COMMON GROUND CONSULTING LLC

Creating Jobs for Young Americans

From our friends at Mobilize.Org

Unemployment in the Millennial Generation reaches record highs while we face record student loan debt, predatory lending practices that lead to huge credit card debt, and rising healthcare costs - if we can afford it in the first place. News this week underscores the staggering dilemma:

“In recent months, only one in six black teen males has worked, and only 52 percent of 20- to 24-year-old black men held any type of job.” -- Boston Globe Op-Ed, April 22

In response to these startling statistics and the stories coming from our friends and colleagues across the country, Mobilize.org has joined the Student Association for Voter Empowerment, the Roosevelt Institution, Voto Latino, the Hip-Hop Caucus, Generation Engage, Advocates for Youth, Future Majority and many more to form the coalition:

We’re building a movement of Millennials to identify policy solutions to this problem and work at the grassroots level to make them happen by:

• Convening a Democracy 2.0 Summit of Millennials in Washington, DC to discuss this problem and propose solutions.

• Developing federal policy positions based on the Summit participant's recommendations so that they come from the grassroots not inside DC.

• Building a grassroots coalition that truly reflects and empowers the Millennial generation to build an economy that support Democracy 2.0.

Join us this Friday, and every Friday, in #FollowFriday on Twitter. Confused? Don’t worry, we’ll explain: we work together on Twitter to promote Mobilize.org and 80 Million Strong. Find detailed instructions on our website and Tweet today with:

@mob_org @80MS #FollowFriday

Twitter is just one option; join our Facebook group or stay tuned to www.mobilize.org for updates and email us if you’d like to find out how you can get involved.

Happy Global Youth Service Weekend!

Global Youth Service Day is the largest annual service event in the world. GYSD highlights and celebrates the difference youth make in their communities year-round through community service and service-learning. This weekend, millions of young will participate in and lead service projects in all 50 states and in more than 100 countries around the world. Young people, working with their families, schools, community organizations, faith-based communities, and businesses, will improve their communities and change the world by addressing critical issues such as global climate change, education & illiteracy, poverty, health, hunger, and homelessness.

Ways to Get Involved:

Find a GYSD project near you. If you participate in a project, take plenty of pictures and videos to upload to Flickr andYouTube.

Find volunteer opportunities and serve with young people you know. Take time to thank a young person you know who serves.

Read YSA President & CEO Steve Culbertson's letter to the editor in USA Today (Harness Energy of Young People to Serve Others), GYSD News on ServiceWire, or sign up for news & updates from YSA.

Spread the word about the importance of youth service to your community. Write your own letter to the editor or a letter to your local elected officials. Find contact information here. Post updates on Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter. (Use #GYSD as a tag.)

Join us online on our new youth social networking site hosted by Miley Cyrus to stay up to date on future service opportunities.

Culture, Youth

Celebrate National Volunteer Week!

The 2009 National Volunteer Week theme, Celebrating People in Action, captures the meaning behind this signature week: honoring the individuals who take action and solve problems in their communities. This celebratory week will also focus national attention on the impact and power of volunteerism and service as an integral aspect of our civic leadership. Established in 1974 by former President Richard Nixon, National Volunteer Week has grown exponentially in scope each year, drawing the support and endorsement of all subsequent U.S. presidents, governors, mayors and other respected elected officials, as well as corporate and community groups across the country.

Youth

Earth Day

Each year on April 22nd, Earth Day marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970. The Earth Day Network was founded on the premise that all people, regardless of race, gender, income, or geography, have a moral right to a healthy, sustainable environment.

Their mission is to broaden and diversify the environmental movement worldwide, and to mobilize it as the most effective vehicle for promoting a healthy, sustainable environment. They pursue their mission through a combination of education, public policy, and consumer activism campaigns. Their campaign and programs are predicated on the belief that an educated, energized population will take action to secure a healthy future for itself and its children. Earth Day Network has a global reach with a network of more than 17,000 partners and organizations in 174 countries. More than 1 billion people participate in Earth Day activities, making it the largest secular civic event in the world.

Among other things, 1970 in the United States brought with it the Kent State shootings, the advent of fiber optics, "Bridge Over Troubled Water," Apollo 13, the Beatles' last album, the death of Jimi Hendrix, the birth of Mariah Carey, and the meltdown of fuel rods in the Savannah River nuclear plant near Aiken, South Carolina -- an incident not acknowledged for 18 years.

It was into such a world that the very first Earth Day was born.

Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, proposed the first nationwide environmental protest "to shake up the political establishment and force this issue onto the national agenda. " "It was a gamble," he recalls, "but it worked."

At the time, Americans were slurping leaded gas through massive V8 sedans. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of legal consequences or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. Environment was a word that appeared more often in spelling bees than on the evening news.

Earth Day 1970 turned that all around.  

On April 22, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment. Denis Hayes, the national coordinator, and his youthful staff organized massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values.

[From History of Earth Day | Earth Day Network]

Environment, Health, Politics

President Obama Nominates CNCS CEO

In today's news, President Obama signed the landmark Serve America Act, expanding and reauthorizing the Corporation for National and Community Service's programs including AmeriCorps, VISTA, and SeniorCorps. There are a number of new provisions in the bill that may be of great interest to youth serving organizations. A summary of the Act can be found on the Corporation for National & Community Service (CNCS) website.

Also, the President has named a nominee to head CNCS. The following is a news release this morning from Nicola Goren, Acting CNCS CEO:  

"Dear Colleagues, I’m very pleased and excited to announce that President Obama has announced his intention to nominate Ms. Maria Eitel to serve as the Corporation’s new CEO. Ms. Eitel currently serves as the president of the Nike Foundation and as a vice president of Nike Inc.

As the foundation’s first president, she has led an initiative to increase opportunities for the world’s most disadvantaged girls. Prior to that role, Ms. Eitel served as Nike’s first vice president for corporate responsibility, beginning in the late 1990s. Before joining Nike, she served as European corporate affairs group manager for Microsoft, and before that, at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and MCI Communications Corp.

From 1989 to 1992 Ms. Eitel served in the White House as deputy director of media relations, and later as special assistant to President George H.W. Bush for media affairs. She is a graduate of McGill University and received her Masters of Science from Georgetown.

Please click here to read the official White House announcement, which includes more detail. Of course, we still have the Senate confirmation process ahead of us, and that will take time, but I’m confident that we will accomplish great things together. Please join me in congratulating Maria Eitel on her nomination!

In Service, Nicola Goren Acting CEO Corporation for National and Community Service"

Politics, Youth

Comprehensive Guide to Youth Funding Opportunities

Attached below is a Resource Directory full of grants (public and private), resources, useful monthly e-updates to join, grant writing tips, some of the leading non-profits in America, other interesting links and much, much more.

It was created by our friend Scott Peterson who left OJJDP a couple of years ago and is now the National Director of Criminal and Juvenile Justice at YouthBuild USA & International. Check it out:

Funding Resource Guide.doc

Youth

Act Gives College-Loan Forgiveness for Public Service

College Cost Reduction and Access Act goes into effect July 1

The College Cost Reduction and Access Act (CCRAA) of 2007 created two new federal programs: a new Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and a new Income-Based Repayment (IBR) plan for the repayment of federal loans. The new Income-Based Repayment plan helps to make repaying education loans more affordable for low-income borrowers, such as an AmeriCorps member living on a stipend. AmeriCorps service is also recognized as equivalent to a public service job for the purposes of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, under which student debt is forgiven after 10 years of public-service employment.

CCRAA goes into full effect on July 1, 2009. The law opens up public service as a career choice to thousands of graduates burdened with loan repayments.

• For more information about CCRAA and further explanations of qualifications for public-service employment, please explore the free online resource center created by Equal Justice Works, a nonprofit organization that creates summer and postgraduate public-interest opportunities for law students and lawyers. To visit Equal Justice Work's online resource center, click here.

• The Corporation for National and Community Service has information and resources available online to answer questions about the benefits in CCRAA for AmeriCorps members. To find out more, click here.

Youth

Building a Sustainable Future - Vancouver, WA ~ May 15, 2009

The Evergreen and Reynolds School District, along with the Mentoring Resource Center (MRC) proudly present Building a Sustainable Future for Organizations In the Real World (Thriving, Not Just Surviving), presented by expert trainer, Craig Bowman.

Who: Evergreen staff, Reynolds staff, local community groups, members of the community, regional mentoring grantees and non-grantees

What: Building a Sustainable Future for Organizations In the Real World (Thriving, Not Just Surviving)

When: Friday, May 15, 2009 (Registration/check-in begins at 8:30 am; Training from 8:45-3:15 pm)

Where: Fisher Landing Transit Center, Rose Besserman Room, 3510 SE 164th Avenue, Vancouver, WA

Map: http://www.rtc.wa.gov/meetings/maps/fisherslandingtc.htm

Cost: No charge.

Contact person for the day of the event is: Judy Walseth; 253-307-6229

**Please note that lunch will be provided. We will have a working lunch.

TRAINING DESCRIPTION:
The morning will concentrate on the economics of trust: sustainability in the real world and moving people with your message. This session will explore the impact of actively building and leveraging quality relationships as a tool for sustainability in our social profit organizations.

In the afternoon we will learn about sustainability and about asking people for the resources we need to do it. This session is not just for management. The skills taught in this workshop will help you find new and creative ways to identify and recruit volunteers and most importantly, raise all the money your program needs to both survive and thrive.

Learning Objectives:

- Define the trust factor in practical real world situations
- Recognize the impact of low trust relationships in terms of sustainability
- Recognize the connection between self-awareness and your work
- Track passion and trust rather than money in measuring successful giving strategies
- Describe the major reasons that people give and continue giving
- Understand essential paradigm shifts necessary for raising money from individuals

ABOUT THE PRESENTER:
For 19 years, Craig Bowman and his firm, Common Ground Consulting, LLC™ have been providing world-class consulting services for community-based, national, and international social profit organizations. As a leading social sector futurist, Craig has spent his career developing a philosophy of learning and management that harnesses passion and trust as a bridge between human potential and social responsibility. He provides valuable advocacy, management and fund development training; offers executive-level one-on-one coaching and board development; addresses diversity and multicultural organizational development issues; teaches beginners and advanced courses in facilitation skills and curriculum development; leads strategic new media communications efforts; and specializes in the creation and implementation of youth and community development programming strategies. He is an expert in organizational assessment, development, and management issues; and has provided on-site technical assistance and capacity building to social sector organizations in the U.S. and abroad.

Craig’s efforts have largely centered on organizational development consulting and the design and delivery of high-quality, interactive, non-formal education and training. The majority of this work has focused on assisting organizations and businesses in developing and implementing mission critical goals and the systems necessary for high productivity and the efficient use of resources. He is also an internationally-recognized expert on youth policy, youth development, and youth health issues (particularly HIV/AIDS prevention).

TO REGISTER, click the link  below.

[MRC Training Registration Form- Vancouver, WA ~ May 15, 2009]

Youth, Youth

Appointment of White House Office of Social Innovation Head Confirmed

It’s now official: Sonal Shah, former head of global development at Google.org, the search-engine company’s philanthropic arm, is head of the new White House Office of Social Innovation.

Shin Inouye, a White House spokesman, today confirmed Ms. Shah’s appointment—which has not been formally announced, although it is an open secret in nonprofit circles. (See The Chronicle’s background article about the new office.)

Mr. Inouye said the new office will fall under the Domestic Policy Council, a body that coordinates domestic policymaking in the White House and is headed by Melody Barnes. He said he could not give further details as the office “has not been rolled out yet.”

[Read More Appointment of White House Office of Social Innovation Head Confirmed - Philanthropy.com]

Politics, Youth

National Foundation Grant Announcements: Youth Mentoring

There are many new fundraising resources available these days. Click the link below for more.

Women Helping Others Foundation
Accepting applications for grants from the for programs that serve women, children, and families. Preference will be given to projects dealing with health, education, and social services. Organizations must have total budgets of less than $3-million; government or United Way funding must be less than 30 percent of income; and salaries, wages, and benefits must make up less than 50 percent of the total budget.
Contact: WHO Foundation P.O. Box 816029, Dallas, Tex. 75381; (800) 946-4663; (972) 458-0601 http://www.whofoundation.org/Funding/WHO_AppForm.asp

William T. Grant Foundation
Letters of inquiry regarding grants for research on social environments that affect the daily lives of youths ages 8 to 25 and how those settings can be improved, and the use of research evidence in public policy that affects young people. On average, grants range from $100,000 to $600,000 each over two or three years. Additional information is available on the foundation's Web site. Who may apply: researchers at nonprofit organizations classified as tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code or the equivalent for entities outside the United States.
Contact: Nancy Rivera-Torres, WTGF 570 Lexington Avenue, 18th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10022; (212) 752-0071; fax (212) 752-1398 [email protected]; http://www.wtgrantfoundation.org/info-url5243/info-url_show.htm?doc_id=6...

Ameriprise Financial Community Relations grants:
http://www.ameriprise.com/about-ameriprise-financial/company-information...
Grants will be awarded to nonprofits working to provide resources to at-risk populations, support community development, and conduct volunteer projects with Ameriprise employees, advisors, and retirees
Posted on June 7, 2009
Deadline: September 1, 2009

[See More Grant Opportunities Here: National Foundation Grant Announcements | A Place to Discuss Youth Mentoring ]