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Cheryl Murphy is the CFO for the Chicago-based Mercy Home for Boys & Girls.

Cheryl Murphy, ’86, worked for a major accounting firm and as a young executive for a grocery giant before joining the Chicago-based Mercy Home for Boys & Girls as its chief financial officer. She has remained at the organization for 23 years, and it is because she passionately believes in its mission to help children and families in need.

A Catholic organization founded in 1887, Mercy Home for Boys & Girls provides youth with full-time residential treatment: “a place where they can grow into successful men and women who will one day create loving homes for their own families.”

According to the organization, Mercy Home provides a safe, nurturing treatment home, community care support for former residents and their families, and community-based and site-based youth mentoring.

Murphy was born in Pittsburgh, the oldest of four girls growing up in a blue-collar neighborhood where most of the residents worked in the local steel mills. Much of her extended family, which still has roots there, worked in the rail industry. When she was 10 years old, she moved with her family to the Chicago suburb of Hoffman Estates after her father was transferred to Chicago for his job. When she was 13, her mom got a job as a school bus driver and kept that job until her retirement.

When it was time to make a choice for college, she had two possible directions in which to go: she was accepted to the University of Illinois’ architecture program and to the Honors program at NIU for accounting. She chose NIU because it had one of the best accounting programs in the country with the highest pass rate for the C.P.A. exam.

Murphy said living at NIU allowed her to keep a job back home. She worked her way through school, waitressing on the weekends in Hoffman Estates. She said some may see that as missing out on the college experience, but she doesn’t see it that way, noting that she graduated from NIU debt-free.

Following her graduation from NIU, she accepted an offer from the accounting firm now known as Ernst and Young, where she worked for four years. After that, she was hired by one of her clients, Dominick’s Finer Foods.

After working for Dominick’s for four years, she was promoted to vice president and treasurer, making her the company’s first female and youngest vice president. During her time at Dominick’s, she went to graduate school and earned her M.B.A. from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management.

Murphy with daughters Cassidy (L) and Kelley (R).

When Dominick’s was sold, Murphy had just given birth to her first daughter and was pondering a career move.

“I decided I wanted to work for an organization that did something to help people or better our world,” she said.

A banker she had worked with extensively while at Dominick’s was the chairman of the board at Mercy Home and asked her if she would be interested in the position of CFO there.

“I wasn’t sure but thought it was a good way to force me to update my resume, and it would be good to get some fresh interviewing experience,” she said. After a group interview with a panel of Mercy Home executives, she was offered the job.

“I was nervous because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to commute to the city from Schaumburg and because the pay was significantly less than what I had been making,” she said. “I went to bed the night of my interview, and I truly felt God telling me to do it. So, I took a leap of faith and accepted the job, and I have never regretted my decision.”

Murphy said that, just like her, many of the organization’s leaders have been there for several years.

“The people that were and still are the leaders of that organization are very talented and could work anywhere. However, what they have is the same desire as I did and do, and that is to give their talents to an organization that helps people, and in this case, troubled, abused, and neglected youth in Chicago,” she said. “The organization is and always has been run by a priest, and both priests I have worked for there are amazing individuals. In addition to the leaders being passionate about their work, so are the vast majority of the employees, or coworkers, as we call them. They are an amazing group of people who are driven to make this world a better place one youth at a time.”

One would think that the job of CFO has a narrow focus, but Murphy said another reason why she has stayed at Mercy Home for so long is the diversity of the work she gets to do.

Rev. L. Scott Donahue, president and CEO of Mercy Home for Boys & Girls, with some of the organization’s young residents.

“When I accepted the job as CFO, I was asked if I would mind also overseeing the facilities department; for many CFO candidates, this may have been a negative, but for me, it was a huge positive,” she said. “In my first five years at Mercy Home, we purchased many contiguous pieces of property on the same block, and I got to lead the development of a home into that of a campus.”

She was also asked to oversee the organization’s human resources department after seven years there, and five years ago, she began to co-lead its Advancement and Fundraising Department.

Murphy said the staff and boards of Mercy Home, as well as its supporters, have a goal of doing good.

“Mercy Home has a great reputation in the City of Chicago, and we are blessed to have so many incredible leaders from different industries on our different boards,” she said. “When you work at a place like Mercy Home, you are surrounded by good—good leaders, good coworkers, good donors, good supporters. It’s not so bad waking up every day knowing that you are doing something good and that you are surrounded by such good people.”

Cheryl Murphy

In speaking about Mercy Home, Murphy touts its many success stories. “There are so many incredible stories that would just melt your heart and make you cry,” she said.

Murphy told one story of a young man who was involved in gang activity and came to Mercy Home.

“Going from the streets to our structured environment is often difficult for our youth,” she said. “They often fight the pull to go back to the streets. This particular kid gave in to it one night and was out hanging with the old gang and was involved in an armed robbery and was shot in the process. Mercy Home not only took this kid back, Mercy put him in one of the best schools in the far northwest suburbs and never gave up on him.”

She continued, “He ended up graduating from this high school and then going to DePaul University and getting a job at one of the big banks in town. Recently, he got married, and now has a child and loves being a father. This young man was the guest speaker at one of our fundraiser luncheons, and if you could hear him tell the story of how Fr. Scott Donahue, our president, was the father to him that he never had, and how Mercy Home never gave up on him and saved his life, you would cry, too.”

Murphy had some advice for young people going to NIU, which she said was similar to what she tells Mercy Home’s college-age volunteers. She tells young people to work hard to make their fortune, but to give back.

“Always work very hard and work as many hours as possible, especially in your 20s and 30s,” she said. “People will recognize your work ethic, and opportunities will continue to come your way. You will continue to make more money and become more successful, but at some point, you need to give back, whether it is by working at a nonprofit organization or by volunteering as a mentor or tutor, or by being on a board. It is your God-given talents that allowed you to succeed, so be sure you give back, because that’s what makes the world go round, and that’s what makes this world a better place.”