Community to Community Mentoring Program
Esta presentción ha sido seleccionada como finalista del desafío
Improved Nutrition: Solutions through Innovation .
The overall goal of the Community to Community Mentoring Program is to strengthen and expand the efforts of thousands of nonprofit organizations in the United States to ensure that low-income communities have access to the nutritious and affordable food they need to lead active and healthy lifestyles.
Sobre ti
Sección 1: Sobre ti
Nombre
Kelly
Apellido
Kay
Correo electrónico
Website
Organization
WHY (World Hunger Year, Inc.)
Country
Estados Unidos
Sección 2: Sobre tu organización
Nombre de la organización
WHY (World Hunger Year, Inc.)
Sitio web de la organización
Teléfono de la organización
(212) 629-8850
Dirección de la organización
505 Eighth Avenue, Suite 2100, New York, NY 10018
Tu organización es
OSC/ONG
País de la organización
Estados Unidos
tu idea
Name Your Project
Community to Community Mentoring Program
Country your work focuses on
Estados Unidos
Describe Your Idea
The overall goal of the Community to Community Mentoring Program is to strengthen and expand the efforts of thousands of nonprofit organizations in the United States to ensure that low-income communities have access to the nutritious and affordable food they need to lead active and healthy lifestyles.
Website URL
Innovación
What makes your idea unique?
The Community to Community Mentoring Program is unique in that it utilizes a network-building approach to increasing social impact as it relates to the accessibility and affordability of nutritious and healthy foods in low income communities. Harvard Business School professor Jane Wei-Skillern observes that many nonprofit organizations manage their growth by replicating the organization from one site to another and maintaining central control over the new units. ‘A network approach as a deliberate management strategy for nonprofits is still relatively uncommon.’ While WHY has been utilizing a network-building approach since its founding in 1975, the Community to Community Mentoring Project is the first time that the organization will build a network focusing specifically on the issue of food deserts. WHY believes that this approach will be successful as the social, economic and physical problems caused by food deserts are large and complex and are unlikely to be solved by a single entity but rather by a group of organizations working together in a collaborative and supportive manner.
Do you have a patent for this idea?
Impacto
Esta presentación se trata de
What impact have you had?
Founded by the late Harry Chapin and current Executive Director, Bill Ayres, WHY believes that the root cause of hunger is poverty and the root cause of poverty is powerlessness. For the past 35 years, WHY has been working to address the root causes of hunger and poverty by supporting community-based organizations that create self-reliance, economic justice and equal access to nutritious and affordable food. WHY provides information, networking opportunities, access to policy makers and cash awards to community-based groups across the United States. Organizations that WHY works with include Rural Resources, which makes connections between local farmers and community members who want to purchase fresh, nutritious food at affordable prices in Tennessee, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, which represents the interests of low-wage, immigrant farmworkers in southwest Florida and Huerto de la Familia, which assists low-income Latino families in Oregon grow their own organic food. Since its founding, WHY has connected over 112,000 people in need from all fifty states with emergency food providers, government programs and community-based organizations in their neighborhoods, provided capacity building services to over 8,000 community-based organizations across the US and awarded over $700,000 to the most innovative and successful anti-hunger and poverty grassroots groups through the Harry Chapin Self-Reliance Awards. Recently, WHY has started to focus much of its work on the issue of food deserts by forming mentoring relationships between former Harry Chapin Self-Reliance Award winners and new and growing organizations who wish to replicate their services. WHY is currently working with its first Mentor - Just Food (New York, NY), who runs a City Farms Train the Trainers program, which instructs interested parties how to create value-added products, such as honey, community composting and a mobile farmers’ market.
Problem
As many news headlines pointed out this past year, obesity in the United States has become an epidemic. Currently two-thirds of all American adults are overweight or obese. Between 2008 and 2009, adult obesity rates grew in twenty-three states and did not decrease in any single state. With the obesity epidemic comes many physical and emotional health problems, including diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, anxiety and depression.
The economic downturn of the past year has made these problems worse. Many Americans are struggling between paying their rent and putting a healthy meal on the table. Government safety net programs are overextended. Furthermore, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has predicted that food costs will rise 5% in 2009.
Yet, even before the recession hit, 36 million people in the United States were hungry. The causes behind the obesity epidemic and hunger are varied and widespread. However, one clear cause is the lack of availability and/or affordability of healthy and nutritious foods in many communities, towns or cities, otherwise known as ‘food deserts’.
Actions
1. The identification of Mentor organizations through data contained in WHY’s Grassroots Action Network database, Harry Chapin Self-Reliance Award winners, site visits to Grassroots Action Network members and attendance at industry events and conferences. 2. The identification of Apprentice organizations through calls and emails to WHY’s Community Food Referral service and unsuccessful Harry Chapin Self-Reliance Award applications. 3. The organization and facilitation of a one-day workshop on participatory and community-based training approaches and leadership skills for Mentor organizations. 4. The matching of Mentor and Apprentice organizations based on similarity of mission statements, organizational activities, geographic location, etc. 5. The drafting of a plan of action for Mentor and Apprentice relationships, as well as a timetable to achieve results. 6. The provision of support to Mentor and Apprentice relationships through a national network of community-based organizations working to make healthy and nutritious food available and accessible to low-income communities across the United States.
Results
At the organizational level, the Community-to-Community Mentoring Program will result in the enhancement and expansion of programmatic activities of a minimum of ten Apprentice organizations per year. New program activities will be determined by the organizations participating in the mentoring relationship and may vary from the establishment of new farmers’ markets to the implementation of an advocacy campaign to convince school districts to serve free school lunches 12 months of the year. In addition, at least ten Mentor organizations per year will acquire improved leadership, training and technical assistance skills, which may in turn lead to an increase in their programmatic activities. At the regional level, the Community-to-Community Mentoring Program will result in an increase in the number of outlets, strategies and/or policy changes that make healthy and nutritious food more available and accessible to community members. In turn, the availability of fresh, healthy and nutritious food in food deserts across the country will result in the improved health and well-being of community residents over the long-term.
What will it take for your project to be successful over the next three years? Please address each year separately, if possible.
WHY’s Grassroots Action Network and its database puts WHY in the position of being able to make efficient and accurate matches between community-based groups with proven track records in developing and implementing projects that ensure food access to all people and those that are just at the visioning stage or searching for ways to create more resilient programs. The Grassroots Action Network database consists of thousands of community-based organizations working on a local, regional and/or national scope to tackle the problems of hunger and poverty through education, job training programs, micro-enterprise and more. The database includes information on each organization’s location, leadership, range of activities and the populations served. This information is continuously modified and updated through extensive outreach including surveys, conference calls and site visits. The database also includes a calendar of events of seminars, conferences and trainings, relevant publications authored by WHY and other organizations as well as statistics and research. For the past 2o years, WHY has played this matchmaking role frequently on an ad hoc basis. Therefore, it has developed a reputation as a cutting-edge, resourceful and responsive organization in the field.
In addition to buy-in from participating organizations, the Community-to-Community Mentoring Program requires external funding to be successful. As an incentive for organizations to serve as Mentors, WHY will provide $5,000 to the Mentor organization to cover time and expertise. In addition, WHY will provide $10,000 in seed money to the Apprentice organizations. This will allow them to implement new programs, techniques and/or infrastructure gleaned from the Mentor organizations. Finally, WHY will also cover all travel costs related to the mentoring program. Assuming WHY facilitates ten mentoring relationships per year, WHY will require a total of $600,000 to ensure the success of the Community-to-Community Mentoring Program. $200,000 will be needed each of the first three years. Fifty percent of this amount will be used as seed money for Apprentice organizations; 25% as stipends for Mentor organizations; and 25% as travel and administration costs.
What would prevent your project from being a success?
The successful implementation of the Community-to-Community Mentoring Program is based on a number of assumptions, including:
• Strengthening organizational capacity is clearly correlated to the delivery and services of programs that help to eliminate food deserts.
• Our communication and outreach efforts are sufficient for reaching a critical mass of organizations that are working in food desert areas and could benefit from capacity building resources.
• Our marketing and outreach efforts adequately publicize the Community-to-Community Mentoring program.
• Facilitators will be available and willing to participate in designing and implementing portions of the workshop on participatory and community-based training approaches and leadership skills for Mentor organizations.
• The most appropriate representatives from participating organizations attend the workshops.
• Incentives to mentors along with MOUs are sufficient to attract busy leaders of model programs to this role.
• Travel stipends are sufficient and needed to ensure participation from as many different kinds and sizes of organizations as possible.
• Majority of community-based organizations have easy access to the internet on a regular basis.
• Outreach and marketing materials about WHY’s resources are developed and accessible at the workshops.
• Collaborations and partnerships are a viable means in food desert regions for maximizing impact.
Should any of these assumptions prove to be wrong or misguided, then WHY would consider the success of the Community-to-Community Mentoring Project to be in jeopardy. However, by identifying these assumptions, WHY believes it is in a good position to anticipate and address problems that are sure to occur efficiently and expediently.
How many people will your project serve annually?
Más de 10,000
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
$1000 - 4000
Does your project seek to have an impact on public policy?
Sí
Sustenibilidad
¿En qué fase está el proyecto?
Operando menos de un año
In what country?
Estados Unidos
Is your initiative connected to an established organization?
Sí
If yes, provide organization name.
WHY (World Hunger Year, Inc.)
How long has this organization been operating?
Más de 5 años
Does your organization have a Board of Directors or an Advisory Board?
Sí
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with NGOs?
Sí
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with businesses?
Sí
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with government?
No
Please tell us more about how these partnerships are critical to the success of your innovation.
WHY has non-monetary partnerships with hundreds of Non-Governmental Organization and businesses, including members of the Grassroots Action Network and Artists Against Hunger & Poverty program. As described previously, the Grassroots Action Network consists of thousands of community-based organizations working on a local, regional and/or national scope to tackle the problems of hunger and poverty through education, job training programs, micro-enterprise and more. WHY works in partnership with many of its Grassroots Action Network members on specific initiatives in various parts of the country. WHY’s Artists Against Hunger & Poverty Program works with performers to raise awareness and funds for grassroots groups across the country. These partnerships are key to the success of the Community-to-Community Mentoring Program in that the program depends on a small number of community-based organizations to serve as Mentors and Apprentices and may depend on performing artists to raise seed money for the ideas that are generated from the mentoring relationships.
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization?
To grow the Community-to-Community Mentoring program, WHY requires three actions: 1. Outstanding grassroots organizations that are combating hunger in their communities in innovative and unique ways continue with their essential work despite the obstacles placed before them and come together in networks and coalitions to amplify their voices and outreach; 2. Concerned and motivated individuals who see a problem with food access in their communities organize and take action to combat the problem; and 3. Concerned and motivated individuals provide support to WHY and its community partners in the form of time or money in order to ensure the sustainability of the organizations and their projects.
La historia
What was the defining moment that led you to this innovation?
The defining moment that led to WHY, the Grassroots Action Network and now the Community-to-Community Mentoring Program occurred many years ago when Harry Chapin, co-founder of WHY was still alive. Bill Ayres, WHY’s other co-founder and current Executive Director, met Harry when he interviewed him on his radio show. The two men hit it off right away and started discussing the many social issues facing the country. Harry is famous for saying: “Hunger is an obscenity. Hunger in America, the richest country in the history of the world, is the ultimate obscenity.” And WHY was born.
Tell us about the social innovator behind this idea.
A former Catholic priest, William (Bill) Ayres has dedicated his life to listening, healing and helping others while also pursuing his love of music & radio. Along with his close friend Harry Chapin, Bill co-founded WHY, a leader in the fight against hunger & poverty, in 1975. As WHY’s Executive Director since 1983, Bill has raised millions of dollars for the charity, developed progressive policy on Capitol Hill and provided food & long-term solutions to millions of hungry people. In his spare time, he hosts a call-in radio show on WPLJ (95.5 FM) where he has served as a sounding board for over people dealing with issues surrounding self-identity, relationships & spirituality and want to share their stories. In 34 years, he has talked to more than 25,000 callers. He also hosts Community Connections where he has interviewed more than 300 leaders of CBO’s in the NYC area. Finally, Bill is a co-author of All You Need is Love: & 99 Other Life Lessons From Classic Rock Songs.
How did you first hear about Changemakers?
Through another organization or company
If through another, please provide the name of the organization or company
Foundation Center
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 | 119 weeks agoEddie Miller said: Hello, My name is Edward Miller, I'm a student at BU and have been working with the good people at WHY for some time now, on a ... about this Competition Entry. - leer más > |
| 120 weeks agoNaveen Shakir said: On January 18, 2010 the judges reviewed the entries for the Changemakers Improved Nutrition: Solutions through Innovation competition ... about this Competition Entry. - leer más > |
| 121 weeks agoCommunity to Community Mentoring Program has been chosen as a finalist in Improved Nutrition: Solutions through Innovation. |
| 123 weeks agoMary Jean Netario Cruz said: Hi kelly, Great to read we see the sustainability factor of this wisdom. In the initiative of soup of the day for the partner ... about this Competition Entry. - leer más > |
| 124 weeks agoNaveen Shakir said: “Thanks for a great entry! You’ve mentioned in your entry form that you plan on impacting public policy and we would really like to ... about this Competition Entry. - leer más > |
| 129 weeks agoKelly Kay updated this Competition Entry. |
| 129 weeks agoKelly Kay submitted this idea. |