2010 Continued Learning Grantees

The Capacity Building Fund (CBF) has awarded Continued Learning grants of $25,000 each to the following networks. These 12- to 18-month grants support co-learning projects designed to increase organizational capacity and progress towards shared learning goals. The ultimate outcome of this work is to help the groups more profoundly impact their respective communities.

These grants will also provide an opportunity for TSNE to deepen its learning of knowledge-based capacity building through collaboration and share best practices, as well as drive success of the learning networks/circles with the wider community.

Roxbury Cultural Network (RCN) is comprised of organizations dedicated to celebrating, promoting, and preserving the rich cultural heritage of Roxbury. Facilitated by their initial CBF Implementation Grant these diverse agencies worked together to:

• Determine how to create a strategic marketing plan that describes Roxbury using an asset-based approach;
• Increase the capacity of the individual organizations, formalize the organizations’ collaboration; and
• Benefit the neighborhood of Roxbury by restating its rich cultural assets, break down barriers and draw in cultural participants.

Since the previous grant cycle ended, the RCN has grown in size and scope resulting in new challenges that have been identified and will be addressed through a structured process which includes:

• A series of facilitated workshops; and
• Implementation of a coordinated marketing and promotion strategy using current resources and new ones to be identified. This will be based on learning from the workshop series and structured evaluation and revision of RCN’s practices based on their learning.

With the Continued Learning grant, the network’s goal is to acquire a deeper knowledge of how to improve and maintain audience engagement, enhance promotion and marketing efforts, increase effective collaboration within the RCN, integrate Roxbury into wider tourism initiatives, and measure their community impact.

Network Members*: Discover Roxbury, ACT Roxbury, Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, Unitarian Universalist Urban Ministry at the First Church in Roxbury, Franklin Park Coalition, Haley House Bakery Café, National Center of Afro American Artists, Roxbury Heritage State Park/DCR, Savant Project, Shirley-Eustis House

*New to the original network: Unitarian Universalist Urban Ministry at the First Church in Roxbury, Franklin Park Coalition, Haley House Bakery Café, and the Savant Project

Hands Across North Quabbin is comprised of community-based organizations, institutions, faith-based organizations, school systems and service agencies. The network’s original goal was to understand how to change the civic culture to one of collaboration across differences, mutual respect, and a commitment to solving community problems effectively and civilly.

Through their initial Implementation Grant, the network developed vision and mission statements that underlie and inform all its activities and learning to develop a civic culture in the North Quabbin region that encourages and supports projects in which all community members work together, address community needs, and make mutual collaboration a way of life in the region.

Moving forward this network will employ a three-year Campaign for Community Collaboration that strives to bring together community residents and institutions to focus on the five pillars of a healthy and sustainable civic culture. (The pillars will be determined throughout the process.)

During the first phase of the campaign each of the six institutional partners will engage in three main activities: publicly supporting the Campaign; instituting or reaffirming organizational policies that reflect a commitment to a collaborative stance; and conducting or participating in activities or projects that serve to build one or several of the five pillars of a fully functioning civic culture, and modeling collaborative principles.

Network Members*: Athol Royalston Regional School District, Ralph C. Mahar Regional School, Orange Ministerial Association, Athol Lions, Hands Across North Quabbin, Athol Area YMCA

*New to the original network: Athol Area YMCA

The project on Leadership Development by the Mass Council of Family Serving Agencies is comprised of the organizations’ executive directors who seek to build on the conclusions from the original capacity building grant. This continuation project will strive to maintain the core learning in the executive director peer group committed to using a common leadership development assessment tool to provide a common language and concepts to discuss the agencies’ strengths and areas of potential improvement.

The executive director and board leadership of each agency will discuss the implications for their agency, targeting areas of improvement and strategies relevant to them. Training or consultation will be available to each agency to advance their goals as part of the grant, and follow-up assessments will occur using the Leadership Assessment tool. Each agency applies concepts of leadership and board development relevant to their organization and circumstances, as opposed to imposing a generic model of leadership to all the agencies. Each Executive Director will bring back to their organization information and ideas from the discussion at the Executive Directors’ monthly meetings.

Network Members*: Family Service Association, Jewish Family Service of the North Shore, Inc., Family Service, Inc., Jewish Family Service Metrowest, Inc., Family & Children's Service of Greater Lynn, Inc., Mental Health Association of Greater Lowell, Inc., Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center, Inc., Jewish Family Service Rhode Island

*New to the original network: JFS Rhode Island

The Sharon Pluralism Network (SPN) is made up of diverse faith-based organizations, churches, community-based organizations and institutions, and the public schools. They have joined together to take steps toward creating a sustainable model of pluralism in Sharon, Mass. During the initial funding period these organizations established a working structure for SPN and clarified its mission and goals.

Strategies were developed to raise awareness of the value of pluralism within individual organizations and in the Sharon community. SPN sponsored community programs to foster genuine encounter, dialogue, and relationship-building among the diverse religious, ethnic, and cultural groups in Sharon. These programs were well-attended, received broad support and helped foster connections among Network Partner (NP) organizations.

Supported by a CBF Continued Learning grant, the SPN will become more fully integrated within the infrastructure of the town offices and diverse communities, and will explore ways to facilitate equitable leadership and ownership among the NPs. To ensure that all parties will continue to invest in this group’s mission and goals and to guarantee its sustainability, the network will refine its model of partnering to establish stronger commitments from NPs.

Network Members: Interfaith Action, Inc., Sharon Adult Center and Council on Aging, Sharon Community Youth Coalition, Sharon Interfaith Religious Leaders, Sharon Public Library, Sharon Public Schools, Sharon Recreation Department, Sharon Community Center

Strategic Planning to Increase Food Access in Springfield is comprised of community-based organizations connected by their goal of enhancing service delivery to reduce hunger in the Mason Square section of Springfield. Mass. This is a neighborhood impacted by disproportionate hunger, poverty and food- nutrition-related illnesses.

Through their original implementation process, the organizations learned how to create information sharing network, conduct external mapping, needs assessment, and how to collectively leverage resources and develop fundraising practices. Through their efforts, they were able to highlight opportunities to share resources and reduce duplication of services and competition in fundraising.

The Continued Learning grant will support efforts to expand coordination efforts city-wide. Moving forward, through the development of a city-wide learning group, the project will provide a structured for colleagues from across Springfield to meet on a regular basis with the common goal to improve strategies, partnerships and coordination of initiatives focusing on food security, nutrition, and reducing hunger. Specifically, this project will create a strategic plan to guide the goals and activities throughout the city around food and nutrition, and develop a framework for a collective response to growing needs for increased food access in Springfield.

Network Members*: The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts , Gardening the Community, Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center, New North Citizens Council, Inc., Partners for a Healthier Community, Live Well Springfield, Springfield Partners for Community Action

*New to the original network: Gardening the Community, New North Citizens Council, Inc., Live Well Springfield