Women We Love: Margaret Mikkelsen

Margaret Mikkelsen, executive director of the Sexual Assault Resource Agency (SARA), was inspired to follow this career path by her mother.

“She was a domestic violence victim advocate and managed a shelter for abused women and their children,” says Mikkelsen. “She involved my siblings and me in hands-on ways, like spring cleaning the shelter house and holiday shopping for the children. She talked about her work quite a bit so I learned two things early on—getting your hands dirty is not optional, and change needs to happen at the personal and the societal level.”

Mikkelsen graduated from Amherst College for her undergraduate degree and Johns Hopkins University for her graduate degree. She is married to Ryan Faulkner, a sculptor, and together they have a daughter.

Some of Mikkelsen’s day deals with the nuts-and-bolts of the operation—working on grant applications or grant reports or reviewing cash flow. “Or something very non-glamorous like that,” she says. “More fun is when our program staff come to problem-solve or run an idea by me. That happens several times a day. We have very talented, creative staff that is always thinking about ways we can serve our clients better. When I’m buried in spreadsheets, I like knowing the staff is putting our clients first. The best days are when I get to talk about our work with community groups, reporters, donors, anyone who will listen.”

Mikkelsen usually takes the bus to work and walks home at the end of her day. “I’m usually reading a book or watching TV on my phone while I walk,” she says. “I’m very good at that and have never been hit by a car. It’s the only kind of multi-tasking I can do. That walk home is not just about reducing my carbon footprint; it’s my down time between work and home.”

She finds the secret to living a balanced life to be a partner who truly takes half the load. “My husband isn’t my babysitter, and I’m not his housekeeper. He doesn’t ‘help’ me with the housework or do ‘childcare.’ We are parents who share a home, so we both have a responsibility to nurture our child and keep the house to a reasonable level of cleanliness,” Mikkelsen notes. “That’s another secret—lower standards for housekeeping. Something has to give, and I rather it be the housework than time together as a family.”

Other ways she takes care of herself, both mentally and physically, is working out most mornings with her husband. “I don’t like exercise for exercise’s sake, but having a partner makes it more fun, and we get to hang out before our daughter wakes up,” she says. “I also keep a stash of reading material in most rooms if I need to take a mental break for a few minutes. During a stressful week, I might read four or five novels. I read really, really fast.”

For Mikkelsen, who says her greatest strength is determination, the most rewarding professional experience was “running a national grassroots organization called Students Active for Ending Rape (SAFER), but this past year at SARA has been amazing, too.”

The biggest business challenge she faces right now is performance reviews. “My biggest business challenge right now is learning how to do performance evaluations that are actually helpful to our staff,” Mikkelsen says. “I’m reading a lot and calling on the expertise of other managers. Charlottesville has a wonderful network of non-profit leaders and I’ve received a lot of help and advice from my peers at other organizations.“

The best advice she received was from her husband. “Everyone is better than the worse thing she or he ever did. It’s both a way of considering other people, and being kind to yourself,” she says.

If she were to give advice to other women thinking of following a similar career path it would be this: “Don’t avoid learning about the so-called boring stuff like budgeting, data tracking, program evaluation etc. Someone has to take care of those things, or organizations can fall apart or lose funding. So know your issue, but also know how all the background operations work, too. “

8 Things You Might Not Know About Margaret Mikkelsen

1.  Who is your favorite author and why? Right now I’m tearing through the novels of Ngaio Marsh. She wrote mystery novels, so they are escapist, but they have great social commentary in them too.

2.  Favorite thing about Charlottesville? I like how it smells in the summer. We moved here from Brooklyn, which does not smell good in August.

3.  What is your favorite hobby/pastime? Quilting and dancing with my daughter.

4.  What is one of your hidden talents/skills? I am an awesome dancer. Ask anyone who was at Planned Parenthood’s 80’s Homecoming. I guess that’s not very hidden!

5.  What is your guilty pleasure? Tootsie Rolls. Luckily, one of our advocates keeps a jar in her office. I think they’re supposed to be for clients, hence the guilt.

6.  What is your favorite movie and why? “Dirty Dancing.“ I think folks forget that one of the story arcs is about access to safe abortion. As a sixth-grader watching that movie in the theater, that was a really powerful experience. That was around the time I was discovering feminism and activism. Also, Johnny Castle. The movie gave us smart girls hope. 

7.  Where did you grow up? Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Snowmageddon, ha!

8.  What is the greatest invention of your lifetime and why? DNA fingerprinting, both for the exonerations and successful prosecutions, HIV protease inhibitors, Prozac, wi-fi.