Chris Yops is the Manager of Fundraising & Development for NAMI KDK.  Chris brings a passion for mental health support, education and advocacy, along with 20 years of experience serving in non-profit contexts including pastoral ministry.  Chris has described addressing the current mental health crisis as one of the “most urgent needs of the day” and NAMI-KDK as “the best kept secret” in Kane, DeKalb and Kendall counties.

Experiences

As a husband and father of five children, Chris understands the unfair stigma of mental health challenges and how a lack of education and support can strain families as well as community members.  Chris first discovered NAMI-KDK as he searched for a local support group for encouragement and guidance as he faced mental health challenges with a loved one.  “I didn’t know where to turn,” Chris said. “But I soon discovered I wasn’t alone.”

As a pastor, Chris helped cultivate in others a heart of generosity and continually sought to connect financial giving and volunteer service with the important mission of the organization.  Chris recalled how in the local church, “…there is a time to rally behind a need and a time to celebrate.  Both are timely and both are essential.”

Chris and his wife also served for five years as residential educators at a boarding school south of Chicago providing care and instruction for “at-risk” students.  Chris hopes to be an agent of positive change in the community, along with his wife and family, and sees NAMI-KDK as one way to fulfill that mission.

Chris graduated with honors from Washburn University with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy.  At Washburn, Chris was also elected student body president, served as Editor-in-Chief of the Washburn Review, and was an invited delegate to the U.N. sponsored World Youth Leaders Forum in Seoul, South Korea.  Chris then earned a Master of Arts degree in Philosophy & Law from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom as a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar.  Chris has a Master of Divinity from Moody Graduate School and is currently in the Doctor of Ministry program at Grace Seminary in Winona Lake, Indiana.

In his free time, Chris enjoys activities with his family, exercising and being outdoors.  Chris has finished atop competitive pickleball leagues in both St. Charles and Geneva, and can sometimes be seen quietly casting small spinner-baits from his kayak on the Fox River.