Seven years after he moved away from Fayetteville, Scott Embry returned, in part, simply because he loves the city.
“People tell me, ‘You know, I don’t hear a lot of people say that,’” he said. “‘Well, you just haven’t tried it. You haven’t tried to get in and get involved — because if that’s important to you, this is a great market to do that.’”
Scott’s new role as executive director of the United Way of Cumberland County represents more than just a chance to make a difference in his former (and now new again) hometown. It’s also a significant career shift.
The Bowling Green, Kentucky, native has worked in newspaper advertising sales since 2001; he led sales staffs at newspapers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Indiana, and Tennessee. A notable stop — nearly four years, from early 2013 until late 2016 — was as director of advertising at The Fayetteville Observer.
He loved the work. In a lifetime of newspapering, though, he’d watched with dismay as the print newspaper industry’s business model changed and teetered, likening the challenge to “changing the tires on a car while driving 60 miles an hour down the highway.”
“I love journalism, and I believe in journalism, and I love that I funded journalism,” Scott, 48, said. He even describes the work as his “heartbeat.” But earlier this year, after seeing so many local newspapers “gobbled up” and the organizations he worked for “losing sight of community,” he pondered a change.
Community minded
Scott, then working as regional ad director for Tennessee-based Adams Publishing Group — which has more than 130 daily and non-daily newspapers, including 19 in North Carolina — considered his options. The top executive position at the United Way here was open, and he inquired.
The look into the job was “part curiosity” — he remembered people in Fayetteville as genuine, and he’d remained in touch with some work, church, and community friends — and “part interest.” After an initial search committee interview, Scott looked back at old tax returns to confirm his recollection that he’d consistently supported the United Way, which works in communities by mobilizing a single fundraising campaign to raise money for local nonprofits.
But there was something else, a niggling worry: Despite a connection to Cumberland County and that familiarity with the United Way, he’d never worked in a nonprofit — and he’d certainly never led one.
So during a second interview, Scott got frank.
“Listen,” he told his potential employers, “if you’re looking for an experienced executive director, I don’t even know what that might look like.” If the job was about answering calls and filling out applications, he reasoned, then he probably wasn’t the best fit.
“But I told them if you need someone who is willing to be the face of this organization, someone who values relationships more than anything else, and wants to connect to the community,” he said, “then I’d like to continue this conversation. This is what I see. I know what I am and am not, but if this is what you’re looking for …”
It was.
The fit feels natural. The Fayetteville Observer had a partnership with the United Way when Scott worked there, and he recalled several meetings he’d had with former executive director Robert Hines, who retired in 2020 after 16 years leading the organization.
That’s part of what drew Scott back.
“I just had a lot of respect for the way Robert approached the business of the United Way,” he said. “He was so community-minded.”
So if it wasn’t a role he initially envisioned, Scott quickly recognized something about himself: “You know, I like to know what’s going on,” he said. “I like to have some influence. I want to be able to help where I can help.”
An ‘excellent brand’
The United Way’s mission is to strategically raise and invest resources to improve the human service and health needs in Cumberland County. As part of the worldwide organization, Cumberland’s United Way, through ongoing fundraising outreach to local businesses and organizations and individuals, provided funding to 27 local programs last year, focusing on health, education, creating financial stability, and basic needs.
All told, it allocated $937,241 throughout the community, reaching and impacting more than 171,000 people — half of Cumberland’s population. Scott began working in April to build on those numbers, to expand the organization’s capacity; the 2025 campaign will kick off with requests for proposals from United Way-funded agencies sometime in mid-January.
“It probably didn’t take me 48 hours before I realized what the United Way of Cumberland County needed more than anything else was strong sales and marketing,” he said. “I just kind of came in and went right back and put my sales hat back on, and started setting appointments to get out and share — to share what I learned about the United Way, what I know to be true about it.”
It wasn’t difficult.
“We’re lucky,” he said. “We’ve been here for 85 years. We’ve got an excellent brand and reputation. I think people are really interested in connecting to the work we’re doing.”
So he’s back in Fayetteville — and back in Cumberland building relationships, which he believes is the foundation of the United Way. And as with advertising sales, Scott says the dollars will follow the relationship.
Those dollars will help people all over Cumberland County.
“I think, for people who are struggling and living through some of the toughest situations they may have ever been in … to have someone willing to be on the ground, working on their behalf … that provides a degree of hope,” he said. “We’re selling hope … We’re working on problems. And I believe what we do best is that we live united. We bring together people, resources, and talent to accomplish things … And we bring real resources all the way down to people willing to roll up their sleeves and get to work.”
ALL IN FOR FAYETTEVILLE: Scott Embry and his wife, Misty — also a Kentucky native — have even more reason now to love the city. The couple’s daughter, Savannah, and her husband Jared Keene live in Fayetteville, too, serving as student pastors at First Church. Scott and Misty’s son, Luke, is a senior at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga.
Read CityView magazine’s “Home for the Holidays” December 2024 e-edition here.
