program #411 jericho road roxbury: unique neighborhood, unique partnership
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Program #411 Jericho Road Roxbury: unique neighborhood, unique partnership. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
PowerPoint PresentationProgram #411 Jericho Road Roxbury: unique
neighborhood, unique partnership
Jericho Road Roxbury (JR Rox) creates a bridge between the UU Urban Ministry’s Greater Boston congregations and the nonprofits serving Roxbury by matching skilled volunteers with the needs of community based organizations. Participants will learn about exciting projects underway, participate in a hands-on workshop around cultural competence, and understand how they and their congregations can get more involved.
www.jrroxbury.org
1
Rev. Catherine Senghas, Executive Director UU Urban Ministry, Roxbury, MA
Gail Schoenbrunn, Chair and Jericho Road Volunteer, JR Rox Steering Committee
Karla Baehr, Member and Jericho Road Volunteer, JR Rox Steering Committee
Tony Ibanez, Member First Church Boston UU and JRRox Volunteer
2
Intended Outcomes for this Morning
Know more about the mission of Jericho Road Roxbury (JRRox) and how we organize for success
Learn a bit about what we’ve done so far
Understand how cultural competence plays a part in how successful we can be
Know how you can get involved
Get to know three other participants better
3
Strategy
Approach
5
*First embedded site in an existing nonprofit (UUUM)
6
6
7
An Introduction to Roxbury
Roxbury was one of the first towns founded in the Massachusetts Bay Colony .
During the massive migration from the South to northern cities in the 1940s and 1950s, Roxbury was called “the heart of black culture in Boston”; today it’s a vibrant mix of Caribbean, Hispanic and black cultures
The area declined during social upheaval and urban renewal programs of the ‘60s and ‘70s.
Grassroots efforts by residents and a vibrant nonprofit community have led to Roxbury’s revitalization, but it remains a “work in progress”
8
Our Promise to the Nonprofits of Roxbury
The nonprofits serving greater Roxbury are experts in their respective fields but are often under-resourced. Jericho Road Roxbury recruits volunteers with specific professional skills to tackle or complete projects that help nonprofits build capacity and improve their impact on the community. As a program of the UUUM, which has been in Roxbury for over 30 years, we tap volunteers from Boston area UU congregations and their surrounding communities. There are no deadlines for application, no costs and no bureaucracy. There is one application and one mission: to help nonprofits help our neighbors here in vibrant Roxbury.
9
10
11
Jericho Road Roxbury is bridging our UU community with our neighbors in Roxbury by matching the professional talents of volunteers with the needs of community-based nonprofit organizations serving the greater Roxbury community to promote community development, strengthen social services and put our faith in action.
How we do it
A data migration project for The City School
Financial templates for the Mission Hill Youth Collaborative
A new Policies & Procedures manual for Diamond Girls
Grant research/writing for La Alianza Hispana & Discover Roxbury
13
14
WAITT House is an adult literacy program designed to empower
adult learners with the English and analytical fluency that will help
them realize their potential and improve their lives.
14
15
The Outcome?
The project? Build a robust, easy-to-navigate website for all users: donors, grant writers, students & partners.
A satisfied partner
17
The Family Van provides free preventive health services, health education, and referrals to individuals in under-served neighborhoods.
The Project? A feasibility study to help The Family Van decide whether or not to expand into the Corporate Wellness market. JR Rox volunteers interviewed Family Van advisors, reviewed operations and financing, and investigated the market opportunity to provide services to the local Corporate Wellness market.
The Outcome? The Family Van has a feasible model to improve sustainability and more effectively meet program goals.
“We needed an in depth analysis of this market opportunity and did not have the internal capacity to do it….We can now move
forward based on a clearer understanding of both the
costs and benefits to our organization.”
A satisfied partner
18
The Food Project is a youth development and urban agriculture program based in Roxbury. Its new Executive Director had secured interest from a Harvard program that lends expertise to nonprofits, but needed to revise its vision and mission to be eligible. Under pressure to act quickly, the Food Pantry sought out the help of Jericho Road Roxbury.
Another satisfied partner
The Food Project
Youth. Food. Community
The project? A JR Rox volunteer team led four planning sessions in four weeks for a team of Board, staff and youth.
The outcome? Through dialogue and analysis, the team achieved a consensus on a promising vision statement, established a team committed to making the hard choices required to achieve it, and laid the foundation for putting the vision into practice.
Another satisfied partner
Listen first.
Respect the nonprofit as the expert in what it does.
Don’t think you have all the answers.
Present options, not prescriptions.
Be prepared to do problem solving WITH the nonprofit lead, not try to hand him/her answers.
21
Because intentional relationships require cultural competence,
JR Rox works to support its volunteers with workshops to build competence and confidence
Reading culture: our own and others’
Questions that build relationship, trust & capacity
Culturally responsive listening
22
Please pair up with someone you do not know.
Introduce yourselves by briefly describing your congregation’s social justice /social action work, and then explaining the origin of your own name and what your name means to you.
23
Reading culture: people
Culture is everything we believe and do that identifies us as part of a group and distinguishes us from other groups. Many people think of culture as their race or ethnicity, but we are much more complex than that. Most people belong to several groups and identify strongly with two or three. So when we talk about our culture, we consider all the groups we identify with strongly or from which we derive our identity.
24
Reading culture: organizations
Organizations have cultures, too. Each member knows what behaviors are expected and affirmed within it. By understanding the culture of the organization in which we volunteer, we will be better able to communicate, build trust and manage any tension and conflict with the staff of the nonprofit.
*Distinguish between the nonprofit lead’s personal culture and the
organization’s culture (they aren’t necessarily the same!)
25
Organizational foundation: corporate, government, education or nonprofit
Primary language
Generation
…Entitlements, especially those due to age, gender, race, experience, training and education
…Our own and others’ tendency to over-generalize from a single or small number of examples or experiences
…The value of cultural “congruence”
Is what I say and do respectful of the other’s culture AND authentic to myself?
…Limitations created by our own cultural perspectives
…The importance of offering carefully considered opinions as options, not prescriptions
27
Choose your question type(s) carefully
OPEN questions cause people to talk
CLOSED questions can be answered by yes/no, and are useful to confirm a fact or understanding
FACT FINDING questions focus on what is measurable or observable
OPINION questions ask the person’s opinions; they ask about attitudes and reactions
28
28
29
We need your support:
Serving as your congregation’s JR Rox key contact
Introducing us to nonprofits who might benefit from our support
Helping launch a new site (!)
30
31
Given the history of the Roxbury community, it’s important that Jericho Road not make promises we can’t keep. So we are moving slowly, insuring that we build our pool of volunteers just as quickly as we build our requests for support. You can see here that we have a promising start: from the start we had a good match between nonprofit interests and volunteer skills in 6 areas of high interest to the nonprofits we interviewed during our feasibility stage: board development, event planning, Graphic Design, Marketing & Communication, Photography, and Strategic Planning. We’re short on volunteers in four areas (in red): assessment and evaluation, fundraising, grant writing, and IT. And we’ve got some skills sets that weren’t on the top of the nonprofits early “wish lists” (in gray)
31
The JR Rox “Ride” #1
33
34
35
Stay connected!
Apply to volunteer
present from the pulpit
do a Q&A with your social justice/social action committee
lead a presentation and discussion at or after coffee hour
Ask Tony Ibanez to come to your church for one of his JR Rox “Sunday rides”
36
Questions?
Suggestions?
Wonderings?
Beyond Vietnam (April 1967)
Jericho Road Roxbury (JR Rox) creates a bridge between the UU Urban Ministry’s Greater Boston congregations and the nonprofits serving Roxbury by matching skilled volunteers with the needs of community based organizations. Participants will learn about exciting projects underway, participate in a hands-on workshop around cultural competence, and understand how they and their congregations can get more involved.
www.jrroxbury.org
1
Rev. Catherine Senghas, Executive Director UU Urban Ministry, Roxbury, MA
Gail Schoenbrunn, Chair and Jericho Road Volunteer, JR Rox Steering Committee
Karla Baehr, Member and Jericho Road Volunteer, JR Rox Steering Committee
Tony Ibanez, Member First Church Boston UU and JRRox Volunteer
2
Intended Outcomes for this Morning
Know more about the mission of Jericho Road Roxbury (JRRox) and how we organize for success
Learn a bit about what we’ve done so far
Understand how cultural competence plays a part in how successful we can be
Know how you can get involved
Get to know three other participants better
3
Strategy
Approach
5
*First embedded site in an existing nonprofit (UUUM)
6
6
7
An Introduction to Roxbury
Roxbury was one of the first towns founded in the Massachusetts Bay Colony .
During the massive migration from the South to northern cities in the 1940s and 1950s, Roxbury was called “the heart of black culture in Boston”; today it’s a vibrant mix of Caribbean, Hispanic and black cultures
The area declined during social upheaval and urban renewal programs of the ‘60s and ‘70s.
Grassroots efforts by residents and a vibrant nonprofit community have led to Roxbury’s revitalization, but it remains a “work in progress”
8
Our Promise to the Nonprofits of Roxbury
The nonprofits serving greater Roxbury are experts in their respective fields but are often under-resourced. Jericho Road Roxbury recruits volunteers with specific professional skills to tackle or complete projects that help nonprofits build capacity and improve their impact on the community. As a program of the UUUM, which has been in Roxbury for over 30 years, we tap volunteers from Boston area UU congregations and their surrounding communities. There are no deadlines for application, no costs and no bureaucracy. There is one application and one mission: to help nonprofits help our neighbors here in vibrant Roxbury.
9
10
11
Jericho Road Roxbury is bridging our UU community with our neighbors in Roxbury by matching the professional talents of volunteers with the needs of community-based nonprofit organizations serving the greater Roxbury community to promote community development, strengthen social services and put our faith in action.
How we do it
A data migration project for The City School
Financial templates for the Mission Hill Youth Collaborative
A new Policies & Procedures manual for Diamond Girls
Grant research/writing for La Alianza Hispana & Discover Roxbury
13
14
WAITT House is an adult literacy program designed to empower
adult learners with the English and analytical fluency that will help
them realize their potential and improve their lives.
14
15
The Outcome?
The project? Build a robust, easy-to-navigate website for all users: donors, grant writers, students & partners.
A satisfied partner
17
The Family Van provides free preventive health services, health education, and referrals to individuals in under-served neighborhoods.
The Project? A feasibility study to help The Family Van decide whether or not to expand into the Corporate Wellness market. JR Rox volunteers interviewed Family Van advisors, reviewed operations and financing, and investigated the market opportunity to provide services to the local Corporate Wellness market.
The Outcome? The Family Van has a feasible model to improve sustainability and more effectively meet program goals.
“We needed an in depth analysis of this market opportunity and did not have the internal capacity to do it….We can now move
forward based on a clearer understanding of both the
costs and benefits to our organization.”
A satisfied partner
18
The Food Project is a youth development and urban agriculture program based in Roxbury. Its new Executive Director had secured interest from a Harvard program that lends expertise to nonprofits, but needed to revise its vision and mission to be eligible. Under pressure to act quickly, the Food Pantry sought out the help of Jericho Road Roxbury.
Another satisfied partner
The Food Project
Youth. Food. Community
The project? A JR Rox volunteer team led four planning sessions in four weeks for a team of Board, staff and youth.
The outcome? Through dialogue and analysis, the team achieved a consensus on a promising vision statement, established a team committed to making the hard choices required to achieve it, and laid the foundation for putting the vision into practice.
Another satisfied partner
Listen first.
Respect the nonprofit as the expert in what it does.
Don’t think you have all the answers.
Present options, not prescriptions.
Be prepared to do problem solving WITH the nonprofit lead, not try to hand him/her answers.
21
Because intentional relationships require cultural competence,
JR Rox works to support its volunteers with workshops to build competence and confidence
Reading culture: our own and others’
Questions that build relationship, trust & capacity
Culturally responsive listening
22
Please pair up with someone you do not know.
Introduce yourselves by briefly describing your congregation’s social justice /social action work, and then explaining the origin of your own name and what your name means to you.
23
Reading culture: people
Culture is everything we believe and do that identifies us as part of a group and distinguishes us from other groups. Many people think of culture as their race or ethnicity, but we are much more complex than that. Most people belong to several groups and identify strongly with two or three. So when we talk about our culture, we consider all the groups we identify with strongly or from which we derive our identity.
24
Reading culture: organizations
Organizations have cultures, too. Each member knows what behaviors are expected and affirmed within it. By understanding the culture of the organization in which we volunteer, we will be better able to communicate, build trust and manage any tension and conflict with the staff of the nonprofit.
*Distinguish between the nonprofit lead’s personal culture and the
organization’s culture (they aren’t necessarily the same!)
25
Organizational foundation: corporate, government, education or nonprofit
Primary language
Generation
…Entitlements, especially those due to age, gender, race, experience, training and education
…Our own and others’ tendency to over-generalize from a single or small number of examples or experiences
…The value of cultural “congruence”
Is what I say and do respectful of the other’s culture AND authentic to myself?
…Limitations created by our own cultural perspectives
…The importance of offering carefully considered opinions as options, not prescriptions
27
Choose your question type(s) carefully
OPEN questions cause people to talk
CLOSED questions can be answered by yes/no, and are useful to confirm a fact or understanding
FACT FINDING questions focus on what is measurable or observable
OPINION questions ask the person’s opinions; they ask about attitudes and reactions
28
28
29
We need your support:
Serving as your congregation’s JR Rox key contact
Introducing us to nonprofits who might benefit from our support
Helping launch a new site (!)
30
31
Given the history of the Roxbury community, it’s important that Jericho Road not make promises we can’t keep. So we are moving slowly, insuring that we build our pool of volunteers just as quickly as we build our requests for support. You can see here that we have a promising start: from the start we had a good match between nonprofit interests and volunteer skills in 6 areas of high interest to the nonprofits we interviewed during our feasibility stage: board development, event planning, Graphic Design, Marketing & Communication, Photography, and Strategic Planning. We’re short on volunteers in four areas (in red): assessment and evaluation, fundraising, grant writing, and IT. And we’ve got some skills sets that weren’t on the top of the nonprofits early “wish lists” (in gray)
31
The JR Rox “Ride” #1
33
34
35
Stay connected!
Apply to volunteer
present from the pulpit
do a Q&A with your social justice/social action committee
lead a presentation and discussion at or after coffee hour
Ask Tony Ibanez to come to your church for one of his JR Rox “Sunday rides”
36
Questions?
Suggestions?
Wonderings?
Beyond Vietnam (April 1967)