Ruthanne Hill

Ruthanne Hill, executive director of the Northwest Arkansas Crisis Intervention Center, said her agency has been in a growth cycle “that the business world would envy” for the past four years.

“People are recognizing we’re an agency that’s strong and proactive and able to meet needs,” Hill said.

Hill came to the nonprofit agency in September 1996. Within two years, “magic happened,” Hill said.

Several grant applications came in at once, new members joined the board and new prevention programs were added.

In the six years that Hill has headed the organization, the Crisis Center has seen its staff double in size, the budget has increased 60 percent, four new services have been started that have quadrupled the number of people receiving crisis and education services and the agency is in the black since Hill has received funding for 84 percent of the grants she has written.

“I realized we were doing mostly intervention. And I had this very strong sense that we needed to grow heavily in the area of education and prevention,” Hill said.

Handling between 8,000-10,000 calls a year, Hill oversees 10 full-time employees and four to six work-study students and interns each semester.

“You have to run the agency like a business so that you can do the work of your heart,” Hill said.

Looking to the future, she said she is excited about the addition of two new services, a Spanish-language hotline and the state’s first TTY direct crisis line.

“We’re going to have the first direct crisis intervention services for the deaf and hearing impaired in all of Arkansas, and the people in Little Rock with rehabilitation services are ecstatic that we’re offering this,” Hill said.

Hill is a graduate of Leadership Springdale, a member of Springdale Rotary Club, president of the board of the Jones Family Resource Center and a member of numerous professional groups.

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