Turning Houses into Homes

When Luther grads connect to share professional insight, great things happen for everyone.

Jen Nielsen ’98 and Ian Cawley ’06 both work at furniture banks. They recently connected to share knowledge.

Changing Lives in the Same Way

Last spring, after 15 years in corporate sales, Ian Cawley ’06 was feeling a disconnect. “I somewhat blamed Luther,” he jokes, “because I didn’t feel that my work was aligned with my values.” His daughter, about to turn five, was newly curious about different kinds of jobs. Listening to himself explain to her what he did for work was the push he needed to make a change.

In April, Ian landed a position as director of operations at Houses into Homes, a furniture bank helping people in Johnson County, Iowa, to furnish homes as they exit homelessness, domestic violence, and other crisis situations. While it’s a different universe entirely from corporate sales, it turns out there’s a throughline: managing relationships. “That’s a really big part of what we do here. With the staff, certainly, but also with our hundreds of volunteers—and we are fully dependent on our volunteers,” Ian says. “We also cultivate relationships with people who are donating furniture and people in the community, letting them know that that’s what we’re here for.”

Houses into Homes started out of a garage in 2017. Last year, they provided 425 beds to 350 households. They’ve been troubleshooting as they learn and grow. During a leadership meeting in June, when the team had a problem to solve, they thought of Bridging, a Twin Cities–based furniture bank that’s a leader in the field. Maybe Bridging could share a solution based on their years of experience serving more than 5,000 households per year. Ian decided to cold-call the person who holds his position there.

That turned out to be Jen Nielsen ’98.

Jen Nielsen '98 is director of services and programs at Twin Cities–based Bridging.

Learning from Each Other

Bridging is a streamlined organization. Started in 1987, today it employs 40 full-time staff and relies on 650 weekly volunteers out of two locations to provide furniture and a foundational home setup to more than 5,000 people each year. “Our volunteers are really operational,” Jen says. “The work that they do is equivalent to about 30 full-time staff. This also means that we’re really engaged in the community, because those 650 people are from all over the Twin Cities metro area, getting the word out and recruiting their friends to donate.” Bridging also offers group volunteer experiences for corporations, churches, and other organizations, which brings in another 3,000 volunteers per year.

Jen says that the robust volunteer pool creates an energetic and welcoming vibe: “People come from different communities and backgrounds, but they’re all here to get to do this work so that we can support the community. That really inspires me every day.”
Before the pandemic, it was common for Bridging to host other furniture banks. Since Jen started there two years ago, Ian’s was the second similar organization to visit.

On a Friday in September, Ian’s team made the trip up from Iowa City to spend the morning shadowing volunteer-led shopping appointments and helping with intake at Bridging. Then, the two leadership teams had lunch together—and were so engrossed that lunch lasted three hours.

Ian Cawley ’06 (far right) and Jen Nielsen ’98 (second from right) brought their teams together to talk about best furniture-bank practices.

Ian’s team left with takeaways that they immediately put into practice, like lowering the height of their warehouse shelves to fit in more inventory and changing some of the language they use around donations.

Jen’s team also learned from Ian’s. Because they’re such a well-oiled enterprise, “We’ve gotten pretty accustomed to and maybe settled in our ways of doing things,” she says. The visit made her think about how to innovate when it comes to inventory and truck deliveries.

Ian Cawley '06, alongside a Houses into Homes founder and volunteer coordinator, receives a puzzle donation from a local retirement home in August.

Better Living through Furniture

When you make a radical life change, like Ian did, there’s plenty of room for doubt. But Ian can point to moments that confirm and reconfirm the decision. One involves a house just two blocks away from his. “The proximity was meaningful,” he says, “because it shows how invisible furniture poverty is. Sometimes the people in need are in your neighborhood, on your same street. You drive by without even a second glance.”

During the pre-visit, Ian learned that this was a group home for adults with disabilities. While his team had been planning to deliver a bed to a single resident, the common areas were pretty bare. “There was a lot of isolation because there wasn’t a comfortable place for people to gather,” Ian says.

Houses into Homes set the group home up with, among other things, a patio table and chairs for the big empty deck. When Ian returned for another delivery, he recalls, “It was a beautiful Saturday in May, the first really nice Saturday”—here, he takes pause, overcome with emotion—“and they were all sitting around the patio table on the deck outside. It was a moment when I realized that this wouldn’t be happening if we hadn’t done the work that we did.”

What’s more? With the house only two blocks away, Ian’s wife and his job-curious daughter can see the difference that Ian has helped make too.

Postscript: Ian was named executive director of Houses into Homes starting January 1, 2025.