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Girl’s Inc. of San Antonio (GISA) came to Public Allies San Antonio with the goal of increasing the capacity in their Bold Futures Initiative, which aims to “teach girls to be resilient despite difficulties that may come their way.” GISA had recently been awarded a grant that required GISA to deliver Bold Futures Initiative programming to a minimum of 50 girls from two targeted schools in the San Antonio Independent School District and Houston Independent School District.

GISA recognized that reaching and delivering 50 girls, and delivering the 50 hours of program delivery and 48 hours of mentoring required in the Bold Futures Initiatives would be a challenge, so they partnered with Public Allies San Antonio in order to, “. . . expand into new areas and give girls the opportunity we didn’t see possible give our staff limitations.”

One of the Allies placed with GISA was Laura Del Fiero, who aimed to help establish and facilitate new partnerships for the Bold Futures Mentoring Project at partnering campuses. In reflecting on Laura’s contributions to GISA during her term of service, GISA Program Director Sherry Cook shared, “Our Ally Laura was instrumental in allowing us to expand this program into new areas through partnership, and give girls the opportunity that we didn’t see possible. She exceeded expectations and went above and beyond to learn how we could connect to a new school partner and community.” In fact, Laura did such a great job with GISA that upon graduating from Public Allies she accepted a position as Program Facilitator with GISA.

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.”