Welcome, Shannon!
Shannon Ripple joins staff as Sales Manager
Shannon Ripple grew up in Lake Country near Delafield and attended UW schools in LaCrosse and Milwaukee, graduating from UWM with a Business degree. She moved to North Carolina in 2002, to work in several businesses - always drawn to companies that cared about human flourishing and development. Her interest in human development and her own healing led her to join Celebrate Recovery, a program that helped people through a process of recovery from co-dependency and addictive behaviors. She eventually became a leader in this program, while also deepening her experience in business development, sales and marketing.
While in North Carolina, she found a home in a Franciscan church named St. Francis of Assisi in Raleigh, feeling really drawn to the sense of kinship and connection that grounded their work in justice and peace ministries. She felt herself coming alive here - and knew she had found a spiritual home. Her time at St. Francis parish led her to a transformative mission trip to Cuba, where she encountered the joyful service embodied by Franciscans. The immersive nature of the mission trip - simply encountering and walking with families affected by poverty - was life changing.
This experience of mission led Shannon to begin a quest for work that provided more meaning and more connection to transformation. “I wanted to help people thrive and began searching for ways to support organizations that truly transformed people’s lives. I really believed that businesses COULD be a force for good: providing pathways for people to live better lives.”
Shannon eventually found her way back to Wisconsin in 2020 in order to be closer to family. Though nonprofit work wasn’t on her radar specifically, the social enterprise model and the Franciscan charism of Franciscan Peacemakers jumped out at her and piqued her curiosity. “The mission of Franciscan Peacemakers really seemed to embody so much of where I had found meaning - in recovery work and grounded in the Franciscan values of kinship and service."
Shannon started in mid-May and has been creating a strategy for bringing in new wholesale accounts, building partnerships with retailers in the Milwaukee area and beyond. “So far, it’s been a learning experience and I’ve enjoyed being able to learn from and support all areas of the organization - from production and sales to outreach and hospitality. I appreciate learning from the women on staff who know the mission from the inside out - women who have transformed because of the work of Franciscan Peacemakers who continue to further that mission through their work today. I am inspired by their example of hope: empowering themselves and others to become the best versions of themselves."
When she’s not out pounding the pavement for sales calls, Shannon loves enjoying fun adventures with her niece and nephew, like exploring their natural creativity through building. She enjoys being in nature, spending time on lakes, kayaking with friends, and continuing the pandemic hobby of learning to play guitar!
We hope you get to meet Shannon soon - and in the meantime, if you know a shop where you’d like to see our products being sold, please drop Shannon a line at shannon@franciscanpeacemakers.org.
