How You Can Help
Blue Ribbon Agency Summary
2008 Grassroots Partners

How You Can Help

BECOME AWARE

• Participate in the Collaboration’s annual City of the Future Summit. Business and civic leaders gather each Fall to assess the needs of the poor, particularly low-wage working families. The Collaboration awards and features the work of Blue Ribbon agencies and offers specific ways for the business community to get involved.
  
  
• Get in and Stay in the game. Register with us online to receive emails and stay current on exciting Collaboration and AZ LeaderForce news and events, including updates on the “State of Caring” in Arizona (click here)
  
  
• Learn the benefits of becoming a “Best Place to Work.”  Companies that offer programs to help employees balance work and life enhance job satisfaction, reduce turnover, and increase productivity. The Collaboration partners with Best Companies AZ, co-founder with the Phoenix Business Journal of the "Best Places to Work" in the Valley program, to provide events that help your company improve its employee relations. See more at www.BestCompaniesAZ.com.
  
  

COMMIT TO SERVE

• Offer technical assistance. The Collaboration is looking for individuals with various kinds of expertise who are willing to confer with one of our Blue Ribbon or partner agencies on an “as needed” basis. Areas of need include governance, accounting, fundraising, program development, and legal issues.
  
  
• Become an AZ LeaderForce Coach. The Collaboration works with a select group of business leaders each year to inspire, equip and meaningfully involve them in the operations of our Blue Ribbon agencies. Coaches help agencies improve an identified weakness, offering expertise and technical assistance. This is a one-year engagement and the start of a potential ongoing relationship.
  
  
• Encourage your employees or agency members to volunteer. The Collaboration will help you find social agencies that match your corporate values and mission and coordinate team-building service projects on your behalf. Activities are selected from mentoring youth to fixing up homes that create opportunities for low wage working families.
  
  

INVEST AS:

• An Individual Contributor. Since 1999, the Collaboration has depended on donors with foresight to help carry out its important work. We invite you to help us expand the role business leaders can play in our community — now, and in the future. Any donation to the Collaboration for a New Century, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is tax deductible, and may also qualify for a state income tax credit. The Arizona Charitable Tax Credit allows you to receive a dollar-for-dollar credit, up to $400,* on your income tax when you give to the Collaboration. So your dollars will benefit the working poor, whom we serve, yet it won’t come out of your pocket! And you’ll receive the satisfaction of knowing you’re helping others.
  
  
• A Corporate Sponsor. Become a corporate sponsor of the Collaboration and AZ LeaderForce. Not only will you support a great cause, but we’ll help you spread of the word on your involvement. Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum sponsorships are available.

Blue Ribbon Agency Summary

The program in a nutshell

We identify, through a rigorous screening process, Blue Ribbon social service agencies that have proven results. Six agencies are selected each year and announced at our City of the Future Summit each fall. These agencies receive technical assistance business executives in a one-year partnership to build their capacity and expand their impact in the community.

Selection criteria. The Collaboration reviews dozens of programs annually that meet the needs of low-income people in our communities. Working in partnership with the Valley of the Sun United Way, the Collaboration highlights programs that make the most difference in helping people overcome poverty, based on research and an effectiveness review. These programs fall in three impact areas:

1. Learning – Providing children, youth and adults with opportunities for quality learning and skill development.
2. Empowering - Helping families and individuals achieve greater self-sufficiency by empowering them with skills and knowledge.
3. Caring - Assisting people in crisis with vital basic services to help them get back on their feet.

More specifically, the Collaboration is promoting best practices in the following areas:

1. Child development
2. Youth mentoring and character development
3. Financial counseling and affordable housing
4. Job training placement and assistance
5. Family counseling and support
6. Affordable health care alternatives

The Collaboration believes that these activities represent the key critical support programs needed to help low-wage working families today. In determining which programs are among the best in the Valley of the Sun, the Collaboration uses impartial experts who make their selections based primarily on a review of program processes and outcomes.

2007-2008 Blue Ribbon Agencies (pdf)

2007 LEADERFORCE EXECUTIVE ASSIGNMENTS (pdf)

The Collaboration’s Good News Partnership

While our Blue Ribbon programs of excellence are a great way to see the kind of results that matter, the Collaboration is also interested in cultivating more community-based solutions to poverty. Over the last several years, we have seen the tremendous way small grass roots efforts have made an impact through the age-old approach of “neighbors helping neighbors.”

The Collaboration’s Good News Partnership has been offering capacity building assistance to local faith and community-based organizations over the last several years. Many participating agencies are led by social entrepreneurs with a heart for mobilizing grassroots efforts to help their fellow neighbors. The typical agency operates through volunteers and they are always looking for help. They offer assistance in many of the impact areas described above such as counseling, mentoring, tutoring, life skills training, emergency food and clothing, along with affordable housing and childcare.

While these smaller grassroots efforts may not have the same level of results as our Blue Ribbon programs, they still merit attention because of their work and potential for impact.

Join us and make a difference at the grassroots level as we improve the fate of all our neighbors, one person and one community at a time.

 MAKE A LONG RANGE IMPACT

The Collaboration believes that by increasing attention, involvement and investment in the programs and efforts described above, we will begin to see improvements in key quality of life factors that will improve the lives of our most vulnerable citizens. Please thoughtfully consider how you can help.

Our 2008 Grassroots Partners

Agency	Description
ACORN Phoenix Metro Area 602-254-5299	Broad range of community organizing and services. Current focus on outreach for Earned Income Tax Credits and Volunteer Income Tax Assistance sites.
Arizona Fathers & Families Coalition Statewide 602-276-0605	Assists other organizations through program development, professional development, advocacy and technical assistance to make a difference in the lives of families.
Arizonans for the Protection of Exploited Children and Adults Phoenix Metro Area 602-252-1382	Support groups, group home, and community awareness regarding commercially exploited and abused children and adolescents.
Basic Mission Phoenix Metro Area 602-284-2919	Backpacks, job training and resources for homeless, at-risk youth, and prisoner re-entry.
Breaking Up Walls Phoenix Metro Area 602-368-8885	Uses the medium of art as a tool for reconciliation and to bring together diverse groups of people.
Extended Hands Food Bank Fountain Hills 480-837-0303	Gathers and distributes food to the Northeast Valley, 4 days per week.
Faith in Kids Statewide 480-313-2096	Educates and equips the faith community to recruit and support foster and adoptive parents through circles of support and other services.
Father Matters Phoenix Metro Area 888-648-0718 x 704	Offers seminars for fathers and mothers covering communication, responsibility, quality time and commitment, “dumping the garbage,” and future mothers/fathers.
FIBCO Family Services Phoenix Metro Area 602-258-1998	Housing for unwed teen mothers, affordable housing for hard to place populations, clothing and food distribution, and youth mentoring.
First New Life House Phoenix Metro Area 602-323-5779	Provides transitional living and support services for women in recovery.
Help4Kidz West Valley, Phoenix Metro Area 623-772-1234	Mentoring, after-school programs, occupational soft skills, and food boxes for at-risk youth.
Helping Hands for Single Moms Glendale, Phoenix Metro Area 623-796-7875	Provides an array of services including financial support and mentoring; a safety net for single mothers attending college.
Hope Community Health Center Tempe, Phoenix Metro Area 480-231-2020	Affordable holistic medical care to the urban working poor.
KEYS Community Center South Phoenix 602-243-0174	Broad range of community services, including a pre-school, after-school and youth education programs, parenting and community education workshops, and continuing education and professional skills enhancement.
Neighborhood Ministries Phoenix Metro Area 602-252-5225	Food, clothing, crisis assistance, academic tutoring, leadership training, job preparation, and parenting classes.
Our Common Welfare/ Women in New Recovery East Valley, Phoenix Metro, Prescott 480-733-2688	Peer-driven recovery support services to the individual in recovery and their families.
Rehoboth CDC Phoenix Metro Area 602-272-4133	Access to mentors, coaches and legal services for new and existing micro-businesses, referrals and placement of teenage and young adults in crisis; comprehensive referral services for the unemployed.
Somali Community Service Center of AZ Phoenix Metro Area 602-435-1891	Assists new African immigrants in assimilating to life in the Phoenix area.
Streams in the Desert Ministries Phoenix Metro Area 602-722-3904	Twenty-four hour supervised home care Certified Nursing Assistant training and internship program.
Fresh Start Community Service Phoenix Metro Area 623-206-6825	Life skills preparation, employment development and job placement for men and women in transition from incarceration.