If the drive toward diversity makes so much sense, why is actually achieving diversity so hard?

These webinars were created for programs promoting adolescent sexual health, but draw on universal communications strategies and share important advice for all nonprofits.

It’s funny how often the variable that determines a program’s success isn’t a “best practice” at all. It’s how a given activity is actually done in real time, in an actual community, over many days, weeks and months, by the particular cast of people doing it.

About 10 years ago, we started hearing from our direct-service colleagues that the girls in their programs were facing new pressures to look and act in sexual ways. While children in state care had always been at higher risk of sexual abuse than other kids, with all the attending behavioral fallout, it seemed like something new was happening. Something in the culture, perhaps.

Healing a system is not very different from healing an individual; it starts with awareness.

‘I’m 14 and dating a 35-year-old. My mom called the cops on me and not the dude.’

These stories shifted my focus from “What does our agency need that volunteers can give us?” to “What do I sit in my office just wishing someone would do for my clients once in a while?”

These teens have made more than $285,000 in grants to over 70 nonprofit organizations in Worcester County, MA. Find out how in this 2017 podcast.

Good news! A rigorous evaluation shows that your program works. Now what? This Q & A dives into how one developer marketed her new evidence-based program.

‘When you ask teens to develop content for their peers, the tendency is for them to regurgitate the same finger-wagging messaging that has been targeted at them for so long. Part of what you need to do with teens is teach them how to effectively reach their peers by generating messaging that is appealing, not alienating.’

With all the very best intentions and for the best possible reasons, most of us routinely use phrases that aren’t helpful in telling the story of the work we do and the people we help.

In the 1970s, our field barely existed. Now it does, because we built it. And we’re not simply fumbling along, doing our best. We’re being effective. There’s incalculable power in that.

If you’ve ever brushed up against the US Census, you know that these folks are collectively known as “Pacific Islanders.” So they’re one race, ethnicity, and culture, right? Wrong. Well, they’re essentially the same, right? Wrong.

In 1981, when I received my masters from Harvard Divinity School, our class of soon-to-be poorly paid pastors, community organizers, theologians and activists found ourselves marching into Harvard Yard right next to the soon-to-be handsomely paid graduating class of Harvard Business School.

Pets are non-threatening, they give unconditional love, they boost everybody’s self-esteem. I was just reading notes children had written in a second-grade class I work with. One note said, ‘Maj-En gives me his paw. Maj-En loves me.’

One look at her page and I could see that Savannah wasn’t a pudgy 10-year-old in pigtails any more. She was a pretty, if somewhat hard-looking, teenager. But I could still see the little girl underneath.

Like the rest of the neighborhood, the orphanage experienced daily power failures and water shortages. Their biggest current need, our tour guide told us, leading us through a dim and barren common room, was soap. We asked for clarification. Some special kind of soap? A medicinal soap? Just soap, he told us.

In the first episode, we meet the mom-to-be, a regular, fresh-faced girl from some small town in Kentucky or Texas or South Dakota. Somehow she’s gotten five months pregnant, and everyone — family, friends, boyfriend, the girl herself — still seems a little dazed.

If you’re saying ‘I’m so busy I can’t deal with volunteers,’ then you actually need the help of volunteers.