Have you seen how youth across the country are Reclaiming Digital Futures?

On March 26 we launched a new report and online toolkit to share insights, best practices and case examples from leading OST organizations across the country who are doing the work of leveraging digital tools to support community-based youth development. Our eight partner organizations all approach this work in unique ways, tailoring the work to their individual missions and the youth populations that they support. Less than on month since its launch, we are thrilled to see accolades and responses already coming in from the greater community working on youth development to tell us how they are connecting to the toolkit and how excited they are to adapt the resources. To date we’ve heard from:

• The Brooklyn College Community Partnership about plans to use the Reclaiming Digital Futures resources in a developmental psychology class specifically pointed to ‘the space for creativity.’
• The Chicago Learning Exchange and Family Matters who have shared the toolkit as supportive reading for their organization as they look to explore development of digital learning programs.
• CSforALL who has shared the resource internally with the team leading their OST efforts around computer science.
• The Digital Experience team at the Girls Scouts and the manager of youth technology programs at the New York Public Library, both who are including resources from the toolkit in new team trainings.

Let us know how you are using Reclaiming Digital Futures in your organization!

SCE reached out to Lennon Flowers, Co-founder of The People’s Supper and Co-founder & Executive Director of The Dinner Party, to talk about Catalyst Grantee The People’s Supper’s work in bringing people together across difference to break bread and take time to truly listen, not for the sake of looking the part, but to truly begin conversations about healing and human connections.

Lennon brought us up to speed on the inspiring work The People’s Supper is doing in communities across the country and reminded us that even the most ancient of approaches in work to serve others must adapt to remain relevant and effective.

Why supper? What about the experience of sharing a meal allows for the relationship building that you describe? 

We’re seeing a renaissance of dinner as “social technology” [models], fueled by people less interested in what we eat than in how we eat, why we eat, and with whom we eat.

There are models designed to welcome the stranger and to combat hate (Syrian Supper Club, Displaced Dinners, Day of Dinners). There are dinners designed to open up conversations about the barriers that separate us, including race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and class (Speaking Down Barriers, National Day of Racial Healing, Shabbat Salaam), or otherwise hard-to-talk-about subjects (Death Cafes, Death Over Dinner, Drugs Over Dinner), and those designed to spark individual and collective civic action or to highlight local innovations (On the Table, Civic Dinners, Detroit SOUP, Ben Franklin Circles). Some focus on reinventing religious ritual in the DIY age (One Table, Simple Church, Root and Branch and other “dinner churches”), and others offer simple opportunities to get to know your neighbor, as a way of combating endemic loneliness (Our Family Dinner, Table Tribes).

In different ways and for different reasons, each one [of the models] seeks to leverage the role that food has played throughout time and across traditions, as a tool for meaning-making and community-building. There’s nothing novel about shared meals: Eating together is the oldest ritual in all of the books. And that’s the point. There’s a familiarity to sharing a meal together, whoever you are and wherever you’re from. That’s why we tend to stay away from chef-led meals and high-brow cuisine. There shouldn’t be anything intimidating about sharing a meal, whether that’s backyard burgers or pizza takeout. I’m a mediocre cook on my best days. It’s about using food not as an end, but as a means—as a way of connecting to the person who put it on our plates, or to the person across the table, or of introducing ourselves and the people and places whose imprints we carry with us.

And why supper, specifically? Would a coffee or lunch be as effective?

On a practical level, it makes for a better invitation: You’re more likely to show up to a meal, than to, say, a dialogue circle. And it creates a natural rhythm to conversation:

When you need a moment to pause and consider what you want to say, or to reflect on something you’ve just heard, it helps to be able to pick up a fork.  

There have been plenty of People’s Brunches and Lunches. I tend to prefer meals simply because it affords you more time to pause, but we’re all for Beer Summits or afternoon tea, too.  

What does the typical dinner guest bring to the table at The People’s Supper? What do they walk away from the table with?

Last week, 29 people in Creede, CO, gathered for their second People’s Supper. The town has a year-round population of fewer than 400 people, and they’ve experienced deep divisions across social, political, and ideological fault lines over the last few years. They gathered with the simple goal of deepening connection, and seeing each other’s humanity over shared food and the stories and experiences that don’t tend to come up in everyday conversation, and that often transcend the labels and assumptions we make of one another.

They talked about the turning points in their lives, and dove headlong into the stories they’re afraid to share today and why. The group included a mix of liberals and conservatives, and folks from each of the faith communities in town. This time around, there was no event budget, so they made it a potluck, with no pressure to bring a dish if you didn’t have the time or capacity.

And in a lot of ways, that’s what every person at a People’s Supper is asked to bring: themselves and their own truths —  the real and often messy, vulnerable stories that got us here, as opposed to our soundbites — and a willingness to enter what we call “Brave Space”.  

We recognize that for those who’ve been most marginalized, there is no such thing as a safe space. And too often, we confuse a safe space with a comfortable space. Learning to sit with each other’s truths means we have to learn to sit with discomfort.

What you take away, I think, are three things: The first, and simplest, is connection. I don’t want to belittle that, because we’re living in what’s been described as a crisis of isolation: Loneliness is endemic, and depression rates are at an all time high. We hosted a series of suppers this fall leading up to the midterms, with folks from across the political aisle. Of survey respondents, 93% reported feeling more connected to others.

The second is empathy: Of those same survey respondents, 80% felt a rise in empathy toward people who are different from them. We like to think that we make decisions based on all the information that’s in front of us — that we’re fundamentally rational creatures. But that’s not actually true. Years of research in social psychology shows us that we make most of our decisions intuitively, and then use information to rationalize and defend those decisions. The one thing that makes a difference is having an encounter with someone that runs counter to your assumptions. That means we can’t just convince each other to change our minds, particularly when you’re talking about something that is centuries-old and baked into the fabric of our country. It requires we meet.

And third and perhaps most importantly, we want people to leave enlisted in and energized for the work ahead. Empathy, as we commonly understand it, is not enough: When it comes to race, for instance, I as a white person don’t get to just undo my own racism, and the same is true of any white person at the table. It’s on all of us to consciously intervene to undo the systems that perpetuate marginalization.

What that means is that that conversations are the starting point, not the end point. To quote a popular adage, “change moves at the speed of trust.” To again use the example of racial healing, the goal is to build the trust and relationships necessary to engage folks across difference in anti-racist work.

What has surprised you about the work?

I didn’t realize that the hard part was not what happened at each dinner, but about first, reflecting deeply on who you want at a table and why and how to get them there, and second, on what you want to see out of the experience.

It took me awhile to realize that sitting down across lines of difference is not everyone’s responsibility, nor should it be.

Too often, depolarization efforts focus on red vs. blue, liberal vs. conservative.

Many of those efforts, including ours, have found it difficult to get conservatives to the table, so we initially put our energy there. In so doing, we failed to recognize the unique burden born by those subject to present and historic marginalization, and the dangers of tokenization.

If I’m honest, I think a lot of the work we did in our first year was at best ineffectual and at worst did harm. We heard from a lot white progressive women who wanted the optics in their lives to match the values they professed to hold. An old colleague of mine coined a term: WWWLTH — White Women Who Like to Hike — to describe the majority of people who reached out to us in our early days. (And yes, I’m a white woman who likes to hike.) They wanted to sit down with a token person of color, a token Muslim, a token immigrant (preferably undocumented), and patiently nod their heads at stories of oppression, as proof that they’re as compassionate and woke as they think they are. They wanted to sit down with a token Trump supporter, and confirm that they were morally and intellectually superior. And then they wanted to take a selfie for Instagram, and be done.

That doesn’t mean that conversation isn’t a good or necessary thing. But I realized the dinner table is a means, not an end.

 Can you share a big lesson learned in your work and how you adapted to address it?

In our first year, we heard from a lot of people who wanted nothing more than to check a box: liberals who wanted to sit down with a token conservative, to prove they were as open-minded as they believed themselves to be, or — as one conservative partner of ours put it — “to actively listen to you long enough to change your mind”; white women who wanted to sit down with a person of color, in order to diversify their friend circles, or to signal that they’re among the ones who “get it”. In short, we heard from lots of people who wanted the optics of their lives to match the values they professed to hold.

We found that political polarization in the abstract is not a sufficient enough reason to gather.

In our second year, we thus began to work more deeply with people and institutions in which community members shared an acute pain point or a tangible stake in deepening relationships. We’ve worked with pastors working to extend the Communion table and build bridges across faith lines, with the Mayor’s Office in Erie, PA, on a series of racial healing suppers, and with a group of leaders in education, who operate in a highly competitive and politicized environment and feared that mistrust was inhibiting their ability to learn from one another.

While the original intent behind our project was to focus on bridging across lines of political and ideological difference, we found that even at suppers where people shared similar voting habits, difference was present across lines of race, age, class, religion, and gender identity, which shaped the contours of conversations.

We found that voting habits are not always an indicator of shared values and that there is often as much diversity within a group as there is across groups.

For all those reasons, we’ve slowly moved away from the word “bridging”. The question is simply: What needs healing here?

What’s next for The People’s Supper?

The People’s Supper began as a collaborative project created by three different organizations: The Dinner Party, the Faith Matters Network, and Hollaback!. It was meant to be a 100-day experiment; we didn’t expect to be doing this work today.

Our work right now is guided by a number of big hairy questions: How do you change the faces of who shows up, so that you’re reaching beyond the “usual suspects” and creating meaningful opportunities for folks to connect across difference? What does it look like to meet over time, rather than just once? How do those connections and conversations catalyze ongoing collaboration, and how do you use the real stories surfaced around those tables to inform, for example, a city’s diversity, equity, and inclusion policies?

From Day 1, we’ve known that we cannot heal every individual who has faced attack, nor can we bring together every American over a dinner table. How might we spark enough conversations in enough places — and the right places — to ensure that those conversations continue beyond one night, and what’s the role of storytelling in all that?

The jury is still out. For all its good, the internet is not always a productive, friendly, or supportive place. That’s why we partnered with DoSomething.org to empower young people to take ownership of their digital habits and start conversations with older adults on how to become better digital citizens. Since its launch on March 1, the “Untangle the Web” campaign has engaged more than 25,000 young people in this cause. 

Through our work with DoSomething, we learned that 46% of teens say they are online on a near-constant basis. We also learned that the 90% percent of people are concerned about internet privacy, and 67% of young people say that finding truthful information is one of the biggest challenges they face online. But we also know that young people are more than “digital natives.” In some cases, they are experts. They know that awareness, critical thinking, and good judgment are the most important skills to make healthy decisions online. And while finding truthful information online is a challenge, they believe they have the skills to so. That expertise is front and center in this campaign.

From civil discourse to civic engagement to online privacy, Untangle the Web encourages collaborative intergenerational conversations about the challenges and opportunities of the Digital Age.

The campaign concludes April 30 and will be followed by a month-long deeper learning experience for a small cohort of young people.

Ultimately, there is often a disconnect between young people and adults in terms of understanding and using digital tools – from adults misinterpreting how young people are using technology for good, to young people hiding their technology use from adults.

Through Untangle the Web, we created inroads for young people to engage and have a conversation with adults in their lives focused on creating a positive digital community – together. This, and more efforts yet to come, will help move us toward a future of Digital Well-Being. Won’t you join us?

 

 

We are thrilled to announce that as of March 26, 2019 the output of our Digital Learning Challenge is available! After 18 months of collaborative efforts, we’ve launched Reclaiming Digital Futures as well as a full downloadable report to share our findings. We can’t wait for you to see all the site and the report has to offer.

Reclaiming Digital Futures equips educators to leverage technology to foster learning that infuses digital tools and practices with deep focus on positive youth development, igniting the hearts and minds of youth and preparing them to be impactful 21st century citizens – a much larger task than simply teaching technology-related skills like coding or data analysis.  

The rising generation must learn to thrive in a world changing at warp speed, and it will take more than gut-level instincts to develop effective tools and programs to prepare them for this reality. To that end, Susan Crown Exchange worked with UCI and NYU to execute an in-depth analysis of leading out-of-school time organizations focused on equipping youth to navigate a world both analog and digital.

The report and the associated DigitalLearningPractices.org site contain a cross-section of resources to aid organizations and educators in developing quality programming that integrate technology and youth development. Rather than focusing on efforts to help youth become fluent and skilled in uses of technology simply for the sake of meeting predetermined standards, the organizations highlighted in the report provide practical avenues to support youth in transforming their communities and worlds.

The knowledge and best practices gleaned from the report’s partner organizations may be adopted and adapted by any youth-serving practitioners. Five strategic areas are identified for success in digital learning. The toolkit provides perspectives, practical how-to’s and case examples in each:

•        Pedagogy: Co-design programs with youth, combining educator and learner expertise with youth interest to help students develop relevant launchpads for learning. Learner-centered supports carefully surround youth with the right adults, educators and peers as they pursue robust digital projects in the context and application of meaningful work, play and goal achievement.

A strong example is seen in the YOUmedia program in the Chicago Public Library, which encourages youth to co-design new programs. Young people in YOUmedia have developed video screencasts of gameplay and community tournaments that link youth interests in gaming to digital production, leadership, and neighborhood organizing skills.

•        Skills: Design programs that offer students the opportunity to participate in real-world contexts and practice integrated skills such as technical production, project management, collaboration, adaptability and problem solving.

One highlighted example is FUTUREWORLDS, an annual event held by youth arts organization AS220 Youth in Providence, RI. FUTUREWORLDS focuses on ‘writing the future,’ and is part fashion show, part music and theater performance and part live storytelling. Apprentices from multiple programs in AS220 Youth collaborate and coordinate on all aspects; from determining a theme and format for the event, to the design and technical production of the event.

•        Technology: Leverage technology in a way to support larger organizational goals, moving youth from consumers to producers who understand technology is a useful tool to help achieve their own cultural and social agency. Youth should work collaboratively on projects with experts, such as teaching artists and industry volunteers, learning to tailor technical practices and applications to their deepening expertise in a field.

In Brooklyn, NY, Beam Center is a ‘maker’ centered organization that supports young people to create hands-on projects that integrate a wide variety of tools that include carpentry, welding, physical computing, video, ceramics, programming, textiles and design. Students are encouraged to push beyond discomfort with new tools to start immediately growing learning.

•        Community: Serve all students where they are, including disconnected and at-risk youth. Featured programs are deeply rooted in their individual communities and rely heavily on rich connections to local opportunity and need. Participants are provided the inspiration and audience for media and technology projects, plus access and pathways to professional and higher education opportunities.

An example is provided from WMCAT in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where students are encouraged to understand the “inner workings” of the Jammy’s, a local musical awards night. Students are encouraged to go backstage and interview the artists, plus they have other ‘behind the scenes’ access. Local professionals also come into the student space to discuss the types of paths through college and industry that make sense for their profession.

•        Capacity: Understand the importance of overall organizational priorities in hiring and developing staff individually and collectively. Emphasize a blend of skills in technology, creative media and the arts, and youth development.

The Digital Harbor Foundation (DHF) describes itself as “a melting pot of people from wildly different backgrounds (in both education background and professional experience).” At DHF, nobody presents themselves as a knowledge expert. All employees have experience on certain tools or processes, but there’s always room to grow, and that’s expected of staff and program participants alike.

The report on Reclaiming Digital Futures was developed after careful analysis of eight organizations that were selected through a highly competitive, national RFP. All are helping youth evolve into secure, capable, contributing adults through programs outside of the traditional classroom. The partner organizations are:

• AS220 (Providence, RI)
• Beam Center (New York, NY)
• Digital Harbor Foundation (Baltimore, MD)
• DreamYard (New York, NY)
• Free Spirit Media (Chicago, IL)
• The Knowledge House (New York, NY)
• West Michigan Center for Arts + Technology (Grand Rapids, MI)
• YOUMedia (Chicago, IL).

The distinctive vision of digital learning shared by these organizations focuses on youth power, creativity and agency instead of sole attention on technology or media. This kind of digital learning involves making and creating, amplifying youth voice on issues that matter, balancing technical and social and emotional skills, enhancing connections to culture and community, and directly linking youth to future opportunity.

What if coaches were measured not by wins and losses, but by the personal growth of their athletes?

SCE is pleased to launch new resources that explore the role youth sports can play in developing young people’s social and emotional skills. Through a partnership with The Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program and National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development and guidance from a strategic advisory group of researchers, program providers, coaches, and athletes including young people, we commissioned the EASEL Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Education to produce a white paper, Coaching Social and Emotional Skills in Youth Sports, which explains the evidence behind effective strategies youth coaches can use to build these skills in their young athletes.

Calls for Coaches: Coaching Social and Emotional Skills in Youth Sports translates the white paper into actionable calls for coaches to implement in after-school and community-based sports leagues. The brief’s goals are to:

• Help coaches understand why youth sports is a great venue for developing social, emotional and cognitive skills.
• Provide strategies and best practices for coaches to name, model and create environments for youth athletes to develop and practice these skills.

View a recording of the Calls for Coaches release event here.

SCE sends year-end grants to 21 organizations who are solving critical social challenges

In 1986, while recalling a childhood story, TV host Fred Rogers offered what would become a timeless piece of wisdom. As a tragic world event unfolded on TV, his mother turned to him, sensing his uneasiness, and said, “Look for the helpers. There is always somebody trying to help.” In 2018, the SCE Catalyst awardees did more than just help. They sacrificed, they solved, they led, and they inspired.

As part of the SCE Catalyst program, each year we select a small group of organizations from across the country who are pursuing innovative solutions to our most critical social challenges. Each one receives an unexpected gift to support – and validate – their impressive work, and throughout the year, SCE will feature awardees on our website. From criminal justice to immigration to civic engagement, these 21 organizations are catalysts for social progress.

Civic Engagement: Generation Citizen, IssueVoter, The People’s Supper

Community and Youth Development: Beyond the Ball, Kusanya Cafe, YR Media

Criminal Justice: Prosecutor Impact, Restorative Justice Community Court, The Bail Project

Education: Beyond12, Posse Foundation, TalkingPoints

Environment: 350.org

Health: Canine Therapy Corps

Immigration: GirlForward, REFUNITE, Upwardly Global

Legal Aid: Upsolve

Social Services: CASA, mRelief

Workforce Development: Techtonica

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CIVIC ENGAGEMENT

Generation Citizen: We admire Generation Citizen’s (GC) innovative way to empower youth to become more engaged and effective citizens.  Their mission is to ensure that every student in the United States receives an effective action civics education. GC does this by directly engaging schools in action civics while simultaneously building the demand for the concept across the country. Standardized and vetted by civics experts, educators, and academics, its curriculum is taught by motivated college student volunteers. Student experiences include meeting with legislators, writing opinion articles, and filming documentaries. The organization aims to reach 30,000 youth by 2020.

IssueVoter: Founded in 2016, IssueVoter gives people a tool to track what’s happening in Congress and weigh in on issues that matter to them. The platform is designed to make it simpler to follow what elected officials are doing, easily share opinions about proposed bills, and track the results of votes. It translates bills into plain language, along with bullet points from both sides, and creates a custom scorecard of your rep’s voting record. IssueVoter is a nonpartisan online platform, and we admire its mission to give everyone a voice in our democracy by making civic engagement accessible, efficient, and impactful.

The People’s Supper: We are impressed by The People’s Supper authentic approach to improving civil discourse.  This project started in January 2017 as #100Days100Dinners, and since then it has partnered with individuals and community organizations to host more than 1,000 dinners and events across the country. It aims to repair the breach in our interpersonal relationships across political, ideological, and identity differences, leading to more civil discourse.  Whether at a kitchen table, at a library or in a conference room, trained hosts guide small groups of six to eight guests as they listen to one another’s stories. With the support The People’s Supper, friends, neighbors and members of different communities come together to hear and be heard.

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COMMUNITY AND YOUTH DEVELOPMENT

Beyond the Ball: We believe in Beyond the Ball’s commitment to using the power of sport and play to reclaim space, unite the community, change lives, and develop a culture of opportunity that cultivates hope. Beyond the Ball provides a variety of programming from ages 5-24 in the Little Village and North Lawndale neighborhoods of Chicago. More than 1,500 youth are served each year. The organization’s goal is to use its programs to develop relationships with youth to strengthen their leadership skills, create a bond to the community, and construct positive identities.

Kusanya Cafe: Kusanya Cafe is more than a place to meet for coffee or good food in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood. It is a symbol of community, creativity, and promise. Founded by Englewood residents in 2013, Kusanya Cafe is a nonprofit coffee shop and creative community gathering place. Its mission is to provide a place where great people can come together over great food, in addition to hosting community-born events. Every month, Kusanya is home to a variety of community-driven arts, culture and educational events. The cafe is sustained by sales, individual donations, and small grants, and we admire the cafe’s grand vision for the residents of Englewood.

YR Media: We are impressed by YR Media’s national network of young journalists and artists. The organization collaborates with youth around the country and top media professionals to create content that matters. It partners with outlets like Teen Vogue, NPR, Pandora, and New York Times to further amplify its work. YR Media prepares diverse young people for the 21st-century digital workplace by offering them hands-on education and employment in journalism, arts, and technology, as well as access to support services like academic advising and mental health care.

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CRIMINAL JUSTICE

Prosecutor Impact: District Attorney offices often do not have the time or resources to train new prosecutors or collect data that measures the true impact of their decisions. As a result, traditional incentives in DA’s offices yield traditional results: too much crime in concentrated areas, too much wasted expense with little benefit, too many people in prison, too many unjust outcomes. Founded in 2016, Prosecutor Impact aims to improve community safety through education, training, and improved access to technology for new prosecutors. We are impressed by its comprehensive and strategic approach to foster a fairer justice system.

Restorative Justice Community Court: We are proud to support the Restorative Justice Community Court (RJCC), a groundbreaking collaboration between Chicago’s community-based service providers and the court system. The RJCC will serve 18-26 year olds from Chicago’s North Lawndale community who are charged with non-violent felonies and misdemeanors. The RJCC engages participants in restorative justice practices, coupled with social services to heal and strengthen all affected, and it is the only court in the country that is 100% based on the restorative justice model. Defendants enter the program voluntarily. Those who successfully complete their Repair of Harm Agreement in the community will never have charges on their record. An equal partnership of the Cook County Circuit Court and North Lawndale Community Restorative Justice Hub members leads the RJCC.

The Bail Project: The Bail Project combats mass incarceration on the front end by paying bail for tens of thousands of low-income Americans at risk of pretrial detention. This allows individuals to fight their cases without feeling pressured to plead guilty. The organization grew from the The Bronx Freedom Fund, which began in 2007. In 2017, it received funding for a national expansion under the name The Bail Project. The organization’s goal is to help more than 160,000 people, making The Bail Project the largest non-governmental decarceration of Americans in history. We are honored to play a small part in their efforts to support low-income Americans at risk of pretrial detention.

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EDUCATION

Beyond 12: We are impressed by Beyond 12’s innovative approach to improving college completion rates. Beyond 12 addresses the college completion challenge by acting as a data and service bridge between K-12 and higher education. The organization advances its mission through 3 core activities: Track , Connect, and Coach. All three activities are linked to a data analytics engine that provides both quantitative and qualitative data about students’ postsecondary success to education administrators to help them better prepare and support their students for college success.

The Posse Foundation: Founded in 1989, The Posse Foundation believes that to foster leaders who better represent the demographics of the United States, we must broaden the pool of students who enroll at the best institutions of higher education. The organization identifies, recruits and trains individuals with extraordinary leadership potential. Posse Scholars receive full-tuition leadership scholarships from Posse’s partner colleges and universities. With support from Posse, Scholars excel at school, win competitive internships, earn prestigious awards, and are hired for top jobs. There are nearly 8,490 Scholars and alumni, 57 college and university partners, and 190 corporate partners in the Posse network. We admire Posse’s continued impact in the field of higher education.

TalkingPoints: The correlation between student success and parent engagement is well researched.  For parents who do not speak English, however, engaging with teachers can be overwhelming – or seem impossible. TalkingPoints drives student success for low-income, diverse families by reducing the language barrier through an online communication platform that translates teacher messages into the parent’s home language. The tool then translates the parent’s response back into English. The platform allows teachers to regularly stay in touch with parents, whether sending updates, reminders, or check-ins. It offers 20 languages through human and machine translation, and more than 20,000 teachers and 120,000 parents were on the platform in 2017. We believe its innovative communication platform to connect schools and families can be a driver for student success.

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ENVIRONMENT

350.org: We are impressed by 350.org’s commitment to solving the climate crisis through grassroots organizing. Its online campaigns, organizing efforts, and mass public actions are led from the bottom up by thousands of volunteers in over 188 countries. The organization focuses on projects that oppose new coal, oil, and gas; takes money out of the companies that heat up the planet; and build 100% clean energy solutions.  350.org was founded in 2008 and is known for global days of action that link activists and organizations around the world. These include the International Day of Climate Action in 2009, the Global Work Party in 2010, and Moving Planet in 2011. It also provides guides, templates, visuals, and resources to help individuals organize against the climate crisis.

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HEALTH

Canine Therapy Corps: Since 1991, Canine Therapy Corps’ volunteers and certified therapy dogs have been serving the Chicago metropolitan area, working with health care, education, and social services professionals to help people recover from physical and emotional trauma. The organization customizes and tailors its programs to meet the therapeutic objectives of the special needs population served. Programs are goal-directed and interactive, making the experience an important part of recovery. Approximately 65 active volunteer teams work in programs across the Chicago metropolitan area. Each year, the organization provides 1,400 hours of therapy to more than 5,000 individuals at no charge to any client or facility. We are honored to support their work.

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IMMIGRATION

GirlForward: Working in both Chicago and Austin, TX (with plans to launch a third location in 2019), GirlForward is an organization that supports young women within refugee populations through three core programs. Its Mentoring Program focuses on planning and acting for a fully-realized future, its Camp GirlForward encourages the development of English skills, and its Safe Spaces project provides the opportunity to connect with others in the community and organization. Founded by Blair Brettschneider, a Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient, we believe in GirlForward’s leadership and commitment to empowering refugees.

REFUNITE: REFUNITE is the world’s largest missing persons platform for refugees and displaced populations. Working in off-grid countries through partnerships with the private sector and with twenty mobile operators globally, it has more than 1 million registered users. REFUNITE works across 19 countries and has access to an estimated 360 million mobile subscribers. The organization works to provide a global, anonymous and secure network to assist refugees in reconnecting with missing family members. It has reunited an estimated 40,000 families, often after months or years of searching. We are impressed by REFUNITE’s innovative approach to this humanitarian crisis.

Upwardly Global: We admire Upwardly Global’s mission to eliminate employment barriers for skilled immigrants and refugees and integrate this population into the professional U.S. workforce. There are about 2 million immigrants and refugees currently in the U.S. who have college degrees from their home countries but are unemployed or working far below their skill level. Upwardly Global is the first and longest-serving organization that helps work-authorized immigrants, refugees, asylees, and Special Immigrant Visa holders (SIVs) restart their professional careers in the United States. The organization works with employers such as Accenture, Levi Strauss, Wells Fargo, WeWork and many others to connect them to skilled candidates. It has placed more than 5,600 people. Upwardly Global has offices in Chicago, New York, DC and San Francisco.

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LEGAL AID

Upsolve: Upsolve helps low-income Americans in financial distress get a fresh start through Chapter 7 bankruptcy at no cost. It does this by combining the power of technology with pro bono attorneys. Upsolve was founded out of Harvard Law School’s Access to Justice Lab in 2016. The process looks like this: an individual is referred to Upsolve by local nonprofits, Upsolve operates an online platform that helps the individual complete all relevant forms, and then a pro bono attorney reviews and files the forms. In its first 12 months, the organization helped erased $2M in debt for 60 low-income New Yorkers, averaging a $40K increase in net worth per user. In 2018, it is expanding across America, starting with 14 legal aid organizations in 11 states. We are proud to support their work.

CASA: We believe CASA’s work is vital to the soul our nation. The National Court Appointed Special Advocate Association promotes court-appointed volunteer advocacy so every abused or neglected child in the United States can be safe, have a permanent home and have the opportunity to thrive. CASA and guardian ad litem (GAL) volunteers make sure children don’t get lost in the overburdened legal and social service system or languish in inappropriate group or foster homes. Volunteers stay with each case until it is closed and the child is placed in a safe, permanent home. Founded in 1977, today there are nearly 950 CASA/GAL programs in 49 states recruiting, training and supporting volunteers. In total more than 85,000 volunteers support 260,000 children each year.

mRelief: It is mRelief’s mission to simplify the burdensome process of applying for food stamps to ensure that anyone can access the safety net without it contributing to the already stressful circumstance of poverty. mRelief has built an easy-to-use platform on web and text messaging for families to find out if they qualify and enroll in food stamps. Instead of a 20 page application, mRelief texts 10 simple questions that take less than 3 minutes to answer. Over 260,000 families in 42 states have used mRelief to secure food stamps and other public support. We admire their innovative and efficient solution to address this challenge for low-income Americans.

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WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT

Techtonica: We are impressed by Techtonica’s efforts to reduce the “tech gap” in the Bay Area for low-income women and non-binary, feminine-adjacent adults. The tech industry in the Bay Area is causing displacement and increasing income disparity. The industry also needs to build more diverse technical teams. Techtonica aims to close this gap by partnering with tech companies to provide a 6 month apprenticeship, living stipends, and job placements. Techtonica vets candidates and then collaborates with the corporate partners to design the apprenticeship experience. Corporate partnerships for apprenticeships and placements include Pantheon, Redfin, acestry.com, HUGE, mixpanel, and Rally.

Check back throughout the year for features on each organization.

Digital life is a deeply personal and highly complex experience for young people. But when it comes to making digital spaces more welcoming or community-oriented, youth state that they remain largely on their own. They feel unable to act, lack the proper resources to do so, or—at worst—are left out of the conversation entirely.

As part of our new Tech and Society program, the Susan Crown Exchange is launching a Challenge: “Youth Voice in the Digital Age.” We are seeking to support programs, initiatives or campaigns that respond to the following question: How can young people inspire their peers to use technology in healthy ways and make digital spaces better for everyone?

Do you think that you or your organization might have a response to this Challenge? Click here to learn more about this funding opportunity!

 

Greater Chicago Food Depository

Interview with Alexandra Funk, Senior Manager of Corporate & Foundation Relations, Greater Chicago Food Depository

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Organization Name 
Greater Chicago Food Depository
Organization Website 
chicagosfoodbank.org
Population Served 
The Food Depository provides food assistance and resources for long-term economic stability to residents of Cook County, IL.
Organization Location 
Chicago, IL
Founding Year 
1978
Organization Mission 
The mission of the Greater Chicago Food Depository is “providing food for hungry people while striving to end hunger in our community.”
Please describe the problem your organization is working to solve and the ways in which your organization’s approach to this work is new or unique. 
Too many of our neighbors need help putting food on their table. Each year, more than 812,000 people in Cook County turn to the Greater Chicago Food Depository’s network for food. Hunger exists in every neighborhood in Cook County. It affects children, veterans, older adults and families. Despite a recovering economy, nearly one-third of Cook County residents live in low- income households. While the need is high, the Food Depository fights hunger every day, in every community.
The Food Depository believes that everyone should have access to the nutritious food they need to lead healthy, stable lives. To that end, the organization works with a network of 700 pantries, soup kitchens, shelters and programs to fight hunger in Cook County. The Food Depository also addresses the root causes of hunger with a foodservice job-training program for underemployed and unemployed individuals called Chicago’s Community Kitchens. It connects low-income families to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and other public programs, provides nutrition education and capacity building resources to a network of partners, and advocates for supportive nutrition policies.
The Food Depository’s network of partners provide food for our neighbors in need and implement programs tailored to serving our community’s most vulnerable populations. Beyond providing food assistance, the Food Depository’s network provides clients with additional access points to connect with supplementary social services, such as housing assistance, workforce readiness training or benefits access, ultimately bolstering clients’ abilities to become financially stable.
The Food Depository knows that fighting hunger is much more than just distributing food. The organization works to provide long-term solutions to end hunger by mobilizing the community’s voice through local, county, state and federal advocacy efforts.
What are some key accomplishments your organization has achieved?
In Fiscal Year 2018, the Food Depository’s network of member agencies and programs distributed more than 69 million pounds of food, one-third of which was fresh fruit and vegetables. Additionally, the network had more than 4.6 million duplicated visits through grocery programs and served nearly 5.7 million duplicated individuals through prepared meal programs.
In its nearly 40 years of operation, the organization has significantly expanded the scale of its operations while enhancing the quality of food distributed. For example, between 2001 and 2018 the Food Depository doubled the total pounds of food provided to those in need. Building on the increased distribution of healthy, perishable food items, the Food Depository is currently finalizing an organization-wide nutrition strategy to promote healthy food choices. This strategy underscores the importance of distributing nutrient-rich foods and supplements food distribution efforts with a variety of nutrition education and outreach resources to promote healthy choices.
At the same time, the Food Depository has recently partnered with large-scale systems to reach more individuals and families where they live and work. The Food Depository has built relationships with schools systems, higher education institutions, healthcare systems, Veterans Affairs hospitals, libraries, community centers, after school and summer programs, senior centers and residential buildings to support its community-driven approach to hunger relief. Key collaborations among the organization’s network of more than 700 community partners include: Cook County Health and Hospitals System (CCHHS), ACCESS Community Health Network, Chicago Public Schools, City Colleges of Chicago, Chicago Public Libraries, Chicago Park District, Chicago Housing Authority and the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities.
What obstacles (either expected or unexpected) has your organization faced and how have you addressed them? 
For nearly 40 years, the Greater Chicago Food Depository has been a trusted leader in our community, providing food for our hungry neighbors. Over time, the need has changed and our programs have evolved. Increasingly, hunger affects children, working families, seniors and people with disabilities.
As the organization strengthens initiatives to serve additional individuals and families, the Food Depository monitors dynamic hunger trends in the community and provides recommendations that will inform future programmatic decisions. For example, the organization recently concluded a study of unmet needs for food assistance among people with disabilities. Key findings led to changes in distribution strategies to eliminate barriers to food access for this vulnerable population. The Food Depository’s Community Impact team is conducting training sessions across the program network on food issues for people with disabilities to raise awareness and improve service delivery.
What current and future trends have you identified in your field? 
The Food Depository will continue to strengthen community partnerships and implement tailored community-driven programming to both increase food access and address the long-term health challenges associated with food insecurity.
What advice do you have for others interested in contributing to positive changes in your field?
Ending hunger takes a community. There are many ways to get involved with the Food Depository’s mission.
Volunteer: Your time, talent and hard work make our daily response to hunger possible. Volunteer groups, families and individuals support our mission in a variety of ways. Volunteers play a crucial role in our work. Groups and individuals are welcome to join us at our warehouse and in the community.
Advocate: Raise your voice and take a stand against hunger. Encourage lawmakers to support policies that provide food for our neighbors in need.
Host a food drive: Collect canned goods at your school, office or event. Organize a virtual food drive and maximize your impact! Every item makes a difference for someone in need of a meal.
How can funders and supporters best help your organization accomplish its goals? 
The Food Depository deeply appreciates the generosity of community members, and cannot end hunger without the support of many. The best ways to help our organization accomplish its goals are by donating time or resources.
The generous support of donors makes an immediate impact on hunger in our community, ensuring the successful implementation of the organization’s hunger relief initiatives in Fiscal Year 2019. General operating investments allow the Food Depository to source and distribute healthy food where it is needed most, ensuring the specific dietary needs of clients from all backgrounds and the consistent availability of items that contribute to a wholesome diet.
The Food Depository’s virtual food drive platform also makes it easy to help Cook County families in need. With just a few clicks, you can purchase nutritious fresh produce and protein, start your own virtual food drive or host a traditional food drive. Thanks to the Food Depository’s wholesale purchasing power we’re able to provide 3 meals for every $1 donated – doubling or even tripling the amount of food your dollar can purchase at a regular grocery store.
The organization maintains a robust volunteer calendar; including twice daily repack sessions in the organization’s warehouse Tuesday through Saturday. These sessions are pivotal to carrying out the mission of the Food Depository, as they utilize the organization’s volunteer base to sort and repack products for distribution through the organization’s network of member agencies and community programs. Typical volunteer activities include gleaning fresh produce for quality and freshness and repacking bulk product such as cereal or rice into smaller portions for distribution.
Learn more here: https://www.chicagosfoodbank.org/get-involved/

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Selected Media Mentions
 
WBBM News Radio, “Newsmaker Making A Difference: Corry Simmons, Chicago’s Community Kitchens”
Chicago Sun Times, “School’s out but free meals continue, thanks to Food Depository’s ‘Lunch Bus’”
Chicago Tribune, “‘I am able to eat because of this’: Produce trucks, farmers markets help solve Southland food deserts”
ABC 7 Chicago, “Greater Chicago Food Depository volunteers key to fight against hunger”