Melissa Bell – People to Watch 2016

Knock Knock Children’s Museum project director
Hometown: Baton Rouge
Age: 47

As the only employee for one of Baton Rouge’s biggest upcoming education facilities—the rest are volunteers—Melissa Bell continually proves her passion for children’s education.

Now the project director for the Knock Knock Children’s Museum, she has spent most of her professional career working with nonprofits. Bell, her board and their team of volunteers are tentatively set to open the museum at the end of this year. They hope to encourage learning through play, discovery and hands-on activities at the facility.

While Bell found her previous nonprofit jobs rewarding, those organizations were preexisting and successful—unlike Knock Knock, which has been an entirely different animal.

“To build this organization from the ground up, and on a volunteer basis, has been nothing but amazing and a huge blessing,” she says.

• Bell worked in marketing and outreach at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital for nine years, helping launch stjude.org.

• She helped with the launch of the Georgia Lottery in Atlanta when she worked for the lottery’s marketing department.

• In Baton Rouge, she has built a new nonprofit organization from the ground up. Since day one, she’s strived to make the museum unique. Instead of having funders hold gold shovels at the groundbreaking ceremony, Bell had local children break ground with plastic shovels.

• Bell and the Knock Knock team have raised $10.6 million for the community-wide project as of press time.

Her plans for 2016:
“I truly believe that we are creating much more than a physical building. Even before our doors are open, we’re doing community outreach. But we are laser-beam-focused on getting our doors opened. We’re hoping to cut the ribbon and give this gift of informal learning to the community by the 2016-2017 school year.”

“Melissa brought so many different talents, so much experience with not only fundraising but community outreach and marketing and knowledge of nonprofits. … Her personal passion for our    project has truly made Knock Knock what it is today.”
—Aza Bowlin, incoming 2016 board chair for the museum