The Beat
Subscribe to RSS FeedEvery nonprofit leader dreams of having flexible funding: Money that’s not tied to a particular grant project or the organization’s day-to-day operations. Money that could be used to make the organization better than ever.
If you had such a windfall, would you know what to do with it?
The folks at Nonprofit Finance Fund, which makes loans to nonprofits, think you should ponder that question. And they’ve coined a term for flexible funding that works double duty by making a change in the way an organization does business and by ensuring that the change sticks.
“Change capital” is money you use to change how you do what you do, says the fund’s Craig Reigel. Even better: Change capital, as Reigel and his colleagues define it, pays for itself.
“If people have a vision of how an organization can operate that is different from what they’re doing today, and if they can see a model that will be sustainable,” he says, “they can benefit from change capital.”
Reigel says organizations have used change capital to:
- Hire a fundraiser for a year. In a year, fundraisers should be able to cultivate donors, start to raise money in the community, and basically pay their own salaries.
- Develop or refine a program and research its effectiveness. Proving effectiveness can help you in applying for additional funding to implement the program.
- Merge two organizations. During mergers, staff time and legal fees can add up, but by merging resources, two separate organizations may operate more efficiently, so it’s a more sustainable business model in the end.
- Launch a new technology. There may be start-up costs associated with buying or learning a new technology, but using it may help an organization become more competent or cost-effective.
If organizations can identify these types of changing needs and show how their organization is poised to address them, they’ll be ahead of the curve when approaching potential funders, says Danielle Yates, who manages marketing and communications at Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, a coalition of funding organizations.
“Some organizations are afraid to identify changes for funders because they’re afraid they’ll lose their funding,” Yates says, “but they shouldn’t see those changes as failures.” Instead, frame changes in your organization’s environment as opportunities for making bold moves.
When talking to a potential funder about change capital, Reigel and Yates say, do the following:
- Be intentional about the funding. Be clear about what money will pay for existing services you already offer and what will pay to expand and grow the program.
- Be clear about what kind of change funders can expect to see. Set realistic expectations about goals and how you will measure them. Overpromising can damage a relationship with a funder.
- Ask if existing restricted funding could be more flexible if a funder doesn’t have more money to give.
- Have a thorough understanding of how much money you’ll need after the initial investment. Draft a detailed plan for how your organization will be able to sustain the changes you make.
More on change capital
“All flexible funding is not created equal: GOS, capacity building grants and change capital”
Know any young people looking for a job? If you work with youth, the answer is probably yes. Young Americans today face record unemployment.
To help young people get jobs, earn wages and build skills that will make them more competitive in the job market, the Department of Labor is working with businesses and non-profits across the country to launch the Summer Jobs+ Bank, a White House initiative. The bank allows businesses to register new jobs in a searchable directory that young people can use to find work in their communities.
You or your youth can get started by searching the job bank right now! Just use the form below:
More from NCFY about youth employment
Read about a Seattle corporation's internship program for at-risk youth.
Follow one young man's experience as an intern at a youth-serving agency.
Chris Molinelli calls it “a happy accident.” In September, his Middletown, NY, youth shelter, A Friend’s House, received a 3 a.m. call from a young man who needed emergency housing. “He met all our criteria, but we couldn’t get him transportation,” Molinelli says.
Frustrated by that missed opportunity, Molinelli knew there had to be a way to help youth in similar situations. One of his partner organizations helped run a local after-hours hotline for homeless adults and families. Clients only had to dial 211 to access services. Molinelli set out to bring A Friend’s House under the 211 umbrella as a primary resource for homeless youth, and he achieved that goal on April 1.
By following Molinelli's lead and including your program in a local 211 network, you can connect your organization to other social services and make it easier for youth to contact you.
The 411 on 211
211 was founded by the Federal Communications Commission in 2000, and now nearly 90 percent of the United States has a 211 service, managed by the United Way. Trained screeners answer every call and can connect callers to everything from unemployment services to soup kitchens, child care to senior resources. Calls are free, confidential and anonymous, and most 211 lines are open 24 hours a day.
Linda Daily, who directs 211 and disaster services for United Way Worldwide says that each local 211 has comprehensive databases of health and human services organizations in its geographic service areas. Listed services include runaway and homeless youth shelters, domestic abuse facilities, and maternity group homes.
“Our regional offices do their best to keep up to date with new service providers,” Daily says, but to make sure your organization is included in the local directory, call 211 or go to 211.org and enter your zip code. You’ll be connected to your local branch, where staff can begin the process of adding you.
Streamlined Intake
“Used to be, when a youth wanted to get in touch with A Friend’s House, they’d call our shelter,” Molinelli says. “But now they can call 211 and begin the intake process. The call is free from any phone, and they can call after hours, too.”
By the time youth make it to A Friend’s House, Molinelli and his colleagues already have a lot of the essential information they typically only get through intake. “We of course have our own screening and intake process,” Molinelli says, “but the 211 operator is trained to ask things like, ‘Are you safe?’ ‘Are you pregnant?’ ‘Have you tried any other services?’”
Additionally, 211 is a safe, relatively anonymous number for those youth who are in abusive relationships. They are also equipped to reconnect with dropped calls in case a youth has to hang up or loses the connection.
Spreading the Word
Now that their relationship with 211 is established, Molinelli and his colleagues are at work creating flyers to advertise the service.
“Our outreach workers will go out and give them to homeless school liaisons and grocery stores,” he says. “We’ll be postering everywhere we know homeless youth go. The goal is to put them up in schools, convenient stores—anywhere a youth might run to.”
More Articles About 211
This post on the National Alliance to End Homelessness blog talks about communities where calling 211 is the first step for anyone experiencing homelessness.
This article shows the relationship between A Friend’s House and 211 in action.
Managing money can be one of the toughest skills for young people to learn as they transition to adulthood. We spoke to Karen Chan, creator of All My Money, a hands-on curriculum emphasizing money management skills for people with limited financial resources. In this two-part series, we share Chan’s tips on teaching young people about spending, saving and making good money choices.
Learning to live on what they earn and not overspend is the most important money-management concept for youth, Chan says. It’s also the most challenging for them to learn. For one thing, she says, the cost of very basic living today is beyond the income that many young people can expect to earn, at least in the short-term.
And when young people just start out earning money, it’s easy for them to have unrealistic expectations of their income and what they can afford. Youth workers can help young people set a budget and figure out how to stick to it.
Six Steps to Making a Monthly Budget for Youth
- Have young people track their expenses for a month so they can see where their money goes. Include even small expenses. Be as complete and accurate as possible so you can help set a realistic budget.
- Ask young people to divide their expenses into needs (expenses that are unavoidable) and wants (expenses that could be cut if necessary). Help young people make a list of their regular, unavoidable expenses and the dates they must be paid. That way, they’ll never miss a payment.
- Help young people figure out their weekly or monthly income. Include full- or part-time jobs, odd jobs and other earnings.
- Explain the importance of savings, and help youth open a bank account. Talk about what they might want to save money for in the long term: a car, college, a home. Explain how checks work and how banks operate. Be sure to mention interest payments and possible service charges.
- Have young people also set some short-term spending goals. Help them figure out how much money needs to be set aside in the budget to meet their goals, like buying a new bike or cell phone or paying the deposit for a new apartment.
- Finally, help young people prioritize their expenses. Encourage them to put saving for their long- and short-term goals at the top of the list. Then have them list the rest of the expenses, in order of preference. If they run out of money before they run out of items on their list, the things at the bottom get cut.
Bean Counting Game
It might be hard for young people to wrap their minds around budgeting at first. Chan suggests playing a simple game with beans. Give young people a certain number of beans, which represents their budget for the week. Game cards represent different expenses. Young people must make decisions about budgeting and what they can afford to buy.
In the middle of the game, their budget is reduced, they lose some of their beans, and they have to create a new budget. They have to decide what to do next.
Chan says you can use this activity to start discussions about decision-making, the need for trade-offs, what’s important to each individual, and needs versus wants.
More Information
All My Money is a train-the-trainer program for staff and volunteers in community agencies and social service organizations. For more information, email Karen Chan at chank@illinois.edu.
For more financial education resources, check out the Jump$tart Coalition Clearinghouse.
What Do You Think?
How do you teach youth to live within their means? Email us and let us know.
"The Protective Effect of Family Strengths in Childhood against Adolescent Pregnancy and Its Long-Term Psychosocial Consequences" (PDF, 885 KB). The Permanente Journal, Vol. 14, No. 3, Fall 2010.
What it's about: This study examines how family strengths, such as closeness, support, loyalty, protection, love, and responsiveness to healthcare needs, may protect teens from getting pregnant, having risky sex and dealing with other psychological and social problems. The researchers surveyed over 4,000 young women about childhood abuse, substance abuse in the home, domestic violence, mental illness and other family problems during the first 18 years of their lives.
Why read it: Previous research suggests that positive childhood experiences protect young women from becoming pregnant as teens. However, not many studies have considered how these strengths may buffer against the problems teens may face, such as family money problems or divorce. This study looks at the interplay between the positive and the negative factors that affect teen girls.
Biggest take away for youth workers: The more family strengths girls had, the less likely they were to become pregnant or have long-term psychosocial problems. Girls who had problems at home especially benefited from having family strengths. Other findings include:
- Teen girls with communicative families and supportive parents started having sex at a later age, had fewer sex partners, and were more likely to use condoms than their peers.
- Some of the same benefits teen girls receive from family strengths can also be achieved by attending youth programs that build competence and confidence through supportive relationships not only with parents but also with peers and mentors. These relationships may fulfill a need for closeness otherwise sought through sex.
- Youth development program efforts that build family strengths in childhood are likely to promote teens' positive choices related to women's health that last many years.
The authors suggest that youth workers talk to young women to find out their family strengths as well as the bad experiences or circumstances they may have had at home. Knowing a young woman's background can help youth workers understand why girls make certain decisions or take risks when it comes to sex.
Additional reference: The Child Welfare Administration Gateway’s resource page on protective factors explains what individual and family strengths are and provides tools youth workers can use to measure young people's strengths.
(Publications discussed here do not necessarily reflect the views of NCFY, FYSB or the Administration for Children and Families. Go to the NCFY literature database for abstracts of this and other publications.)
This winter, runaway and homeless youth programs funded by the Family and Youth Services Bureau were given the chance to win the materials to paint a mural in their facilities. Here are the essay and artwork submitted by the first place winner, the Colorado Rural Collaborative Youth Leadership Team.
What is the Colorado Mural Project?
Each year the month of November is "National Homeless Youth Awareness Month." Agencies across the nation hold events and host rallies to raise awareness in their communities about this ongoing problem. The month's events include proclamations signed by local government officials, youth-driven projects seeking to bring the public's attention to this issue, and the Green Light Project (in which green lights are used to light up front porches and bring attention to this problem).
Colorado has a special committee consisting of many youth-serving agencies across the state that congregate once a month to plan for the month of November. Each year one of the priorities is choosing a youth project to impact the public and help raise awareness. This year the Colorado Rural Collaborative Youth Leadership Team led the project. The theme for November 2011 was "Making the Connection." The project would highlight "Making the Connection" symbolically by combining tiles from nine different youth-serving agencies in one large and powerful composition. The Mural Project invited youth-serving agencies from across the state to participate. Two of the nine selected were our own Youth Leadership Teams from the Supportive Services for Runaway and Homeless Youth Demonstration Project: Garfield and Montrose Counties.
Agencies as far as the Western-slope, Denver and Pueblo in the south participated in this statewide collaboration. Each agency was given a digitally sketched portion of a larger composition which they had to enlarge to a 3'x3' tile. The youth groups across the state chose any medium and article style to render their tile, while keeping the original composition in mind. The completed three-foot squares were then submitted to the SSRHY Project Specialist, Amanda Cleveland of Urban Peak Denver and the Colorado Rural Collaborative. Amanda facilitates monthly meetings via conference call with the six Rural Youth Leadership Teams of the Colorado Rural Collaborative to coordinate projects like the mural contest. The final work was displayed during the Denver Kickoff Event, November 4, 2011, on the Santa Fe Art District First Friday Artwalk, which was attended by thousands of people. Youth leaders from both Montezuma and Garfield County were there to promote awareness of homeless and runaway youth, pass out literature and green lights, and talk about the mural project's symbolic meaning. The mural then moved to the Colorado State Capitol building for nine days.
The mural represents several important things:
- Positive Youth Development, because youth led the project
- November being National Homeless Youth Awareness Month
- The Green Light Project
- Imagery of homeless youth
- Colorado (a map of the state is faded into the very background layer of the composition)
- The theme of Making the Connection, because youth from across Colorado created the tiles in their communities, and once the tiles came together the whole composition created a resonating message of collaboration being a key element of success
Additional 2012 Winners:
Mural Contest Second Place Winner: A Lifeline to Those in Need, Sea Haven Transitional Living Program Junior Advisory Team, in Horry County, SC
Mural Contest Third Place Winner: Tree of Life, Growth and Change, Sasha Bruce YouthWork in Washington, DC
"A Family Intervention to Reduce Sexual Behavior, Substance Use, and Delinquency Among Newly Homeless Youth." Journal of Adolescent Health, Vol. 50, No. 4, April 2012.
What it’s about: Support to Reunite, Involve and Value Each Other, or STRIVE, is a five-session, in-home program that aims to repair homeless youths’ relationships with their families. Researchers wanted to see how well the intervention worked at keeping homeless 12- to 17-year-olds from having risky sex, using drugs and getting in trouble with the law. Each STRIVE session uses cognitive-behavioral theories, which help families learn better problem-solving and conflict-resolution skills.
Why read it: Researchers have found a number of programs, curricula and practices that improve the education, employment, family relationships and health of at-risk youth in general. But few studies have specifically investigated the effectiveness of these interventions when used with homeless youth. This study adds to the small but growing list of “evidence-based” interventions proven to work well with homeless youth.
Biggest takeaways for youth workers: Compared to a control group, youth who participated in STRIVE had fewer sex partners, were less likely to use hard drugs, drank less and got into less trouble with the law for at least a year after the sessions ended. The study was limited to families that were only moderately dysfunctional, however. Youth in the study couldn’t be away from home for longer than six months and had to have the option of moving home. Young people in the study also couldn’t be under the influence of drugs, have an untreated mental health condition, or suffer from ongoing abuse or neglect. Nonetheless, the authors see their results as a good start and an indication that other ways of engaging the parents of homeless youth could have long-term benefits.
Additional reference: View this recent PowerPoint presentation from a webinar by the National Alliance to End Homelessness and the Center for American Progress to learn about another family intervention specifically for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth, the Family Therapy Intervention Pilot. The issue brief "Reconnecting At-Risk and Homeless LGBTQ Youth with Family" also describes this intervention, which is set to be evaluated in November of this year.
(Publications discussed here do not necessarily reflect the views of NCFY, FYSB or the Administration for Children and Families. Go to the NCFY literature database for abstracts of these and other publications.)
In February, the Guttmacher Institute released “Facts on American Teens' Sexual and Reproductive Health,” a survey of over two-dozen recent studies and publications on the topic of adolescent sexual behavior. This is the first such survey from the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit that promotes sexual and reproductive health, since 2009.
Laura Lindberg, a senior research associate at Guttmacher, spoke with NCFY about the report’s implications for youth workers and organizations that aim to prevent teen preganancy.
NCFY: Can you summarize the general trends in teen pregnancy and contraception?
LINDBERG: The major trends are first, a decline in teen pregnancy over the last two decades. It’s been declining relatively steadily since a high in 1991. And second, there has been a slight delay in the onset of sexual activity—that is, teens are waiting longer to have sex. I use the word “slight” because, for example, 15 and 16 year olds tend to be waiting until they’re 17 to have sex, but by age 19 there’s been little change. They’re not waiting until they get married or even until they’re 25.
Even more dramatic is the increase in contraception use over the last twenty years. It’s an extraordinary social change [to see this many] adolescents using contraception. A large portion of that shift is a rise in condom use. So we need to remember that when we talk about teen pregnancy prevention, teenage boys are playing a large role in this. Over this same time, access to condoms and the social messaging around them have changed dramatically.
NCFY: What practices or policies seem to have created these trends?
LINDBERG: Certainly, HIV education. As a society, in the mid-80s and early-90s we started talking about HIV in a public way—a way that sex had never been discussed before. Teens in 2010 might not be concerned about AIDS, but the whole cultural environment had been changed. We had to talk with teens about sex. As a result, many topics of discussion—including condoms and safe sex—have been de-stigmatized.
As for the delay in sexual behavior, we’ve seen a greater emphasis on talking to teens about waiting until they’re ready. There’s a greater understanding that sex is part of developmentally appropriate maturity.
NCFY: According to the fact sheet, “Seventy percent of male teens and 79% of female teens report talking with a parent about at least one of six sex education topics.” What can youth workers take from this, assuming many of their clients won’t have these kinds of discussions at home?
LINDBERG: The research shows that when parents talk with teens about sex, what’s important is that they share their values, not just a specific piece of information. And the Adolescent Health Survey points to the importance of teens’ relationships with caring adults, which don’t necessarily have to be parents. When there’s some adult that a youth feels connected to, that’s someone they might take information and values from.
Youth workers have the potential to be that connected adult in teens’ lives, or to bring youth into contact with those people. Additionally, youth-serving programs provide an alternate forum—besides the family, besides school—to supplement and fill in gaps that teens aren’t getting in these other places. Some teens learn better in different environments. If they didn’t learn something in school, or didn’t learn it at home for whatever reason, maybe they will learn in a more youth-focused setting.
More From NCFY
We looked at ways to prevent teen pregnancy in "The Exchange: A New Push for Teen Pregnancy Prevention."
Q. A young person who was staying in our emergency shelter for homeless youth recently passed away. We’ve offered counseling and support to youth. But our staff is still reeling and having trouble coping. How can we help them deal with their grief?
A. First, please accept our condolences. No matter the circumstances, the death of a young person is shocking and tragic.
You’re right to worry about your staff. When a client of a social services agency dies, it’s normal for staff members to go through waves of hurt, anger, depression, shock, denial and guilt, says Brandon Hunt, a professor who teaches human services at Pennsylvania State University. “Any of the ‘stages of grief’ are all normal reactions,” he says.
Youth workers dealing with a client’s death may also have “reactive behaviors,” he says, like lashing out at their clients, feeling depressed and having difficulty getting through day-to-day tasks.
You can help by empathizing and encouraging your employees to take care of themselves, Hunt says. Advise them to keep living their lives and doing the hobbies that interest them. Tell them how important it is to eat breakfast each morning, get a good night’s rest and just generally stay in good health. Suggest that they might want to write their memories of the deceased youth in a journal.
You can take more formal steps, as well. Joey Lopez recalls the death 12 years ago of Ali Forney, a young client of what was then the Safe Space Center, a runaway and homeless youth program in New York. Lopez, an outreach worker who still works at the center (since renamed the Ali Forney Center), says the organization took a number of steps to help staff members cope with the devastating loss.
Youth workers learned of Forney’s murder at an emergency staff meeting, where they could lean on each other for support. Then the center arranged for grief counseling at an outside agency, so staff members, if they chose to visit, could work through their feelings about the death. Staff also was told they could take as much time off as they needed to grieve. And the center had an “open door policy,” which meant staff could discuss their feelings about Ali’s death at any time with anyone else on staff.
Lopez says the end goal is to “process it, go through the feelings, and not let it affect your job.” That may be easier for some staff members than for others, but the more you support your staff, the easier it will be for them to navigate this difficult time.
More Information
NCFY has written about how staff of youth-serving agencies can avoid burnout.
Wouldn't it be nice to have one central source to find what works in education? The U.S. Department of Education thought so and created the What Works Clearinghouse. Staff reviewed thousands of studies on hundreds of education programs, products, practices and policies. They identified as many reliable sources as possible. Then, they organized them in a searchable online database. When you visit the clearinghouse website you can
- Use the Find What Works tool to search for interventions (educational programs, practices, or policies) that address academic achievement, dropout prevention, personal and social development, language development, reading and writing, and math and science.
- Search by topic, such as career readiness and college access, school choice, student behavior and special needs students.
- Find research studies reviewed by the clearinghouse and original publications about education practices that have been studied.
