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Little Red Door was in a period of substantial expansion. We had just wrapped up a year-long multi-million dollar renovation of our building which was accompanied by an expansion of programming that represents nearly ten times the service hours as we had pre-renovation. Having an Ally placement here to help us navigate the first year of transition, as we piloted the new programming for post-renovation, was invaluable to us. I have no idea how we would have managed the expansion without the extra coordination provided by our Ally.

Thanks to the program innovation, piloting, and evaluation work of our Ally, the LRD programs schedule now contains nearly 40 hours of programming per week, where pre-Ally we were conducting 11 hours of programming per week. We improved and expanded existing programs and piloted and eventually established four brand new programs.

Cancer Support Community of Central Indiana became a partner with the goal of growing Latino Family Night to reach survivors and caregivers in need of services. Their Ally, Kyara Mendez Serrano, recruited new volunteers to help with programming and created a Latino Family Night Volunteer Manual to ensure the program can be sustained. CSCCI ultimately hired a part-time staff member to continue the work of their Ally, sharing that “after [Kyara’s] hard work, we don’t want to backslide.”

You can learn more about Kyara’s work with Cancer Support Community of Central Indiana here.

Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority (IHCDA) wanted to develop a Community Housing Development Organization (CHDO) Working Group in order to hear from those partners and utilize their feedback to better align policies and technical assistance provided by IHCDA. Thanks to the efforts of their Ally, Judy Denby, the CHDO Working Group now consists of 8 organizations from across Indiana. To support the members of the CHDO Working Group, Judy created various nonprofit tools, such as a nonprofit self-assessment, board matrix, and a board of directors’ survey, in an effort to assist the organizations with capacity-building.

Judy’s supervisor shared, “IHCDA will use all the materials developed by Judy in future CHDO Working Group meetings and, most importantly, will be continuing the Working Group. …The Working Group helped in providing transparency and education to partners which is vitally critical to the overall success of the program.”