Our Learnings

This is a sample of our learning. We are a learning organization with consultants who strive to learn from each other, our clients, and our research and to use that knowledge to provide better services for you.

 

Strategic Planning

National Association of State Community Services Programs has worked with Mary Virtue over the years to develop several three to five year strategic plans that are short and goal oriented.  They guide the annual work planning process and offer a frame in with NASCSP can assess a rapidly changing environment. 

Pew Center on the States is re-assessing a core program area. Virtue and Halsey are guiding a planning process that reaches out to practitioners in the field and internal and external experts to design a high impact program that meets the needs of the states for accurate information and best demonstrated practices that lead to documented cost savings.  

 

Organizational Discovery and Facilitation

Mary Virtue is gathering Lessons from Shifting Sands - an Arts, Culture and Community Development Initiative. This five year initiative, managed by Partners for Livable Communities, supported projects conducted by locally grounded institutions. These projects actively engaged community members to define and shape their communities, addressing the challenges they were facing as neighborhoods in transition. This paper will be completed in Spring 2010 and will be available on this website and at www.livable.com.

 

Tools and Resources

Mary Virtue working as The National Project Director of Racial Equity and Economic Security (REES) has completed a draft of tools and resources. Racial Equity and Economic Security Project is a Community Action Partnership project funded by the Ford Foundation.  For more information go to http://sites.google.com/site/racialequitycommunity
action/.

 

Organizational Development

Mary Virtue prepared a business plan for Made in Camden, to be housed at the Walt Whitman Arts Center (WWAC).  The business plan clarified the role that WWAC would need to play and highlighted the capacity development needed for success.  This business plan is one example of many plans that Cornerstone Consultants has prepared for arts and culture and other community-based organizations.  We emphasize a process that takes a clear look at organizational capacity needs as well as rigorous business analysis. 

For more information about What We Are Doing and What We Are Learning

 

Research

Mary Virtue is finalizing her paper. Advancing Racial Equity: Lessons for Philanthropy.  This paper looks at ongoing work in five communities that are using the lens of structural racism to examine the causes of chronic gaps in income, wealth, education, housing, employment and criminal justice in their communities.  Structural racism refers to a system in which public policies, institutional practices, societal norms and historic legacies reinforce and perpetuate racial inequities. Virtue’s paper offers lessons for philanthropy about identifying and supporting effective community-based projects and developing the infrastructure needed a at a national level. This will be available at the Ford Foundation website and on http://sites.google.com/site/racialequitycommunityaction/.  Copies will be printed and available by March 2010.

Carol Coren co-authored a paper with Professor Christine Clamp "People before Profit: The Response of Co-operatives to the Global Financial Crisis and Economic Recession." This paper was presented September 3, 2009 at Queens College, Oxford University.

Carol Coren played a key role in a two year project administered by the Rutgers Food Innovation Center to study the impact and growth of Community Farmers Markets in the Garden State. The study indicated that these burgeoning market outlets are becoming important market channels for small family farms and growing in importance as resources for sponsoring communities. This article can be found at http://www.foodinnovation.rutgers.edu/ToMarket.pdf. The monograph can be found at http://www.foodinnovation. rutgers.edu/FarmersMarketGuide2009.pdf

Mary Virtue and participants from the six-year National Community-Based Forestry Demonstration Program wrote Branding and Marketing Toolkit: Community-Based Business and Products. This Toolkit offers broad lessons on marketing and the range of possible roles for nonprofit organizations along with step-by step guidelines for assessing the market viability of your product and developing a full-fledged marketing plan. 

Mary Virtue and Ellen Arrick co-authored The Earned Revenue Handbook: A Guide for Museums with Culturally Defined Collections. This publication is a resource for staff and board members of museums and cultural institutions that are exploring earned revenue projects.  This book should help you to evaluate the potential of various earned income opportunities.  It was written by Mary Virtue and Ellen Arrick and developed with the African American and Latino Arts Museum Working Group through support from the Ford Foundation.

Mary Virtue and Jane Delgado co-authored The Museum Shop Workbook. This Workbook is a practical tool for museum directors, staff and board members who are considering the development of a museum store as a strategy to advance their institutions' programmatic and financial goals.  It will guide museum leaders through the steps needed to develop a business plan for a store. It was written by Mary Virtue and Jane Delgado and developed with the African American and Latino Arts Museum Working Group through support from the Ford Foundation.

 

Project Direction

Racial Equity and Economic Security Project – This Community Action Partnership project is funded by the Ford Foundation.  The Community Action Partnership serves 1,000 Community Action Agencies representing all 50 states. Annually, its national conference brings together 1,000 - 1,300 participants from the community action field. The smaller Winter Conferences convenes up to 500 attendees. The REES project targets these gatherings as opportunities for plenary speakers to explain structural racism and its impact on the communities served by attendees. Workshops held during the national meetings follow up on plenary presentations, allowing for dialogue and discussion. 60 regional and state conferences attract 70 - 100 attendees and are ideal settings for introducing colleagues to ongoing projects, tools and knowledge developed at seven current Racial Equity and Economic Security [REES] sites. REES projects are underway in New Mexico (statewide); Riverside, CA; Lexington, KY; Milwaukee, WI; Rochester, NY; Jacksonville, FL; and Atlanta, GA. Learning is being captured through articles in Promise magazine and a series of tools.  Go to our blog, What We Are Doing and What We Are Learning for the articles and go to www.communityactionpartnership.com or http://sites.google.com/site/racialequitycommunityaction/ for the tools.