For Ashley Miller, serving as Executive Director of Lifeline Recovery Center is more than a job. “Just to be able to see the miracles that happen on a daily basis around here,” she says, “it is such an honor for me.”
Lifeline Recovery Center has spent more than 20 years providing long-term, faith-based, addiction treatment for men and women battling drug and alcohol misuse and dependency. What started as a small recovery home has grown into a multi-campus program serving around 200 people a year.
“We don’t just focus on sobriety, we focus on real transformation,” Ashley says. “Every person who walks through our doors, you’re going to receive a personalized treatment plan that includes clinical therapy, peer support services, recovery coaching, life skills training, workforce development, education development, and spiritual development.”
A Wall They Couldn’t Crack
For most of its history, Lifeline’s life-changing work had been fueled almost entirely by local money. State and federal funding felt out of reach. “We never received any state or federal funding, and this mission was solely supported off of just community donations for about 16 years,” Ashley recalls.
Though it wasn’t for lack of trying. Lifeline had applied twice for Kentucky’s Opioid Abatement funding. Both times, Lifeline had been denied. After years of effort with nothing to show for it, their board had made the difficult decision: one more try and then they’d walk away.
That’s when Ashley discovered Grant Ready Kentucky, a nonprofit dedicated to helping unlock public funding for rural and under-resourced communities and nonprofits. Grant Ready Kentucky offers free training, coaching, and tailored grant-seeking support to organizations that often lack the bandwidth or expertise to compete for state and federal dollars.
“I found out that Grant Ready Kentucky offered this service free of charge, it was a game changer for me,” she says of their first encounter, at the Kentucky Opioid Symposium. Ashley and her part-time grant writer signed up for Grant Ready Kentucky’s free one-hour coaching session. She also enrolled in Grant Ready Kentucky’s two-day in-person training. "Every session gave me practical tools I could take back to my team," Ashley says. "They helped us prioritize what really mattered.”
With their next application deadline looming, Ashley knew this was their final shot. “We had already decided at the board level that if we did not secure it this time, we were not going to invest in it anymore,” she admits.
“It Means More To Me Than You’ll Ever Know.”
With Grant Ready Kentucky’s coaching, review, and feedback, Lifeline went all in on their third and final attempt at securing state opioid abatement funding. This time, they didn’t just submit. They succeeded.
“We took everything and implemented everything that Grant Ready Kentucky suggested, and we were awarded this time,” Ashley says. “I really do owe all the credit to Grant Ready Kentucky, because they’re the experts, they are in this field, this is what they do.”
That win is already transforming what’s possible for the people Lifeline Recovery serves. The grant is strengthening Lifeline’s workforce development program—helping clients learn how to build résumés, prepare for interviews, and find stable employment. It’s funding peer support positions and providing mileage reimbursement for transportation to jobs, court dates, and medical appointments. It’s even allowing clients to build basic computer literacy, something many have never had the chance to do.
And it’s opening new doors, one person at a time. Ashley recalls one client in particular, a 50-year-old man who had spent his entire life working construction. “He was 50 years old and had never got his GED,” she says. He had never planned to. He told Ashley he had “just thought I would always be in the construction field and working hard.” But with support from Lifeline’s GED preparation services, funded through the grant, that all changed.
“Being able to achieve this GED,” he told Ashley, “it means more to me than you’ll ever know.”
From Personal Loss to Collective Possibility
For Ashley, the work of recovery has always been personal. “I know what it feels like because I’ve lost my mom, my dad, my sister, my brother-in-law. And then two years ago, I lost my stepson—all to drug and alcohol related issues,” she shares. “And that’s why I am on the front lines of just being able to offer hope.”
She’s seen what’s possible when people have the right support, and not just for individuals, but for entire families. “I know what this program does,” she says, because “I’m a program graduate. My husband’s a program graduate.” And now, she adds, “my daughter, she’s not ever struggled with drugs and alcohol. She’s 22 years old, full-time job, and a college student. So it’s like I’m trying to break that generational curse off of my family.” Trying, and succeeding.
That same belief in what’s possible, and the importance of having the right people alongside you to do it, carried Ashley and her team through two failed grant attempts. When they finally succeeded with the help of Grant Ready Kentucky, the impact was bigger than just a budget increase. It showed Lifeline what was possible when the right partners are standing beside you.
“I feel it’s made us dream bigger,” Ashley says. “Like, what else is out there, you know? And it really gets us excited.”
You Don’t Have to Do This Alone
Now, she isn’t just dreaming bigger for Lifeline. Ashley is encouraging other leaders to find the right partners and start dreaming bigger too. To other nonprofit leaders wondering if they have what it takes to secure big, game-changing funding, Ashley has a simple message: “You don’t have to do it all alone. There are resources out there. And asking for help is not a weakness. It’s wisdom.”
For Lifeline, having Grant Ready Kentucky in their corner has already opened new doors, and Ashley is eager to see where the partnership goes next. “We’re just scratching the surface on the potential opportunities that are out there,” she says. “I’m excited to be able to work alongside Grant Ready Kentucky, and hopefully they can help us identify even more.”
State leaders see the impact of this kind of partnership, too. “We have seen small organizations across the Commonwealth utilize Opioid Abatement funds to do meaningful work in the treatment, prevention and recovery of opioid use disorder,” says Chris Evans, Executive Director of Kentucky’s Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission. “These organizations are vital to creating a fabric of support in communities large and small so that we can restore lives and families to be the strongest they can be for Kentucky’s future.”
For Ashley and her team, those words ring true. They’ve seen up close what can happen when the right support shows up, change doesn’t just feel possible, it starts to take shape.
