Your Name: Carrie Miller

Business Name: Our Home Transitional, a resource and assistance service for homeless single female veterans

Type of Business: Social Enterprise/Nonprofit for female veterans

Business Location: Detroit, Michigan, United States

Website www.ourhometransitional.org

Reason for starting
It was a dream I had since I was a teen and 2012 in Flint, MI was the time and place to start it. My vision has been to provide an outlet for women and children in need. While consulting with my business coach, we concluded that female veterans in need would be a great start as its a very un-targeted market segment and the need is definitely there! I have lived all over the country and in each place I would think to myself, ‘Is this the place? Is this the time?” And I never got a reply. When I came back to Flint MI (after over 20 yrs) back in 2010, it was the worst time in my life and the worst time in Flint’s history…with in the first year I asked myself those questions again along with a few others and I got a reply, “This is the place and now is the time!” This definitely came from my higher source and we have gone full force since the initial consultation with a business coach in Feb 2012.

How do you define success?
I define success as setting small goals and reaching them, and if you find it to hard along the way to reach a goal, get others involved. Being successful means knowing what you dont know and getting those who do involved. Success is desire, dedication, hard hard work and giving up a lot of what you dont need in order to get what you really want. It means failing at times and stumbling but always getting back up and trying again until you reach that goal then develop another, each of these goals are little ones leading to the final vision. Here is a synopsys of what we’ve accomplished since February, all funded out of my pocket. We have built a great team of Board Members and volunteers, have a solid program objective that is solidified with many local and national orgs providing services to help see our vision to fruition. Success is never ever giving up your dream!

Biggest Success
My biggest success outside of my children is building Our Home Transitional while going to college and maintaining a 3.7 GPA. I am currently a Senior at University of Michigan, Flint. The process of this biggest success starts back in the mid ’80’s as a 14 yo I had to be on my own. I had a moped, a full time job and a full time student at a High School in Burton, MI. After graduating HS at 17, I started working for the airlines in Flint, MI. Shortly after that before my 18th birthday, I was transferred to IL. Spent a decade in Chicago working for the airlines then a Marketing Research firm. I always continued with my higher education on a part time bases and had the opportunity to travel the world. I started my family at 28 and we had the opportunity to continue traveling and living all over the country. Having the blessing of experiencing America’s different cultures greatly added to my success!

What is your top challenge and how have you addressed it?
Right now my top challenge is getting funding for our nonprofit while we wait on our 501c3. In the mean time we are using social media to request donations through our website and are in the process of putting together a fundraising committee to take on several huge events we have coming up in 2013. At the same time we are using the part of our start up process to build our Board and each committee needed for a successful nonprofit dedicated to helping our women heroes with or without children, in need of help from mental and physical health car to job training and placement to a home of their own. This is also an opportunity to revitalize and beautify Flint, MI and Genesee Co as we acquire abandoned homes and rehab them for our clients.

Who is your most important role model?
My most important role model is my best friend, Becky Johns. She has showed me what it feels like to be unconditionally loved; has taught me about my inner self and the strength I can generate from that. She has helped me to believe in myself, my gut and my soul. Through our personal trials and tribulations that we have gone through together has helped us both to see through the stuff that doesn’t really matter and to believe in our own personal faith for ourselves and our professions.