Collaborations

Connections | Systems | Place

The Dwight Stuart Youth Fund believes in the power of connecting and collaborating with like-minded organizations to help drive change in the nonprofit sector. Our Partnerships enable us to engage with organizations whose mission is to provide tools and resources to nonprofits in the Los Angeles area. Our Place-Based Initiatives provide opportunities to create a bigger impact as a result of organizations coming together around a common purpose or cause.

PARTNERSHIPS
PLACE-BASED INITIATIVES

PARTNERSHIPS

Alchemy Gold
Alchemy Gold reflects the Annenberg Foundation’s commitment to working with and enlisting other funders to make sustained investments in nonprofit capacity building. A network of regional grantmakers gather quarterly to learn, share and strategize about practices that strengthen the nonprofit sector of Los Angeles. The Dwight Stuart Youth Fund, along with other grantmakers have participated in Alchemy Gold since it began in 2010. Collectively, these funders have provided capacity-building grants (up to $10,000 each) to Alchemy+ graduates. Alchemy+ is the higher level course for graduates of Leadership Seminar who want to take their learning further. Among the central issues addressed are fundraising, board governance and effectiveness, financial literacy, and developing a strong case for support.

annenberg.org
Arts Ed Collective
The Arts Ed Collective came together to ensure sustainable funding partnerships for arts education throughout Los Angeles County. Collective members include foundations, corporations and government agencies whose giving philosophies support the vision of Arts for All: that every public school student in Los Angeles County will receive a high quality K-12 education of which the arts are an intrinsic part of the core curriculum. Members pool their resources and collectively decide how funds should be allocated to support the implementation of the Arts for All goals most effectively.

Arts Ed Collective supports and connects school districts and arts organizations working to advance quality arts education for the County’s 1.6 million public school students. The initiative strengthens school districts’ efforts to implement arts instruction through policy development, strategic planning, and grants to improve teaching and learning, support for learning communities, advocacy, research and partnership building. Sixty-two school districts and three charter school networks have joined Arts Ed Collective to date, and an average of five new school districts join annually. Maintaining this pace, Arts Ed Collective expects to reach full scale, serving all 81 school districts in Los Angeles County, by the year 2020.

The Advancement Grant Program offers school districts matching grants of up to $25,000 to undertake activities that address key priorities for arts education. Responsive to districts’ needs and scalable to Arts Ed Collective’s growth objectives, the Advancement Grant Program is a key tactic in efforts to provide services that will help school districts build the infrastructure to deliver quality arts instruction to students Countywide.

lacountyartsedcollective.org
Center for Nonprofit Management
The Center for Nonprofit Management’s (CNM) Nonprofit Leadership Development Program is designed to help emerging leaders to advance into executive director roles by building the leadership skills of individuals in senior staff positions at nonprofit organizations operating in and around South Los Angeles. Working closely with their current executive director and a CNM coach, they use the course as a learning lab, working through a specific project to improve their current organization, and apply their newly acquired skills in real time, using the coaches and trainers as advisors throughout the course. The course is unique in that it begins with understanding an individual’s leadership style and then revisits that theme as participants move through managing their team and building external relationships with board members and other stakeholders. Typical topics include new paradigms of leadership, diversity training, managing change, strategic partnerships, leveraging relationships, effective communications, and sustainability.

Dwight Stuart Youth Fund subsidizes registration fees for emerging leaders focused on youth serving organizations.

cnmsocal.org
City Scholars® Foundation
Since 2007, the Dwight Stuart Youth Fund has been supporting the City Scholars® Foundation, which trains, coaches, mentors, connects and inspires a growing network of non-profit CEOs to transform the lives of thousands of inner-city youth helping them become inner-“City Scholars®,” prepared for college, career and community leadership.

As demand increases and resources shrink, non-profit CEOs engaged in a uniquely challenging and often lonely job need more than a heart for helping low-income youth to keep the lights on and the doors open. To inspire, challenge, equip and encourage both established and emerging non-profit CEOs (particularly those leading organizations with operating budgets less than $1 million) to lead well with limited resources, the Foundation sponsors its City Scholars® Fellowship, an innovative leadership learning community.

Formally nominated and rigorously vetted, City Scholars® Fellows come together monthly (January – October) each year to learn and share best practices, discover creative solutions to common challenges, cultivate strategic partnerships and collaborations, and inspire and hold each other accountable to measurably improve educational opportunities and outcomes for the over 69,000 predominately low-income youth they currently serve throughout the five-county Greater Los Angeles region. Through the Fellowship, non-profit CEOs build skills, confidence and relationships they need to grow the education non-profits they lead from survival to success to significance.

Leveraging its trademark curriculum, The CEO ESSENTIALS™, as a common leadership language connecting all Fellows regardless of leadership experience, organization size or Fellowship tenure, the Fellowship combines:
- Education – Monthly Fellowship Roundtables and Power Lunches (small-group deep dives)
CEO ESSENTIALS Topics: Strategic Leadership, Board Development, Staff Development, Program Development & Evaluation, Financial Leadership, Marketing & Communications, Fundraising & Resource Development, Strategic Planning and Personal Leadership Sustainability
- Coaching – 1:1 Executive Coaching and Leadership Mentoring
- Networking – Monthly Impact Celebrations with executives, entrepreneurs, educators, grantmakers and community leaders
cityscholars.org
Communicating for Results!
Dwight Stuart Youth Fund has been funding the Communicating for Results! training program for its grantees since 2011. The program was developed by Cause Communications as a capacity building program to meet the needs of nonprofit organizations that show a readiness for growth but find themselves behind the curve when it comes to communications in today’s information landscape.

The training curriculum is made up of group training sessions and customized one-on-one coaching, and incorporates multi-media resources (causeclarity.org). The group trainings provide an overview of topics such as how to create a strong core message and how to identify key audiences. The training also instructs the organizations on how to develop their own customized communications plan. One of the most compelling aspects of the group trainings is the opportunity for peer learning among the nonprofits. When each group has a chance to hear the challenges and successes of other groups and brainstorm solutions together, they are reminded they’re not alone and are often inspired to reach new levels of engagement and impact in their own communications.

The one-on-one coaching is also an essential part of the training. This ensures that the participants make time to work through their homework assignments and worksheets. Coaching also provides timely strategic counsel on their most pressing communications challenges including feedback on copy and design for brochures and websites, advice on fundraising events and media opportunities, and even support on navigating challenges with internal staff, board members or volunteers. Each participant knows they have a communications professional who is dedicated to helping them when they need it the most.

DSYF grantees that have participated in Communicating for Results! have gone on to secure major fundraising gifts and grants, reprioritize their communications activities to better support organizational goals, refresh communications platforms like websites and print materials with consistent branding and messaging, and align their communications strategy with both internal resources and ambitious plans for the future.

hersheycause.com
Executive Service Corps
Founded in 1981, Executive Service Corps of Southern California’s (ESC) mission is to strengthen nonprofits through affordable coaching, consulting and capacity building provided by experienced executives who volunteer their services. ESC’s corps of 107 executive-level consultants serve about 125 client projects annually, helping local nonprofits. Through tailored services, ESC helps nonprofits achieve outcomes such as boosting and diversifying fundraising, expanding programs, strengthening board engagement, developing staff leadership skills, and ensuring financial sustainability.

ESC’s Custom Cohort for Youth-Serving Organizations, created in partnership with the Dwight Stuart Youth Fund, provides a value-added service for organizations whose programs benefit and serve the needs of children and youth in the greater Los Angeles area. Combining one-one-one coaching with peer learning-based workshops on relevant nonprofit management topics, ESC’s custom cohorts enhance the effectiveness of participating organizations.

escsc.org

Liberty Hill Foundation
Liberty Hill’s Agenda for a Just Future provide grants to grassroots organizations, provide support to community coalitions working to achieve these goals, enter into groundbreaking public-private partnerships that are quickly moving government dollars into the community, and provide capacity-building services to ensure that partners are prepared to take on these challenges.

Ready to Rise (R2R) builds the capacity of youth development organizations serving high-needs youth. Liberty Hill and partners are at the forefront of the effort to create a comprehensive youth development system to help youth who face barriers to education and the workforce get back on the path to high school graduation, college and/or career, and is integrated, measurable and accountable. Such a system – rooted in the community; culturally, gender and age appropriate; and based on best-practice pathways to success – connects youth with a continuum of services that address their needs, reduces youth arrests and equitably improves outcomes for youth and communities. Launched in February 2019, R2R initiative is a public/private partnership with Los Angeles County and the California Community Foundation. R2R is a first-of-its-kind model that expedites the transfer of public funds to community providers.

www.libertyhill.org/how-we-work/partnerships/ready-to-rise/
Project Grantsmanship
Project Grantsmanship was developed in 2007 as a partnership of the Annenberg Foundation, the California Community Foundation, and the Dwight Stuart Youth Fund. Its purpose is to strengthen community-based organizations in Los Angeles County by training their leaders to: 1) plan more effective programs, 2) produce compelling grant proposals, and 3) collaborate with peer organizations.

The partner organizations underwrite up to 90% of the tuition for eligible nonprofit representatives to attend the Center’s five-day Grantsmanship Training Program, a comprehensive, hands-on workshop. Participants are trained in the full grant development process – from researching funding sources to writing and reviewing grant proposals – through individual exercises, small group projects, and lectures. Participants are also provided with 12 months of follow-up support, including proposal reviews and access to GrantDomain, the Center’s database of funders.

The 2020 Project Grantsmanship has scheduled two Grantsmanship Training Programs – April 20-24 and August 3-7.

tgci.com
The Nonprofit Center at Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Los Angeles
The mission of the Nonprofit Center of Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Los Angeles is to provide capacity building to strengthen individual leaders and community-based organizations as well as the larger movement towards improving quality of life for low-income and immigrant communities in Los Angeles. The subject areas in which the Nonprofit Center provides capacity building include the following: financial management, budgeting, general leadership, general management, board development, operational management, human resource management, fund development, communications, advocacy, demographic data and research, as well as conflict management, leadership for diversity and inclusion, and developing a multicultural organization.

Since 2013, the Center expands on its existing services to assist youth serving groups as well as engage in work with new agencies. The Center conducts a capacity building needs assessment with each agency and then provides in-person trainings, follow-up coaching, and mentoring. The services that partner groups will receive includes budgeting, risk management advice, human resources, information technologies, proposal development and board development. Partner groups also have access to development, financial and management staff for mentoring.

advancingjustice-la.org
The Nonprofit Partnership
Moving Toward Sustainability (MTS), piloted by the Dwight Stuart Youth Fund since 2004 and implemented by The Nonprofit Partnership (NNP), is a specially designed sustainability program that allows nonprofit leaders to engage in a facilitated, customized, step-by-step course of organizational assessment and the development of a strategy for achieving greater financial strength and sustainability. MTS allows nonprofit organizations the opportunity to participate in a robust sustainability planning process which engages board of directors and key staff to allow for a greater likelihood of success. To ensure that these carefully thought out plans aren’t forgotten, the implementation phase takes the plan “off the shelf” and moves the organizations from planning into action. With the funder offering matching support to implement a portion of the plan, organizations are able to begin to work towards sustainability immediately.

Over the course of nine months, MTS helps organizations focus and take action in seven key areas of sustainability: Leadership, Fund Development, Financial Management, Programs and Services, Strategic Planning and Evaluation, Constituency Development, and Marketing and Communications. It also provides the opportunity to work with colleagues from other organizations in a peer learning environment which fosters collaboration, more expansive thinking, and strengthens collaborative relationships.

thenonprofitpartnership.org
Taproot Foundation
Since 2009, Taproot supports Dwight Stuart Youth Fund grantees by providing them with Service Grants, which are six-month pro bono consulting projects that build their capacity and enhance their ability to meet the needs of underserved children and youth in Los Angeles. They use a rigorous process to ensure that an organization receives the right capacity building project at the right time. The Service Grants are made in the areas of Marketing, Information Technology, Leadership Development & Strategic HR, and Strategy Management. Service Grants are implemented by a team of up to five volunteers who each contribute five hours per week over the six-month engagement, and managed by senior volunteers, called Account Directors, who receive oversight from Taproot Foundation. By giving business professionals the opportunity to apply their skills to social change organizations, Taproot Foundation provides the framework for successful cross-sector collaborations.

taprootfoundation.org
Valley Nonprofit Resources
Since 2007, Valley Nonprofit Resources (VNR), based at California State University Northridge, has been providing information, education and technical assistance to the more than 5,300 nonprofits in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, including youth development organizations in the Valley. VNR specializes in services for small and mid-sized nonprofits. From its inception VNR has collaborated with Dwight Stuart Youth Fund.

A main emphasis of VNR’s work for 2020-2021 is on strategies for nonprofits to use as they recover from the coronavirus pandemic, so they can operate more effectively and sustain themselves for the difficulty times ahead. The VNR Recovery Initiative includes educational workshops, information on the website, and technical assistance consultation.

csun.edu/valley-nonprofit-resources

Alchemy Gold

PLACE-BASED INITIATIVES

Liberty Hill Foundation, Ready to Rise Initiative

Liberty Hill’s Agenda for a Just Future provide grants to grassroots organizations, provide support to community coalitions working to achieve these goals, enter into groundbreaking public-private partnerships that are quickly moving government dollars into the community, and provide capacity-building services to ensure that partners are prepared to take on these challenges.

Ready to Rise (R2R) builds the capacity of youth development organizations serving high-needs youth. Liberty Hill and partners are at the forefront of the effort to create a comprehensive youth development system to help youth who face barriers to education and the workforce get back on the path to high school graduation, college and/or career, and is integrated, measurable and accountable. Such a system – rooted in the community; culturally, gender and age appropriate; and based on best-practice pathways to success – connects youth with a continuum of services that address their needs, reduces youth arrests and equitably improves outcomes for youth and communities. Launched in February 2019, R2R initiative is a public/private partnership with Los Angeles County and the California Community Foundation. R2R is a first-of-its-kind model that expedites the transfer of public funds to community providers.

Ready to Rise 2020 Annual Report

www.readytorise.la/

Hollywood Homeless Youth Partnership

The Hollywood Homeless Youth Partnership (HHYP) is a strategic alliance of six youth-serving agencies working to prevent and reduce homelessness among youth and young adults in Hollywood through: 1) service impact; 2) training and capacity building; 3) research and evaluation; and 4) policy and advocacy. The agencies of the HHYP provide a full continuum of care including outreach, drop-in, emergency shelter, transitional living, supportive apartments, mental/physical health, substance abuse treatment, life skills, and education/employment services. The member agencies of the HHYP include: Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Covenant House California, LA LGBT Center, Los Angeles Youth Network, My Friend’s Place, and Step Up on Second.

hhyp.org

Hollywood Homeless Youth Partnership

Connections | Systems | Place

PARTNERSHIPS

PLACE-BASED INITIATIVES

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