I joined The Salvation Army in April 2021, at the height of the pandemic.

It was COVID, so the entire world was in a transitional phase, as was our family.

I was in the middle of my doctorate in Atlanta, Georgia, when COVID hit, and my husband and I were newlyweds living in different countries. We used COVID as a time to reset and figure out what our next steps would be.

Up until then, I had been a lobbyist, with corporate clients such as TikTok, Amazon and Intuit. I was working on privacy and cyber policy.

I’m a lawyer by training and my legal speciality is counter-terrorism and national security law focusing on the cyber realm. So, The Salvation Army didn’t come up much in conversation!

Where The Salvation Army did come up was with my subspecialty, human rights and constitutional law. I’d worked with the United Nations on human-rights cases and international development work, so I was very familiar with The Salvation Army there.

But I wasn’t feeling fulfilled in the corporate world. I felt I had a lot of skills and passions that weren’t being utilized. If I can just find an organization that gets me, I thought, then I know it’ll click. And I knew it wasn’t clicking where I was.

SKILLS AND PASSIONS

It was then that The Salvation Army posted a new opening, the Ontario manager of public affairs position. The idea behind it was that, as an organization, we needed to convey the voice of The Salvation Army to government, especially during COVID when things were changing so rapidly.

I was hired!

For the first time, I felt as if this was what I was meant for.

I always like to say that, for me, my job is now my form of witnessing, because I was given the skill set and now, I get to share our good work, continue our good work and expand our good work.

It’s a perfect combination of my skills and passions.

“A SPECIAL PLACE”

But the longer answer to why The Salvation Army means so much to me, and why I fit in so well here, is that this is the first job where my talents and my passions are not only recognized but I can also be my full self, with my faith and my backstory.

For most of my career, it was very easy to hide behind my resumé and my big jobs at big organizations, knowing that my home life was very up and down. 

My father struggled with alcoholism and addiction and passed away from suicide in 2015, just as I was graduating university. Meanwhile, I had a wonderful mom holding it all together behind the scenes.

And so, knowing the support that we give, I see myself in our client stories, the work that we’re doing, the social service work that we represent and the social policy changes we advocate for.

I was very honest about my backstoryin my interview, something I had never opened up about before, and it was met with love and understanding; my supervisors were actually proud that I’d shared that.

And so, I never felt like I had to hide anymore. I didn’t have to pretend to be some “super-lawyer,” as I did in the corporate world. I could actually be my true self.

Not only that, but it was seen as an advantage that I could speak from myown lived experience, and that my lived experience itself was an advantage.

So, that’s what makes The Salvation Army a very special place.

LEGACY BUILDING

As for The Salvation Army, our team often talks about the legacy of the organization. I’m here to be part of that legacy, even if it’s for a short time.

And if I’m fortunate enough to be here for 20 years or more, that’s still a blip in the history that is The Salvation Army.

Starting with co-Founders General William and Catherine Booth, I’m standing on the shoulders of people who have done so much good work, more work than I could ever do.

I’m here to keep the Army going in my own small way—and all I hope is that I do it well.

Taylor Briscoe is the assistant territorial director of public affairs for the Canada and Bermuda Territory.

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