Debbie Phillips is tired of battling.
Athens' former representative in the Ohio House left office at the end of 2016. Because she is term-limited, she is barred by state law from running for representative again. But Phillips said she's ready to get back to her roots anyway.
"Work at the statehouse was important and worth doing but sometimes it's really a pitched battle," Phillips said.
She aspired to become a member of the Ohio State Board of Education but was defeated last November. Instead, she will return to a group she had worked at years ago: Rural Action.
"(Rural Action CEO) Michelle (Decker) recruited me for the position, we started talking about a couple of months beforehand," Phillips said of her new position as Rural Action's development director. "I was interested in doing nonprofit development work and I wanted to get back to that positive work, everyone working together for the region."
Rural Action is a grassroots advocacy group based in Athens County whose mission is to "foster social, economic and environmental justice in Appalachian Ohio," according to its website. The group was founded in 1991.
"We really work in local economy building, like forestry and food services," Decker said. "We partner with a lot of other groups, we're membership based and we do what members of the community want us to do."
When Phillips first worked for the group in the early 2000s, the focus of the community was on school funding. Phillips said she wanted a group that could advocate for better schools in a region where funding was hard to come by. That group became the Ohio Fair Schools Campaign.
"We worked to get parents, students and teachers more involved in the school funding debates," she said.
Phillips served as the Executive Director for the Ohio Fair Schools campaign, which was originally hosted by Rural Action. Over time, the group grew large enough to split from Rural Action and become its own separate organization. She left that position in 2008 upon her election to the Ohio General Assembly.
Decker said Phillips' past work with the organization and as a state representative would be useful to Rural Action.
"She has incredible relationships across the region, and that's important to Rural Action," Decker said. "We have a big footprint, so we need someone who can connect with people across the region and raise funds."
Athens County Democratic Party chair John Haseley echoed Decker's praise.
"Debbie got her start in grassroots organizing, and she's especially good at engaging people at that level," Haseley said. "Rural Action is really fortunate to have her."
Phillips said her priority upon taking her position this month is to continue to grow the organization.
"We are really working on trying to increase membership," Phillips said. "We need a broad base of support for more (financial) flexibility."
She added that those additional funds would likely go toward watershed restoration that would protect the region's water.
