GENE KLEIN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PROJECT HARMONY
FOR THE children
GENE KLEIN GUIDES PROJECT HARMONY THROUGH PROGRAMMING If Gene Klein had launched and grown his own startup 20 years ago in the way that he’s led Project Harmony over that time, it would be one of the biggest forprofit success stories in recent Omaha history. Instead, he accomplished something far more important: shepherding the essential nonprofit through substantial growth in people, programming and impact. “When I came here in 2002, we had five employees and served about 400 children a year,” said Klein, who’s been executive director over the entirety of his tenure. “Today, in 2021, we have about 110 employees and we’ll serve over 6,000 children this year.” Project Harmony can be thought of as the hub into which the spokes of government agencies at the city, state and federal levels connect to carry out a shared purpose of responding to cases of child abuse and neglect. This adds a level of complexity to Project Harmony’s mission, to say nothing of the programmatic growth that has come along in response to community needs. “Back in 2007, our board took a turn in the mission of the organization,” Klein said. “We used to be the organization that just responded to abuse and neglect.
The board added to our mission to put an end to it.” That decision opened up new dimensions for the nonprofit, including training and education programs serving audiences from professionals responding to abuse cases to educators, after-school program personnel and day care workers who discover evidence of abuse, to the public at large. Today about 12,000 people are trained annually on how to deal with such situations appropriately.
A VISION
Jim Jansen, chief legal counsel at Creighton University and board member and one of the founders of Project Harmony, said Klein’s instincts for community needs and his ability to pivot and execute new programs are two distinguishing characteristics of his career. “He’s got an amazing, well-focused vision for our agency,” Jansen said. “When I say Gene’s got this amazing vision, from the very outset he thought that there would be a realistic path forward to ending child abuse in our lifetime. That was a formidable task, focused on education and prevention training for a number of
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