In order to understand the context of many of my future
blogs it is important to try to explain the reason why Public Allies exists,
give an overview of its humble beginnings, and its unprecedented successes not
in teaching people to lead organizations but in empowering people to lead
communities.
Public Allies was and continues to be entirely a leap of
faith taken by people concerned about social problems.
Public Allies began two decades ago at a woman’s information
network gathering where the vision of two young women, Vanessa Kirsch and
Katrina Browne, spearheaded a program that would quickly evolve into a national
model AmeriCorps program invested in 23 U.S. cities including Chicago, Detroit,
Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Washington D.C., San Antonio, and of course,
Phoenix, AZ. Their goal was to disprove the negative sentiment that young
people in the 90s were slackers and gangsters. They sought to prove, if young
leaders had the skills to recognize assets, bridge differences, and facilitate
community members and groups, they could be a catalyst for reviving communities
from the bottom up.[1] After
that night both women set out to form Public Allies, the rest became history.
The vision of Public Allies was that if we empowered youth through
full time work experience in the community – integrated with intensive
training, community building experience with a diverse cohort, team service
projects where young leaders could set and accomplish goals together, personalized
coaching, and critical reflection – the result would be the development of
leaders who would not only succeed in positively transforming their communities,
but could effectively change the face of leadership.
That vision stands as true today as it did then. Today Public Allies celebrates two decades of unprecedented growth and success. We continue to use the original
core program model which launched the first site on September 1992 in Washington D.C.
thanks to the major grants from the Echoing Green, MacArthur, AtlanticPhilanthopies, W.K. Kellogg, and Surdna Foundations. Our Allies (participants of
the program) are diverse individuals from the communities and neighborhoods
they serve. They are people that demonstrate the passion to change their
communities over the long term, not just in a year of “giving back.” They are
placed in paid, full-time apprenticeships with non-profits, where they create,
improve, or expand services to meet local needs.
In Phoenix, our Allies focus in the areas of education,
homelessness, and healthy futures. They are ages 18 to 30, over 67% are
people of color, and 53% are college graduates. Allies are of and for our
local community, and they share a deep commitment to strengthening the entire
Valley of the Sun. More than half of Alumni continue a career in the
nonprofit and public sectors, and about 85% of Alumni say they would
participate again if they could. Partner organizations report that their work
with an Ally can increase their capacity by more than 30%![2]
Since 2006, Public Allies Arizona has been a partner program
of the Arizona State University Lodestar Center for Philanthropy &Nonprofit Innovation. My position is as Project Specialist is focused in alumni
relations, programing, recruitment, and logistics. I love the unique
perspective I continue to develop from this position. It allows me to see into foundations
of early leaders interested in impacting change in innovative ways as diverse
as their backgrounds. As a student of the intersection of public service and
public policy I couldn’t as for a better place to practice my work and embody
my research.
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