No Longer Bound
Wings Partners
Interview with Edward Bailey
Edward Bailey is the Executive Director of No Longer Bound based in Cumming, GA. No Longer Bound offers a 12-month long, residential, regeneration process to rescue addicts, regenerate men, and reconcile families. For more information, visit: NoLongerBound.com
How did you get involved with Eagle Ranch’s Wings Initiative?
This is such a great story. You see my father, Duncan Bailey, was an early supporter of Eagle Ranch–when it was nothing more than a piece of property and a vision in Eddie’s heart. My dad used to donate to Eagle Ranch on my behalf when I was growing up. So you could say that I’ve been involved with Eagle Ranch my whole life.
When I took over as Executive Director of No Longer Bound in 2014, the first thing that we did was write our vision. When the NLB admin team was dreaming about a facility, we would talk about Eagle Ranch as our mentor organization, as it is truly a gold standard for non-profits. After writing vision, I was intimated by the dream God had given us and knew that I needed a strong mentor to help guide the vision. Eagle Ranch and Eddie Staub, were of course, at the top of my mentor list. So I called Eddie, begged him to mentor me and told him that I would not take no for answer. He agreed to be my mentor and the rest is history.
How has the Ranch’s advice helped your organization and helped you as a leader?
Eagle Ranch Wings Initiative has helped our organization in so many ways. First, it’s given us a standard of excellence to strive for. Like ER, NLB operates with “the heart of a ministry and the brain of a business.” ER has been kind enough to open up their resources for any question that we might have. For example, our CFO has spent time with the ER financial team. Our Marketing Director learned more from the ER marketing and communications team. Eagle Ranch has already blazed the path—through this initiative, we learned so much from their experiences.
How as the Ranch’s advice helped you as a leader?
In my opinion, there is no better mentor organization than Eagle Ranch or leader than Eddie Staub. Some of the advice that’s helped me the most was the wise instruction to focus on long term gains instead of short term results and to set your sights on making those sometimes tough decisions that will benefit your organization for years to come. Another piece of valuable advice I received was to make the clients that you serve the utmost priority and make every decision, no matter how unpopular, based on that priority.
What do you do in your organization as a result of what you learned at ER?
There are so many things we’ve learned, including compensation analysis, job descriptions, and other administration functions, but most importantly as mentioned earlier, our strategic thinking focuses on long-term decisions and sustainability while always remaining centered on prioritizing our clients—above all else.
What is the most important thing people should understand about your organization?
Tragically, our country is in the midst of an opioid crisis that is claiming far too many of our precious loved ones. In fact, more people are dying from drug overdoses than car accidents and guns combined. The need for effective, affordable, comprehensive treatment options for addiction is great. Thankfully, there is a place like No Longer Bound. We truly are saving lives every day. I couldn’t be more proud of our regeneration process for addiction recovery and the four No Longer Bound businesses that we operate. It’s interesting to note that both Eagle Ranch and No Longer Bound focus on the love of Christ to heal broken and hurting people. While our clients are different, in that we serve those in addiction versus at-risk youth, the heartbeat of both organizations is the same. For anyone interested in learning more about our ministry, please visit: nolongerbound.com.