions, why leaders who can grow but don't want to are the worst fit for a growing organization, and why nearly all his peers are for-profit leaders.

Will Jones is President and CEO of Thompson Child & Family Focus, a 140-year-old youth-serving organization in the Charlotte area that works in five states. Thompson reported $49.4 million in revenue in fiscal year 2025.