Started 30 years ago. As a collaboration and it was loose, man. So the. The operative word there was, and I can even tell it from a YWCA standpoint. Was. The issue in the city was youth violence. Youth serving agencies, who generally didn't work together. Came together with the city and other concerns leading organisations United Way. And they formed. You literally you net and the thought was that a net would be thrown into the community. To capture young people. Engage them in the activities of the organizational partners. And then disperse. So it was a summer program. It is now used connect. So I'm gonna have you move forward list because you connect this to end result. So the consortium of Youthnet started in 1991. Again, local community based youth agencies recognized the importance of providing safe activities during the summer during evening hours, in safe spaces. Now the why am in the YW really never worked together. Boys and Girls Club and girls and really didn't work together. Ewing was mental health you. Do you center was older you so desperate? Agencies working in a community came together and there was really nothing like it. It came out of a study that was done, I think, in Duluth about it was a model that was in place. And so the first summer, 91, the agencies came together and tried to figure out. How to launch the first summer programming in 1992? Now at the time the YWCA was not a partner because while the summer of 92 they were going through that, it was just before I got there they were going through construction so they didn't have the space. So they were kind of locked up. And so when the group kept getting together because the YW wasn't part of that, you know, inauguration here. But I wasn't a Jayce at every meeting with no power, no position, no part in any of it, until they finally started growing so much they needed. Overflow sites. So the YW started as an overflow site. Really no respect in them. In the clear, but in then we ended up being, you know, part of it, so, oh, Kansas City. You, Inc was the largest really agency stepped in as the physical partner, so all the money that came in went through you and can get dispersed in a collaborative of providing services. There were mental health providers, even that early. It was seen that mental health was an issue for young people. And if we were gonna have young people in spaces safe spaces, how will we gonna equip youth workers who really weren't clinicians to have the support they needed when these young people came together? The other key thing was outreach. Now that school's out, how do you get these young people into these spaces? Transportation in most communities, but in Worcester was a huge issue. So transportation became a key ingredient. And then that we were all open for evening. So we did all of our summer camps are swimming lessons, our day programming, and then from 5:30 to 9:30, we will open for this whole outreach of young people coming into our agencies. And at that time, it was kind of loose. It was walking. Each agency involved their own people, but there were many other agencies as part of it. The the thing that I am proud of, but it took too long was in 2000, almost eight years later, the whole coalition was formed. Because it was really adults. Creating programs at these. Loosely connected agencies and where was the youth voice? So the hook coalition brought youth partners to the table, so every agency put forth one of their youth leaders. Aspirational leaders, and we went through training about youth adult partnership, how every voice mattered, how the adults weren't with power. The youth actually were given more power and they had not only a connection with us. At the youth net table, but they formed a coalition and did unbelievably fabulous stuff. Amongst many things, they had comp list. The one thing that I was like so proud of was the Hulk coalition got cigarettes out of pharmacies in the city. It was. Without cigarettes, like literally the reason we have no cigarettes being sold in pharmacies in Worcester is this powerful group of young people led by Lori Ross. And you all know Lori. She was one of our partners from the beginning. And then to CVS says later we, you know, we're so health conscious and blah blah blah. So they removed them from all their pharmacies and many followed suit. But it was a city ordinance. That these young people may happen. So they became we once they outgrew Youthnet, which was like 1011 to 14, they could join the whole coalition. They got stipended because it was clear that young people needed to be stipended transportation was arranged, they had food, put that together in a room with. 20 to 30 young people and beautiful magic music was was made. Next. So we said, wow, what else can we do as a collaborative, so collaboratively we applied to Intel for resources to set up a computer clubhouse. And girls in Lincoln St. Took the lead on that. And it literally became our first gender specific program. So girls think was the home for the computer clubhouse, all funded and supplied by Intel and girls from all of our agencies. If we could get them, there could be part of that computer clubhouse. It lasted eight years. And then Intel's focus went elsewhere. About the same time, I said early on, you Wink Worcester youth guidance were part of the collaborative. Once again, because the Hope Coalition was youth driven and one of their top priorities was mental health. Dot hope. Created an embedded clinician model so that. In every site there was a clinician working with the youth workers and Liz can talk about this better because boys and Girls Club has had one since YW really never alone had the benefit of that. So that they would be on site. Right working in the miliar. And. If young people needed to kind of have someone to talk to, or the youth worker could be strengthened, 'cause once again, child care workers, youth workers are not clinicians. Yet bringing all these youth together from different neighborhoods and maybe did or did not know each other, this was a huge support. So youth workers became trained. To be more Cognizant and it became a model in early care as well as middle school programming and. I can tell you that the wait to get a mental health appointment. In the crisis in the mental health field, particularly for young people, this really made a difference in young people coming forward. Again, out of all of that became a youth worker training institute. It became very clear that youth workers, as as low paid as daycare workers, needed to have skills built because they were interacting and responsible for our most important resource, our young people. So Clark and Lori and Jenn staff put together, it's like a 12 week, isn't it? It's a 12 week high level certification program. That the boys and girls could. This is like credentialing our young people beyond their experience, giving them official credentialing and credibility, positive youth development, etc. So we said look at what we can do together. So as you can see now more money is involved, it's spanning a larger focus than just recreation at at sites. We were blessed to have access, DPH department public health, statewide youth violence prevention was high on everybody's priority list. We were able to get. Large grant through DPH to provide after school programming. From with a partner of a school, Sullivan Middle Transportation provided transportation from some of the middle to boys and Girls Club girls and get YW and year round programming in this collaborative was born. Not that we didn't all do year round programming, but we never did year round programming. Under the umbrella of youth now. And now this is one of my favorite examples. So in 2009. It was announced also a really high youth mileage here. It was, wasn't it? It was announced that the City of Worcester wasn't enough, wasn't opening. It's 12 to 13 pools and and water parks throughout beachfronts throughout the city. Imagine that a summer, no public pools in the neighborhoods. Well, it was finances number one. I mean, those were really tough budget years, number one, number 2. The upkeep the the physical status of the pools in the neighborhoods were just really below standard. And it became clear that it was not cost effective for the city to be in the business of swimming, at least at that period of time with the budget and the capital needs. So I wanna say that literally within three weeks, the city manager and I think Ywn boys and Girls Club were lead agencies, brought all the youth agencies together that have pools. If we put together wheels to water transportation from the public pool sites to the agency sites, not just to dip in a pool with 100 kids per square inch, but to get swim lessons so out of that was born. We also water high quality certified swimming lessons for young people. And if you understand that. Where, where? Generally appealing to low income neighborhood kids, children of color, the highest rate of drowning. This was hitting all kinds of marks that I don't even think we were as aware of as we just responded. And this is where money got really we had to agree on the same holiday rate for our staff. The same hours, the same staff credentials the same, you know, overhead costs, so that not one agency was gonna break it. We literally agreed. We went to the common denominator across all of the agencies and this lasted a few years until the City made the decision to. Only two. Do you pulls a few water parks that they could keep up? And I feel something was last and do recreation was so excited with all the row. Yes. So then yes, they also put all their money into wreck Wister this summer, parks. I'm not gonna get into this a lot, but this is really where we crossed from. Collaborative. Summer year round to now of a formal alliance. So in the summer or in the year of 2011. We made the commitment to apply to the United Way. Now we each were United Way funded. Obviously boys and Girls Club with the largest because that's their primary focus and the largest number of the YWCA by. Coincidence was the smallest because youth development was a very small piece of our overall programming, but we were critical in many other ways. And we apply. This was huge for one grand. From United Way, on behalf of six or seven agencies for one amount. Which meant we had to take all our United Way. Applications may come into line, agree on outcomes, agree on. Everything. It was a huge risk because. Well, if you like, but if we didn't get as much who was gonna lose and all of that, but this was really it was now summer outreach, diverse year round programming, common outcomes shared best practice and training. Now we were truly an allowance allowance alliance and we were sharing. Resources, not just having separate resources, but literally sharing risk as well as benefit. I'm not gonna get into this very much, but again, we were seven agencies, five national, the direct service people get together monthly. The Edie's got some gather monthly. That executive directors were the policymaking and decision making, but we were fed by the program. Connectors, the direct frontline staff. Here's the agencies at our peak we were serving over 6000 youth annually. And some of the ways we did that is through those come on site, add assemblies at middle schools before school got out, the schools were embracing us. We added resources, youth worker training. It was deeper into agency trust. And a powerful voice for the underserved. And Judy will get into it came with all kinds of indicators and outputs and data being the bane of all of our existence. We knew what our own data said, but collectively, what did our data set that was to me, one of the hugest and most costly except for transportation challenges. And again, Judy will go through this because we became an integral part of the chip, the Community Health Improvement Plan. Because of the spin, you know we were across race of justice and I don't know, mental health and all many, many categories was this. And we've done strategic planning, but basically we are now a program that we. Youth connect is now a department of the YW of the United Way. So we're not like a funded agency. We are a program of the United Way. So we're part of their budget, not part of their distribution pool. And so we felt that the risks we took secured. The position that we could probably have never kept our level of funding if we didn't make this decision. And. We make we reach the top of the mountain from a loose structure of summer programming to a consortium alliance of agencies, $500,000 strong serving youth with youth voices at the table outcomes throughout the whole community. So with that. And nobody else. I mean, when we talk across the country, when, you know, Liz goes to boys and Girls Club and I conferences and I used to go to YW, they used to say to why him and the YW in the boys and Girls Club and Girls Inc are at the same table sharing resources, sharing staff. It really is a powerful message 'cause it's. All about you and when you know mergers is all about the common Goals, vision, mission. The same thing with the collaborative and alliance, and I don't know how many collaboratives or alliances in this community have been alive and thrived in grown the way that you connected. Does anybody have any questions before I shoot it to the Google of Youth Connect? yeah if you wanna take a break now for five minutes while we switch but any questions we do that.

Capitalize So it was kind of run like a camp. There was staff that was supervised by. People that were hired by youth now. They were not the staff that boys and Girls Club or girls in or. Y MCA at the time they were central and they were staff that were hired to support kids throughout the city that weren't identified with those staff agencies at all. Where they were running the program, the agencies were kind of doing. They were holding their monthly meetings as what I remember, they were holding their monthly meetings. They were making decisions. And Linda said that that was the decision making table. But then, after those decisions were made, there was a coordinator that pushed it out through these part time staff that were hiring to just working evenings. That model went on until that kind of time period of like 2000 to 2005 is when we started to really engage in the work that the Worcester Public Schools were doing and starting to get involved in those after school programs in a very intentional. When that happened, when that transition to having agency start to do programming at times other than the evening in the summer? And service those kids. That's when we started to move to a model where agency stand. You're actually being supervised by the agencies and working with those same groups of kids. So we. Went from a a new workforce that was hired as part time staff. Kind of your typical summer jobs to having professional staff that were working with these kids on staff that were college dream had degrees. So that was a real shift and the. Type types of programming we were able to do. That ability for us to start doing after school programs and start to link our professional staff really allowed us to sort to bridge that program and get from 2:00 o'clock in the afternoon when kids got out of school till my gosh, YWCA didn't close their doors until 9:00 or 10:00 o'clock at night. YMCA was open till 9:10 o'clock at night. So we had access to facilities, we now had staff that were used to and trained to work with these kids. Now the issue was how do we expand those programs and services that agencies are working with so that we can get more services. There there were a number of small collaborations that were going on in the city, but nothing quite as big as what was happening with that transition in 2011. Two. Six agencies that were applying in one application. For United Way funding. That was absolutely unheard of cross the country. Any of you that are from out of state, I would challenge you to go to your primary nonprofits in your home. Ants. They've not ever done anything similar to this. Ever had anything similar to this happening? And I think what you'll find is that it's a very unusual aberration. because of what was happening with you connect I'm honestly feel that it was that collaboration that really sparked that energy of collaboration in the City of Worcester. And you really started seeing things crop up kind of all over the place. And I have a couple of examples of things that happen in the city during those same periods of time. Just to give you some examples. There was a youth first event that was held. It was held at Girls Inc on Lincoln Street is where the actual event was held. This was held initially, was brought together by this or any of you familiar with the summer Youth Works program. You may have it in some of your communities or home where. High school and freshman college, maybe up to age 2324 or supported by city. Funds to find jobs in the city. Sometimes those are with youth agencies. Sometimes they're not. But that Jobs Group collaborated to come together and pull from all the different views agencies in the city, and this is a list of those agencies that were primarily involved. Had a great big. Function over at Lincoln St they filled the basketball court there in the bleachers. They had big roll calls and kids were there was lots of great energy in the room. One of the first times that people from across the city, from agencies that would typically compete against each other. Was coming together for this big city like it one night. It was also a collaboration that was event that was held over at boys and Girls Club, specifically for LGBTQ folks. It was initiated and run organized by the Southeast Asian Coalition. He pulled together a group and and you can see where. It's very so. It's hosted by community members. This was so. This is the Southeast Asian Community Center that's having an event for LGBT folks. So they're doing everything they can to make sure that they're not exposing anybody. It doesn't wanna be exposed and they're just really creating a safe space. They didn't even put people agencies down. Boys and Girls Club was there because we were providing the space and. I'm kind of a known entity in the community and I think both kind of came looking for me and said, you know, is there some way we could make this happen and list doesn't say no to anybody? On the other huge collaboration, I'm gonna say that you guys have to know about this. The Coalition for Healthy Greater Worcester. Yes, Lori Ross was the community chair up until few months ago. I was the community chair prior to that, and there's always been. City chair or medical person that served as chair. That. Collaboration. Just coalition for healthy grade or Worcester? This is actually the second plan. Each of the hospitals in the city have to come up with a community health improvement plan. That's a requirement for them to keep their licensing and things like that. And Worcester. We no longer do that. Those two hospitals that have to produce that plan no longer do that on their own. They do it through a community coalition. So. This. Whole design and strategy of using a politian of community members to design and give feedback on the chip. Change the way that the state. Does their distribution of funds. For use for help. Across their turn, as the Community health networks. And it was my involvement at the YWCA, in their health and fitness programs that put me at the Community Health Network table. And I would say that that started my. Expanse of collaboration and injustice? No, that tonight. Any agency that received Department of Public Health money, any kind of Department of Public Health money was required, so this wasn't a voluntary come together for, you know, common goals. It was literally a mandate by the State Department of Public Health to bring agencies together. To do a community needs assessment at more of a grassroots level. And now the chena's. Are much more community focused in, in really embedded in the communities and engaged in the communities. Not even. I don't even think PPH has that same kind of requirement anymore. But then I know that that's how DPH uses those channels to funnel their money to high priority. So if you're not in that table, even if you're providing something in that sphere, you're not gonna get the same kind of look or funding if you if you're not part of a community. Health Network that is collaborating and. Together, identifying community issues and working to solve them. Yeah, even though the partement of public health within the City of Worcester collaborates with their surrounding towns, it's a community Health Network. It's not. We don't make decisions just for the City of Worcester. We make decisions for the City of Worcester. And and this particular collaboration just won national prestigious award, the router would Johnson award. That is really all about collaboration. And sorry, no, God, the other thing is when the first community health assessment. Who is done with, you know, UMass St. Vincent and Fallon Community Health plan is at the table. The the representation of the voices that helped form that Community health assessment was pretty homogeneous. That's all the same until that child Kitty help assessment was embedded as part of the work of healthy Greater Worcester, which really changed the the metrics of the voices that were heard. So there were strategies put in place in agencies who sold job was to reach into the diverse communities, to bring voices to the table, to make sure that our Community health assessment wasn't true gonna represent the outcomes that our community need and out of that. Data the second time around came a much richer plan. Community Health improvement Plan, more partners at the table, more funding that was guided and frankly at the core of all of it was racial justice. Happening with remove from believing that. Public health professionals new best about the community and recognizing that all community members are experts when it comes to the Community needs and I think that's why it's been more successful is again instead of making it where the powers in supposedly be experts, right, the ones that had the degrees or whatever. And recognizing that of equal value or those of us who live in the community who work in the community, who serve the community may be different capacities. And I think that's why it's got more successful. And I think that's why it won the award. It probably would have never wanted the award if had stayed a chop right where it was, just not that was a. Need a certain. But it could come out that way, is that we are going to stay on you, but you need to know what you need to be doing because we are the experts, instead realizing we are all experts, all of our community should have a say. We need everyone to the team. Yeah, just collaboration is a very powerful thing. Examples that I put up here on this was 2016's plan. This is the 2020 one, 2026. So you can see that there's a lot more open space on this. And you can read through the hand. Go through some general information about collaborations, but you can see progression from this. This. Same thing you connect. This was our first poster that we did where we were actually. This is kind of us from here. And then this is the Wister Community Health Improvement Plan. And what this is kind of my personal thing is that I personally feel that youth development is public health. We are developing the community members of tomorrow, so. A few of us that. So let's line this up with the Community help improvement plan. So we started looking at this chart and looking at what we did as a collaborative. And we were able to find our work in these domains of the Community Health Improvement program. Because we were no longer just youth development programs at six or seven agencies, we were now six to seven agencies, collectively friendly houses bested, housing like W Does domestic violence boys and Girls Club has the, you know, Premier youth development. So all the things that we did as partners. Not just start. Use development sphere became part of the the agriculture d'alliance we move from the collaboration. This particular poster is kind of the next generation also aligning with the chip. This is now all of our work is line is aligning with that all the agencies are very engaged. Very different than what it used to look like. Again, we've got the areas of. The. Community Health improvement plan. All the different pieces that we are doing within those areas to line up with the work that's being done in that plan. The other thing that we started to do at this point is capture some of our data and. This is the data that you will find is that kind of picked up everywhere. Yeah, when you're trying to deep collaboration and I'll point to some reasons why. But in in this particular diagram, again trying to. Work working around my work, getting our funding from United Way United Way has some priority areas. Their education, family, stability, health. Those areas, that's where we're doing our assessment, that's where we prioritize our assessment, our indicators of our work, but those that were still lines up with that Community health improvement. Now one of the things that that you'll learn about in collaboration in all collaborations, there's there's kind of five. Pillars of collaboration and and they're on your handout. But I do get a common agenda. And you can think about kind of flab orationes that you're aware of in your community as I'm going through this. Things that you're aware of that are happening here and with rhino that Clark students are very engaged in our community here. So I know you're familiar with what's happening here, or at least trying to be from. So that common agenda, a vision for change, common understanding of a problem, the joint approach. You're gonna agree on an action. So back in 1991. There was that common problem that violence prevention problem, that still kind of underlies our work today. Shared measurement. Here we are. Common pillar of collaboration. Here's our shared measurement. We're all measuring these things. I've read ways to measure of breed ways to report. Short list of common indicators identified and used for learning improvement. One of the things we said we were going to do that was gonna be different than anybody else in the community is we were gonna make data driven decisions. Now we have struggle to collect data, but we make decisions based on data, whether it's Community, need data or our data telling us what we've done well, we're not so. That is a pillar. Short list perfect example. This was crazy and overwhelming. This. Looks do. Short list something that's doable. Mutually reinforcing activities. So the first set of stakeholders. Typically across sectors. But we're all coordinating instead of activities through some planned action. So that decision making table that Linda talked about. There was an agenda at those meetings. They met every month, program connectors about actual implementer, the operations folks, that the agencies they were meeting once a month. We're talking to each other. They were learning from each other. They were taking advantage of each other's resources. It was a very exciting time as the person who was sitting in the Scylla tating those meetings I had. I was so high on life at the moment. It was just it. Just there was never a meeting that you went to, that there was not some breakthrough. It was just. It was just wonderful stuff. Continuous communication. You heard me talk about the new meetings. We are meeting to death sometimes. There are big meetings after the eight meetings there are. Chair meetings and coordinator meetings in between the executive meetings. There are meetings, subcommittee meetings, so. It's not just those executive directors that are sitting at the table once a month, they're then sitting on subcommittees. There's three or four or five of them that are doing nothing but fundraising focus. There's another group that's on program, another group that's helping with data. So it is work. But you're working together, so it doesn't feel as oppressive, I think. And and they're also learning. It's that learning from others. I think that really keeps folks involved. Communication is frequent, structured and open. Sometimes that's hard. It's purposeful. It builds trust. It is shores mutual objectives. So you're going after something together and you have to talk about what that looks like. And it creates common motivation so that energy that you feel that you get from others or if you're having a bad day, you can call the colleague. That can pump you up might not be in your same agency. You could get that from another agency. The other thing that you hear in almost every collaboration that you sit at any table with your collaborating, it's very important that you have a backbone to the work. That's that facilitator. It's the paid staff person that's gonna keep everybody on track. It's the one that gets blamed for stuff that doesn't get done. It's the one. It's the one that gets the phone call that says, oh, we have to change this because we have a funder that sold us, that they're changing what they're doing for their funding. So they make sure that I'm the one who sits on the email all day and make sure that everybody knows. What everybody else is kind of like the style of agency before you have an executive director, you know, we were all volunteers and we were all running our own agencies. It was, you know, we rotated the chair or Co chair for succession planning. But the day-to-day work needed to be done so that, you know, the ability will be applied for, you know, we in our summer budget, we put some coordination money. But when we applied for that. First joint United Way Grant, we hired a coordinator because you really begin to need the professional person not administrative, but the professional person that's really gonna carry. Through the whole collaboration, it's volunteer only collaborations are are really not as successful as those that make the commitment to hire a professional staff person to leave the work. Then involved in groups that have worked. With or without seeing both of those kinds of things happen. A poor wnated effort with no faith. Support or. And the difference between those two? Or help field. it's a. It's a very different tape to sit in it. Also, I would say the thing that feels really good to the participants at the table where there's a paid staff is that they know that there's somebody that's working on those things when they're not paying attention. So it allows you to. Continue to do your work at home for your own agency, while there is also this other work that's going on. So collaboration. Some of the other principles of practice that are also one that handout design and implement an initiative with priority placed on equity. Now this this handout came out in 2017. This is now 2022 and we're all still talking about this because there are collaborations that come together without an equity lens and I would say they're the ones that don't exist anymore. Address systemic structures and practices that create barriers to equitable outcomes. You really need participants at the table to do that. So. Linda talked about and she she got all energized. I don't know if you saw it. I saw it when I sit in the chair here. When the whole coalition happened. That is used voice. That was our participant providing us with information, but we're not gonna get as an observer or the person in front of her. So we needed that voice and that really changes aspect. It creates that equity lens. The other thing that I know that you talk a lot about here 'cause word boss talks about it all the time and this group talks about it incessantly is you have to disaggregate your data. You have got to be able to look at the data for the different groups and sectors of people to make decisions about what needs to change for those groups. It has to be intentional. You can't. Make a decision for one community that's the same need for another community and the the community members have to tell you that. And that's where you get it. You get that information from the voice, you get that from the hope that the health focus of the book politian around. Substance used and eliminating cigarettes and. Pharmacies. The target on mental health. For youth and that embedded mental health person, that was huge. I was going, I was Linda designate at those meetings and I would go every Wednesday night and sit there and watch those kids listen to those kids. That was that was how we found out what we really needed to be doing. Huge huge equity lines there. Cross sector partnerships, that's another thing. I think if you go back to your hometowns and and you think about. Who it is that sitting at some of their collaborative tables, you're not gonna find the same folks that you're gonna find. Maybe in this community. It's one of the things we do it for the Youth Connect consortium. We have funders at the table. Worcester Public Schools United Way for Terrace Daniels. Worcester Community connections coalitions so a lot of the programs are funded by some of our partners that are at the table. One of the reasons that's important is that it helps them to understand who the. Public news that they're trying to serve. The other thing that's helpful for them to be at the table is that. You can see over the years how funders and foundations have changed there. Strategies for how they deliver money, what they are funding. What their expectations for reporting are their expectation for collaboration within their. Programs that there was. What is the partner? Say that again. So for the supporting partners, these we talked about the executive partners, those meetings once a month and the. Executive partners, we CHS operations folks, that's the program, connectors they handling this is going. Support these folks do not bring money to the table or get money or get money. They do participate in our programming so. They may bring a resource that we don't have. We may bring a resource to them that they don't have. Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts. They might look at us. To be an outreach site. To do advocacy or conduct programs, we may not. Sex education, kinds of programming, or health programming within our agencies. We might not have that expertise, so we might call on a supporting partner. To come in and do that programming for us. Um. The Wooster Community Connections coalition? That's a really that's, uh, a group where we get. Family voice. So that and Bureau manages this, and she's if you wanna promote something in the city, you give it to him Bureau and she can get the word out. She's another one of those backbone folks that. It just things just wouldn't connect. There's people that basically draw a lines between dots. And make sure that everybody has that information. Yeah. Is he trying international? Liz is does a lot of work with that group. We we had, boys and girls come and I work at boys and girls play now. There I am in another agency but. Agencies have Ivy child and and and and that's a group that does its yoga further, and mindfulness mindfulness programs for you. It's really good for self regulation and the kids have really responded well to where we now. Then they train our youth. They want to learn and they can now get certified in mindfulness and then teach others in their peers. Start Community Foundation and their funder relatively. Having funders sit in the mix is not how collaborations originally formed. I mean kind of like you protected what you did on the inside groups having fun. There's there. And if you like from reading the reflections. Really increases the transparency and you heard from Monica in and Kim, Monica, Roland. Kim. Kim salmon that you know, if they're gonna invest particularly a significant amount of money. I wanna understand how their investment is working. They wanna have some. I mean it's control, but it really gives them direction on how they invest their money in in the community. So that's really any one of the first ones to really do. That was the Health Foundation. They didn't give us energy Grant, which created collaborations and allowances unless they were sitting at the table and one of their requirements was not just the money to do the planning and the work, but they demanded advocacy come out of it. So a key component of the collaborations or synergy grants that help foundation. Is that you're gonna create an agenda. That really pushes legislation and policy, and next week we're gonna get this is all about advocacy next week, but it really was what got, for example, together for kids having the Health Foundation at the table to create that group. A line item instead of just private foundations of Worcester funding together for kids struggling, it became a line item in the state budget. And so policy advocacy and policy creates action that is much more. Widespread results than just so it you have to get used to having the funders at the table, because if you would not doing something as well. We get phone calls. Well, is that? Oh. Hi, Allison, you wanted to ask a question. Yeah, I did have a question, I guess, talking about like funders and kind of encouraging slash requiring but collaboration at like to get funding is it aren't like? Does having that be a requirement make it less effective when it as opposed to like like comes from the community rather than it being funder driven? Or is it kind of helped encourage more collaboration? One of those exist? That makes sense. Well, I would say that the the funders change to being willing to fund larger amounts and more for collaboration. Really made a difference in how the Community behaves, and I would say we invited them to the table. So because we invited them, they didn't mandate what we needed to do it all. It was more we wanted them to feel like they were a partner because they're investing in US and by them seeing what we were doing, they actually had a better understanding of what the needs were. And so we were no longer getting things like, oh, we want to fund something completely new. And then we explained to them. But if once the user saying is working and they want us to continue that, are you saying you won't continue to fund that? And it made them rethink things like, I guess they don't have to do. Underwater Basket weaving program that's new if healthy habits programming where we're seeing these great outcomes where kids are able to now practice where their habits are actually changing, where they're doing at least 90 minutes of physical activity where they're actually. Eating fruit and vegetables on a regular basis where they are less likely to do self harm. All those things were it made them understand that sometimes it's OK to support a program that they supported before and helped expand it instead of something new 'cause for a while. It was 2000. It was like, oh, we want something new. We wanna hear something new. We want you to do something new and not understanding that sometimes the new thing might be expanding. Your healthy habits program and not starting something completely new just so you can get funded because that's truly not impactful if you're only creating a program, right? So you can get some funding. So Allison answered your question is, I actually think they became better partners 'cause they were at the table, the better understanding and in some ways were less demanding. We don't make the decision by ourselves. We include our constituency includes the people we're serving and then they kind of thought about how they should be doing the same thing with their model. They should be including the organizations they should be, including the people that were serving in making those decisions too. So I think if anything, it's. Help us make better decisions as a community and for funders of as a community and funders, and it's a shift, the early, you know, in front of it, you know, from the early days of funders at the table with providers not just on an annual basis to review your application. It really changed from, you know, like, not feeling like I'm feeling like you were being, like, reviewed all the time too. Now you truly were doing common problem identification solving. And so it truly is a partnership. And I'll give you an example. Decided to focus on girls programming girls issues and girls advocacy because of hearing from the nonprofits that there was a void there when it came to funding that we want to do more girls only programming that we were not getting the funding for it girls. Organizations, women's organizations and girls programs get less funding still today than Coed or male. Focused organizations only 6% of all philanthropy is directed at women and girls serving programming agents. So because of that. That they needed to listen more about what they need. Word they actually changed their mission. I think that's really cool. And that was because of being at the table. So, and there's been some other examples, Greater Worcester Community Foundation has changed their focus more. They used to say happy programs. It had to be programs had to development program and then they heard from us saying but doing underwater basket weaving when their kids really don't want that that that's new year in the fund it is not impactful. What we really need supportive our operations. Let the kids let our staff decide when they're gonna be most impactful. Will you trust us? You allow us to experiment and try new things, but not where we have to create a new program every year, but that they really move past that and ongoing. And so we're able to get operational funding where we decide where it's best to use. We provide, again, we still keep them as a partner. We provide them with updates. We let them know how their funding impacted our organization. In our case, impacted our kids and our families. So it's really been great having those dialogues. They hear what's going on in the community at ground level instead of being up here and thinking they know, or they'll just do a nice presentation versus being in the mix and we all do that, sometimes things. There's a lot about them that they are really trying hard to have a better understanding of the true needs of the community instead of deciding what they think they are. It really has made a difference. Yeah. System changing versus just program, but one of the other principles, the next one to talk about is kind of using data. And I would say so. Maybe if they required a quarterly report four times a year. That was unusual for quarterly report you might hear or report to a funder once a year, with them sitting at the table every month. They're getting data monthly, so they're able to be much quicker about how they're affected. So data is continuous for learning, adapting and improving. Data is not a solution, but it's a dynamic problem solving process. So think about data and you guys do research all the time. Data is just a piece of information that you're then going to use to solve this problem. The other thing that happens in collaboration is building and cultivating leaders. There is a capacity building feature that happens at a collaboration consortium table where staff and peers are learning from each other. It drives people that are committed to a sector they're committed to, that youth development sector and provides them with different places. We were having our. Informal conversation at the beginning. Variety of different agencies. I've worked at a variety of different agencies, so you can take. Capacity from 1/8 and see to the other and build those leaders for facilitation. It's really, really important. The facilitator for these bodies are really important. They've helped hold space for that trust. They hold space for people that are having trouble catching up. They make sure that the whole group moves together. If they don't fear consensus in the room, they work to build. Consensus. They're the one that's running around when everybody is doing their regular agency work. Having those beatings to try to talk somebody into something or get them to see another side that they weren't able to hear at that table. So I spend a lot of my time doing that kind of thing. Um. Remember that the purpose of consortiums and collaborations is to change systems. It's a we're trying to solve a problem and in order to understand the system you have to get all those different sectors at the table. So it's really important to have those big open discussions. It's really important that the culture at the table foster relationships, trust, respect, honesty. And cross participation cross you were asking about the supporting partners, they. They are invited to every monthly meeting that the program connectors has, but what you will find is that they show up during the times when they're engaged in a mutual activity. So you'll get the groups from. Western Community Action Council and mass higher. You'll see them start to come in April, May, June, when those gearing up for their summer youth works. So they come and go from our table as they need to be on our table. And they invite us to their table. So we're constantly working together. The important the major important thing about collaboration is that you always customize for your community. So we go out and look, we talked about finding the youth connect model. Actually in Kansas City. That's where his first being done. When we brought it to Worcester, we had to make it work, and Worcester Worcester is not Kansas City. so we adapted it with the advice of the executive partners. To our community, so making sure that it fits within the community, making sure that there are champions within the Community to pull back, consortium together. I just I I would like to know. If any of you now that we've kind of gone through that list. Of what? The best things are in collaboration. Have you ever been part of any collaborations in your own communities or as student groups? That exhibits some of these things. Not every collaboration has everything. They hold some things higher than others, but I'm just curious. Right. I would like to learn to. Realizations I have from what you are explaining was that when it comes to. They usually like the underlying factor. Understanding their problems because. But I have seen in many adults or people that are probably fication they just say, oh, we know what they want, we know it. Going into. Program just to hear what they say. We can be offering something and they will not come right. The developmental stages as they get older, they want more choice. They don't wanna just commit, they want choice. So you have to really learn the developmental stages of youth development to be able to understand how to offer, because if if it's not fun or exciting or learning or. Supporting. You're gonna have 1000 kids at boys and Girls Club in two at Girls Inc and that's not the the nature of what we need to do. So absolutely. I think you hit the nail on the head because I think sometimes I think this happens with other agencies that serve adults and and everything is that. Because people are so passionate about their organizations that they work at and feel like they've done a lot of good work and they know a lot that sometimes they don't take into consideration that the people who actually know the most about their situation are the people who actually are going through the situation. And so. You know the boys and girls, even we surviving up even five year olds, we make sure they're they have autonomy, that they have some opportunities to make decisions for themselves because we want, first of all, we want kids to make good decisions and bad decisions in the safe place, right? So if they make a mistake at the boys and Girls Club. Another you serving agency, it's going to be OK. 'cause. They're gonna need to get support, and they're gonna learn from that, and then they're going to make better decisions, and they'll continue to grow with their leadership and their life skills and social skills, but also by the time that contains, it should be completely led by them. Absolutely, 100% completely led by them. That doesn't mean you won't have a professional staff to support, but everything from the app the teenager actually be the facilitators for the program. To wear their deciding where the field trips are to where they're just seeing what they want to learn and that that, that, it's collaborative. They're gonna take, we want them to also it should just be a couple teams making decisions. They really listen to all of their peers to make those decisions. But that's I think we're seeing that more and more with all different types of agencies. Not just for you serving, but we're seeing it more with health care like we talked about how the child became that in law because it was a way for us to understand it. The Community should taking the lead. And you heard some of the best practices and you've heard about some of the best collaborations, but they're not all. And I know from the questions I read the questions that you submitted, you know, you really talked about some of those things. So why don't you put those out there? We'll do our best to address the. The not so pretty stuff about or the not so easy stuff about collaboration. Yeah. So my question that what are some red flags for collaborators? Will be such a deterrent that you won't work with them. That you wouldn't participate in a collaboration. With that particular organization. This idea for us, and they say something in your life. No, we gotta get out of this. No, you gotta show up. I mean, I would say that one of the key things is that. If somebody is not there, they can't be a contributing partner and you gotta find out what that is and if there hasn't been work around common values, just like a regular agency, the values, the vision and the values, our collaboration and alliance has. A mission of vision and you know, values. And if you hear some things, you know, not to embarrass anybody but to pull them aside, the leadership, you know, those things have to be addressed and some accountability of each of the partners. I also think though some when I think that's when the collaborations I've been involved with it with, sometimes the ones that were tougher in some ways 'cause maybe. They're so different organizationally, but we had those common values. Sometimes those pay really big, meaning I'm not financially. But like wow, because we stuck with each other. We got to know each other. We were able to recognize each others differences and value those differences and see the actually. We didn't have sometimes those really turn out to be the most successful, but you do have to kind of stick by each other and talk about kind of what you were saying, like, wow, I'm kind of feeling uncomfortable with this. I'm just being really honest. I think building trust is really key. And I think if you can't build the trust, then I think it should doing a collaboration. Maybe instead do something a little bit smaller like, well, you're you're clubbing on a particular program. Like for example, we have collaborated or partner with people on lifeguard certification. I wouldn't say stuff like this big collaboration, but it was a way for us to kind of almost like test the waters. Like wow, they were really good about making sure that they brought their resources to wasn't just out spring our resources. So I don't think you have to do this giant collaboration like Youth Connect that took time. So I think you can start small and see how things go if that communication is so key. And you know, somebody said to be really uncomfortable, but I think like she said, holding people accountable but calling them in, not calling them out because they're never going to get to where you need to be. If people feel like if they do anything wrong, you're like you should have done this. So instead, you know, talk about what could we have done differently? And making sure everyone can talk is often. I mean I I don't know about you. I think I know sometimes when I kinda have. They did not. Done as well as I could have or whatever. I think we know right behind. I know deep down like I kind of dropped the ball on this. So I think allowing us to talk about it as humans and saying, you know, this can't happen again. I I you know I wanna take responsibility for the fact that I'm. You know, I think that really also starts building trust again. You know that that person or that organization is going to also hold themselves accountable, which truly is a lot easier if we all agree we can all hold ourselves accountable. But it takes time. I also think. If there's something that's dishonest. Really dishonest, which then questions whether you do have the same values. That might be a deal breaker, but you don't know about that. And in one of the things that we like talk about, we use the saying is check your agency if the door come in for the common vision values and mission of the work. Because if you're just in it for your own agency, then there's really not the commitment to the common health professions. That's not collaboration. The agency enters in the same place, right? So some are more collaborative in nature. My agency, my staff, used to think I gave away the farm, but to me. We were always gonna come to a better outcome with. Those multiple? Groups coming together to solve a problem because you know you you can't one agency. Or even two agencies, or even six agencies can't do it all. You know, there's enough need to go around, but when you really begin to bring in funders and the voices of the participants or your partners, it's me. That's a true collaboration. It when it has an impact that's beyond your own agency. To me, and there's money shared in agreement, and that becomes more of an alliance 'cause collaboration doesn't necessarily mean that you have a memorandum of understanding, although most smart ones do. And it's really not my job or his job. It's our boards. So every year I used to go to the Board of Directors and ask for recommitment because it's a lot of time. I know in some of the questions, collaborations take time. It's a hell of a lot easier to just do your own programming, but you're not gonna have. Playing outcome. The reach. I can't help but think of the Worcester Partnership for Racial and Ethnic Health Equity. Linda got me sent me to that table when I was working for her. And every month I will come back from that table and go in and have a meeting with Linda and say, Linda, they don't want me at that table. I fight to keep my seat, but they don't want me at the table and Linda would say to me, I don't care what you think. You have got to sit at that table and you have got to go back until you are comfortable there and it, I mean, I would say in totally transition how I do my work in the city. Just being persistent, staying there, I would say making them listen to me. Me, listen to them and really grow. Dark collaboration and understanding of what the issues really were in the city, that group. 27 years ago is now this. Right here. Adopt municipal racial equity policies. That's the group that's working on those primary things. Example of the collaboration. I saw that kind of fell apart. And it was because it was fairly big partnership. And although they shared they what they thought, they shared the same values, although different agencies. One of the agencies was not forthcoming, and some financial and legal issues they were dealing. And as you can imagine. It didn't just affect that agency. He affected the collaboration that made people question that full collaboration. They came together in good faith. It is really important to know your. Partners and again, like I said, try a few things first before you go into a really big partnership or collaboration like Youth Connect. I don't think it's ever bad idea. If you know you try something small with them and see how that works 'cause it takes it almost the same amount of effort right to do it. A big thing as a small thing to still requires the same type of energy and everything. So I think you have a good idea, but it's on a smaller scale, less likely to occur. If it doesn't work well or easier to to end if it doesn't work well, but you know I think. We nonprofits. Want to? Organizations who maybe don't normally do collaboration a chance in end to collaborate, but sometimes there may be reasons why I think that's what happened with this one. Collaboration is they felt badly for this collaboration 'cause they were struggling because. They had lost their leader. There's a leadership void and they felt that there might be a way for them to support them by having an involved in collaboration and it really backfired and it could have really affected so many people. Besides that one organization, so it can happen, but that I only can think of one that where it's really been something like wow, I felt that I really feel badly for the folks involved in that collaboration. They had to address things that they had no idea what going on because they weren't in charge of that organization. Money can be finding within and decision making around. Technical part of the collaboration. But. So with that equity lens, it doesn't mean everybody if there's five agencies, they get one fit because some may have a better understanding or a better deal or a better grasp or programming that kind of thing. But a true successful collaboration really makes everybody. Feel like they are part of it. If they get 30,000 or 100,000. So. Money can be a deal breaker, but it really shouldn't be. And and the most successful collaborations have an equity lens of. The the funding for the UM reach versus the funding for the contribution, I think Daisy and then we had a question. Earlier. And then you follow that by saying that sometimes it's. What makes it hard to be satisfactory? There's a couple of things that make it hard to collect data. The the primary thing is. Really nailing down what the common indicators are across. The other thing that happens is depending on who the players are that are sitting at the table, but the actors are that are sitting there, you may get a commitment from a particular individual that the agency is going to do XYZ. It's really important that that whole agency hold that commitment. So I I think. Some of the the biggest problem with David is that everybody wants to do everything. And you're really need to do something that's consumable. And this is kind of the best visual example I can think of. It's taking those 90 some indicators. And creating 10. That that helps tremendously. The other piece of it is. Constant training and capacity building. Or agencies to collect that data. So. And agencies have not historically. Ben. Real good data collectors taking attendance was pretty much all really weren't giving quizzes and tests and taking giving grades for things. Pass, swim lessons or something. But. Trying to figure out what those indicators are so having those open discussions about what is the one thing that we can all measure and commit to measure. So a real basic thing that we all measure is how many kids we serve in the summer. Now that can tell us quite a bit of information. It's not just attendance information. It can tell us where those kids are coming from when we break that data down and can tell us a lot of things about those individuals. Right. Agencies, if they go multiple times or one and done so. Yeah, I've been able to get agencies to commit to tell me which kids are new. So how many new kids are you serving this summer? So it's a very it's a, it's a very small thing to do. It's not. I'm not asking them to get kids to fill out a 50 page survey and you know, it's not that kind of data. Another key indicator that we had to figure out was one thing we wanted to measure was how many of those young people who maybe came for the first time. Were engaged in that agency after the summer ended. So did they go from a summer to a year round participant in? Did they go, did they go to multiple agencies? Because in this opportunity for youth connected going to multiple agencies, they felt comfortable. They got the test and. Figure it out so you know that's still counting, but those that the way you count that really gives you some. Indication of that, the level of engagement, how many times they came, did they stay without agency or go to another? If they were new to the old, participation in a kind of group effort. And we also collect data on the coalition itself on a consortium. So the things that were in our end of you, all the things that the agency is committed to, they all ended up on this grid in these columns. And then he gave agency fills in the information about what they are doing towards. Individual. so they some agencies may be checking boxes all the way across, and then there's some that are only checking a couple boxes, but the other partners get to see that and then they can figure out ways that they can support them to engage that. Or come up with maybe an activity there. Pacity though I think is one of the capacity in training. I mean, who's gonna actually collected how? How good is the data? And if you've got partners who are not able to or that's not part of their DNA. To collect the data that becomes a problem. But I also think we listen to your voice again on that and for a while, I think we often admit that we were actually doing 2 main pre and post tests and that steps is bad as in my opinion is not doing enough. So we all agree to do the healthy youth Self expectation survey. It doesn't take long. It's two pages. And it's just. Stop. That gives us a lot of information about behaviors and attitudes that may have changed. But. The kids were letting us know that they were so tired and having to do so many pre and post tests. I get that I would say this was in the early 2000s. I think we're so excited that we were measuring things and like this too. We weren't. Maybe you don't need to measure everything. You can still do observation. Also you can look every chord card to see if your homework assistance program. There's other ways to measure without you having to do a pre and post survey or anything like that. So I think we learned a lot. They really, again, if you listen to the whoever your service for us as you if they'll guide you, they'll let you know when you've made it and and they'll let you know and you can make this up to you, I think to make those changes. Wonders at the table. They're listening to that struggle. Yeah, so there it helps them to understand what kind of expectations. Dr Funders were driving a lot of that pre post, yes. And they came off of that pretty quick when it was obvious that the kids were not. They weren't gonna stand for it, basically. Yeah. If the organization already has ongoing. So me personally, how would I facilitate collection? Yeah. Well, I always see that an organization can solve their needs anymore, get their needs through working with others. I'm not. I'm not always the person that's out there looking for the money to create some new thing. I would rather pair up. People from existing organizations and existing initiatives and help them find their way to that initiative. So that I'm up in after I I'm constantly connecting people, things, initiatives in the city. It's very frustrating to me to go to a table and have somebody. Say, oh, let's do this program and I know that that programs are being implemented someplace else, and there's experts here. Why would we wanna create something new? Let's see if we can work together. So it it's an active connection and facilitation. Is it maybe more? Work, so to speak. But outcome wise I don't think you. I think you can really say that multiple approaches. Collectively have a better outcome. It's there in a partnership that's trust. Commitment to learning. Question. They have a lot of. Layout. So. If you're collaborating with an organization that is struggling financially, you probably would have something in the MLU plate to this money be used specifically for whatever you guys came together for, right? So like, I'll use the lifeguard thing. Capitalize by certification that might be used for that. They can't use it. Unfortunately for anything else, so maybe just that. I mean, you know, all organizations, nonprofit Absen Downs with when it comes to finances. So maybe this small collaboration could actually help them You get more funding for themselves if it's successful, so I don't think it be anything wrong, but you would want to make it clear that you know if if it was about my first certification that money would be used for that and that they would have to commit to making sure that program went on even if they were having some challenges with other programming. Or whatever. I mean, think about being able to say it, it want agency, you serve 900 youth within this population. OK so. But I magine then being able to say the YWCA is a partner in Youth Connect reaches over 6000 young people. Collectively connected. So. You know the the message, if it's a true, so the the financial it actually could help an agency that's having financial issues because then they're seen as a partner or player. So when they go for other funding. So they can show that. You know their position is not just. Narrowly defined as this particular agency in this and even though they had financial strength able to do something very impactful which may make them get some more money from funders. So, you know, I think that I think as long as you're honest about it, my understanding was that they weren't honest about their challenges. And that. And then there was legal issues besides the financial ones. That was what made me so uncomfortable for the other partners is that there was not honesty in the very beginning. So I think we have to be honest about their struggle 'cause every organization, whether it be for profit or nonprofit, have struggle. It could be fine, it could be finances, it could be being able to hire the staff to run the program. Be hard for nonprofits to find staff right now. It's hard for restaurants. It's hard for a lot of different fields and industries to hire. That doesn't mean that they wouldn't be good at collaborate with, but you have to kind of be honest about those challenges ahead of time before you get involved. And I think that was what the issue was. They felt they were dishonest with them. Some of these organizations are not just use development agencies, they're multi service agencies. So you know one particular department at a particular agency might be struggling, but the other departments. The only thing that I I come out there about these connected is that those executive directors, my observation is that they help each other. So if. I mean they they call each other when they're struggling and ask advice, ask if the other exec that's active deal with that before. I don't know that those things went on before you share like a difficulty with your colleagues because that might make you like you're saying. Finances. But now I mean, if you have a really gnarly personality issue or yeah, you know, really difficult financial issue or something, you can literally the trust has been built at that table, pick up the phone and get some advice from a colleague. It's from a different agency with a different mission. You built a bond and you know you can, so you're sharing resources, not just space, not just focus on a particular population. But now you really have the ability to learn and grow in the network, new executive directors, people that have not been executive director. My gosh, there's a wealth of information at that table. We have another one. Collaborating with. Significant amount of your resources and stuff like that. Well, again, you would be able to set the boundaries on that as the other organizations like I think it only happen if you allowed it to happen is that make sense? It is what they're contributing, right? Maybe they're contributing some intellectual property that is like, incredible. And so you're providing. The. Human power to work it so I think it depends on whether it's value added. I think we talked about that also with alliances and mergers. Sometimes it's worth it. I I don't remember which one of you asked about. Why would Clark have maybe wasn't. Take on some of Becker College because it had some programs E Sports gaming. Design is different from what Clark had, so it was value added even though they were obviously better with struggling financially and still made a lot of sense, and they also took on some of their wonderful staff. So for them that was a win win, you know? So if this week out. Is a memorandum of understanding that's that's really beyond the like first steps in. In order to truly have a successful collaboration alliance that moving all the way to merger a clear. Memorandum of understanding. That spells out the expectations of the individual agency and the collaboration. I mean those that's really even before we all submitted. One grant for every all six agencies through one ask a memorandum of understanding 'cause we each had to commit two hours, we would be open and standards that we would follow in programmatic kind. So that is really clear expectations. And if something falls within that, you can address it as an issue. But if those aren't spelled out, you really can't have a successful collaboration. Everybody signed on to the specific things, but each partner was getting a different amount of resource and they each had different expectations as an agency that they need to supply. So it did delineate those differences. But it's interesting that that the conversation kind of goes toward the money. Always think of collaboration as what everybody is bringing to the table as opposed to what they're taking with. I I think that that. The collaboration allows you to seek more, larger pieces of money in places that you know before. But. Most agencies are not thinking about well, they might come to the first meeting thinking about what they're gonna take away. But by the time they leave that first meeting, they understand that it's really about what they're bringing to the table. Other. Weapons. Did that answer that, but yeah. And if we wanted to look at this MLU. I think. I carry those things around with me. 'cause. I don't like to forget what we're supposed to be doing. Unzoom. Yeah. Hi. Just wondering because we got the belt. Young startups to have a collaboration with organizations well stablished resources for all of that. But how do these young? Startups don't let credibility so that they are approachable to big organisations like water or boys and Girls Club. How do they build up their credibility in their community? I think we kind of talk about that a little bit just how just because you're bigger doesn't mean you're better. It might be, if anything. I think it's great to have a mixture of agencies have different strengths. Because then you're gonna have a strong collaboration, right? So actually. We have partners with. Connect that are very small, even a couple. They're kind of like really one or two professional staff on, but they provide some expertise that we don't have Ivy Child International for example is very small, but they're really the only mindfulness. Organization in this area and the impact they have on all of our youth serving agencies is incredible. They have probably when the smallest budgets also, but they still are able to do so much because of their expertise, their willingness to collaborate. I would say that's really important is just. We want to work with organizations that really want to. Share both in the resources that we all will be able to provide each other, but also share with the work and the knowledge and the knowledge and and the challenges 'cause even a strong collaboration will have challenges. It was a little disheartening in 2014 when we found out we were no longer going to get. Appeals to water funding that was a little surprising to us, but I think because we were able to work together, we figured out how we could still provide free swim lessons to youth who needed it without the city funding on SOFA. At first it was like, wow, that's a. we weren't quite expecting it it was a bit of a surprise but we were able to gather to figure it out so i

Because it's you just get two tide up in your own. Your own agency or your own place. It can be. It can be a simple as having members of the consortium identified themselves as we've been at the table when they go out to a meeting. So they don't just say I don't just say boys and girls stuff, I say you cannot get boys and Girls Club, that's mine employer. Liz, when she's introducing herself, introducing introduced herself when she was chair as chair. So it's all that kind of communication. Drives the success of the consumer as well, but every time there's a leadership change, it's necessary to continue to build. Those relate. These two are very experienced executives at collaborative tables. They rebuild and rebuild and rebuild every time. There's a new executive director. Any other questions? Well, anytime. Remember to give it to someone. We even. Look at this. Oh, I don't know.

Capital leave anything from sharing resources. Equipment, facilities or raw materials use connect. For example, is sharing all their facilities every night during the summer. And so they're no longer for that night, a blazing Girls Club facility or YWCA. It's a huge connect facility and so we're able to reach to more kids 'cause. We're in all these different. Neighborhoods instead of just one. So that's, you know, like a resource that I think has been really impactful for US equipment. We've been able also to purchase equipment. At four, the lab Iration that we're able to share one was these you ink bags that were a lot on, like, doing outdoor recreation with kids that were self calming. So again, they were the experts in that. But but we were able to all share. The. Supplies for that human capital. There have been times when boys and Girls Club unexpectedly had maybe like 200 kids that night and but we didn't really have staff until, like, maybe 50 kids and so other. Sites like maybe the girls thing so we can come over and so they've been able to come over and help us make sure that we had enough staffing for when kids come because kids vote with their feet when it comes to the youth connect summer nights. So they go to any of those agencies, we have to make sure we're able then to make sure that we're there. With the right staffing for that, so that's been really great. But also I find this the team members love meeting other team members from other youth serving agencies and we also. Really work together to create that common knowledge that that youth connect words and knowledge together, but kind of pulling from different things. So one of the models for boys and girls come Worcester is whatever it takes. Last summer all the other you connect agencies were using that same hashtag whatever it takes. To become like that, kind of spoke on what we were doing during this summer during a pandemic pandemic. So that type of thing, intellectual Capital Girls Inc, has a really. Wonderful. Program on STEM and Career Path called Eureka, so we're able to have some of our kids participate in that even though our kids make booty boys and Girls Club kids or YWCA kids are like. I'll give you an example. Boxing and fitness program, so maybe some kids who are interested in that can come there. YWCA. If there is a child in a domestic violence situation or 18 in domestic violence, there are go to. That's not to say they don't all to do wonderful recreational educational opportunities but that's. One of the things that we know weird boys and girls called the Wizard, for example. That's not our expertise, but we're able to be stronger because of having that. So those are examples of and then financial benefits and what I mean by that is there's no money really crossing hands at all. But like we're able to save money by. We're doing this big black card certification program because every single one of the youth serving agencies needs more lifeguards for the summer, so it's being hosted at the boys and Girls Club of Worcester 'cause and that saves on instructors. We have our great instructor who's gonna do it for all of the youth serving agencies to also save some money. Spending all this money on having other people provide the training, we're gonna do it for free because we have someone on site or redo it. Does that make sense? And then the the benefit is that we're hoping to have maybe about 20 teams certified in lifeguard time for the summer. So we're hoping that. There'll be five agencies that can have about four new lifeguards that could really help with capacity. So. You know the obviously other reasons why people collaborate, but those are things I think are really key to collaboration 'cause again, we want it to be value added. And then some other things I look at before I decide to collaborate is and we've talked about this, it needs to be trust. There also be shared values. There needs to be clear aims. You can't be saying that I'm going to come. You know, my focus is on food equity, but everyone else in that program up in that coverage wants to focus on racial equity. You've got to have some clear aims of what you're going to do. But also understand. How you're going to do the work and that's clear process. And I think sometimes that where you specially in the beginning of a collaboration, that's where you can get stuck a lot. Like even communication. Like I remember in the beginning some people are saying we're getting too many emails about information, others like not enough to kind of talking about how are we going to communicate. How we gonna hold each other accountable to make sure we read if we we obviously we wanna have emails once a week we have to agree we're gonna read those emails and files because you can't just say I need an email once a week and they're like I wasn't aware so you know making sure that there's clear process. Clear process on how you collect data. Clear process on how you register youth and the reason why that's important. For example, you want every youth wherever they go to feel like they're welcomed to feel like we want them as part of Youth Connect. So we need to make sure we're all handling. The same way so that if there is that culture of acceptability and welcoming for every youth, regardless of what agency they sign up with and then establish rules. And again, the rules would be something they did would be in MLU, right, that we all agree we're going to report on data twice a year. This is what we're gonna be reporting on that we all agree we will provide narrative for grants so that the grant grant will have substance and things to use. When they're writing their grant. That we're all going to agree that we're going to spend the money solely on youth Connect, but we can't use it for, I don't know if you wanna ban or something for your organization if needed. So rules are really important. And those are things should happen before you become a official formal collaboration. And then there's different types of collaboration. I I think there's kind of like there's probably more than four, but before I think of is open where this is really like everyone encouraged. Now healthy, Greater Worcester is a real open one, right? Yeah, it has funders. It has four profit, has nonprofit, has government entities and constituents. So I feel like that's a really good example of an open one. Right. And the big advantage is that you're going to attract so many people. We're gonna all be problem solvers, right? I always say people get together to collaborate, either to solve a problem or to have an opportunity wouldn't have. So I try not to think of it as a negative 'cause. I think we solve a problem saying there's a problem. Also, science collaborations occur because there's this opportunity. You would not have. For your whoever you're serving if. You didn't collaborate with that, that partner or partners. And then there's closed ones and you know it's kind of like similar to a private club. You select a couple of parties to tackle a problem or an opportunity because you see that they have the skills or the resources. That will really help address that issue or opportunity, but basically by saying that you're saying that they are definitely the best solution when it comes to that. So you would probably know these organizations pretty well before you today closed one. Does that make sense? And you know, I think. I would say right now you connect is it's it's fluid. I think it has been an open one. I think it has been a closed one. I think it also has next one a flat one word decentralized or being jointly by some or all of the collaborators. I think that's also an example of you connect so. A collaboration could have components of all all of the types. And I think why a flat one is appropriate is because. They're going to participate only if they get some say in the decisions. And I I think again, like we talked about using youth voice or your constituents voice a flat one really allows you to address the program on the ground. You're seeing what the opportunity is a program. Start problem is on the ground instead of it being high up, it's half your deciding this is the issue. You're on the ground. And I think for you connect. It's been helpful because again, I mentioned that for domestic violence services, people wanna go to the boys and Girls Club project. That's not to say we wouldn't maybe provide some counseling, but we definitely would provide ferel to YWCA. Does that make sense? We have strong job ready program so we can get lifeguard certified drivers. Ed. ServSafe certified babysitting certification so that organization who maybe doesn't have that would refer their youth to us and do refer to us. So it's acknowledging that we all have different strengths and acknowledging that we're gonna only be stronger if we work together and we we share those resources. And utilize those resources. And then another one is hierarchical. So. I'm trying to think of 1 right now, where it's really led by one agency, but others are participating. I think I would say I've seen that in the health care. Yeah, I think they're doing it last. I've also seen it with governments. Yeah, if that makes sense. They there. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. So I'm sometimes, for example, the a city or a state will create a A community, a committee or Commission that's going to oversee maybe an opportunity or a problem, maybe mental health and then they can pick. Who they want to be on it. OK, so it's not inclusive where everyone who feels this. Yeah, but also there's real directives from that agency or that Commission saying this is what needs to occur. This is what needs to be accomplished. Certainly there's some say on how it gets done. But there's already some real defined. Rules that they've decided on and real defined what they hope to be outcomes. I'm not saying I think it can be effective, but I think it be more for a short term thing and then I would hope that it would either involve 2 and more open or flat, but I have seen that happen. Where in the beginning it's the city or state saying we have a problem, we need to have this Commission and then out of that some great collaboration comes from that where it can be more open. More inclusive, more transparent. Sometimes there's not as much transparency in this model. But I just thought it's kind of helpful just to think about is that there's so many different ways to collaborate. And like I said, I really feel like. Is has been all three of open, closed and slapped nothing article. I don't see that happening. I've seen it with more like city or state. Yeah, right. Yeah. Even like the recreation commissions, all those states. Yeah, it feels collaborative. When you're at the table, but there's a lot of rules that are established, and there's always people understand Lee say they feel like they haven't been a part of it. We have the hearings and people, the hearings like. Why couldn't I? So I think it's fine for maybe a short term thing, but then hopefully collaboration comes out of that because I think otherwise, it really isn't bringing people to the table. It's very exclusive. So that's my two cents. I wanted to give you all that. You know, I think something that really was open that happened during the pandemic. And it was great. Was that a lot of us teamed up with agencies we had never, I mean the boys and girls from blisters 133 years old that had never collaborated with the Guild, for example, who's over 100 years old, so. But what happened was when the governor decided to close. All nonessential jobs and organizations on March 2020. We were asked along with other youth serving and child care agencies, to be considered being emergency child care to provide emergency child care services to hospital personnel, to first responders, to law enforcement. And what was really wonderful is UMass Memorial Healthcare reached out to Linda Caveolin and she knew the boys and Girls Club of Western joined in. And then we reached out to two other organizations that we had never collaborate with before. Gilda St. Agnes and something very small. You were asking about why would a large organization team up with a small one? We teamed up with Patchogue Acres, which is a child care, because they serve infants when they were geographically, they weren't just listed. They were in Grafton and they were in Auburn and we knew they were serving first responders and hospital personnel, although they may work in Worcester, they may live in the surrounding area. Gilda St Agnus also had other see at sites boys and Girls Club of Worcester had the Webster Dudley site which we. Filled up quickly, YWCA also is in the Fitchburg area, so it was a way for us to be able to make sure that the community that weren't in in Worcester would be served and so that happened very quickly. That happened within. We always talk about it took us 48 hours. We had to close as a boys and Girls Club. The YWCA had to close their childcare programs on a Friday and we reopened on Monday. To be emergency child care. Now it was great to partner with someone we've already partnered with for many, many years of YWCA. And then to include two new. That was completely open. We had funders involved in Healthcare is involved. The local foundations were involved. United Way was involved, greater Community Foundation was involved and they truly were partners. There was no expectations. All they said to us, what do you need to succeed? They didn't say you need to get this done. This done this done, they said what you're doing is important. We wanna support this. And so that was one of the. To me, it was one of the most. Incredible experience I've had as an executive. Nonprofit professional. Because they're coming together in 48 hours and everyone sharing their resources later needed a couple of toddler teachers, I said. I know of a couple they happen to be my daughters. With, you know, Gilda St. Agnes had a lot of first aid kits. We all shared the resources, we all shared each other staff and you know, we did it through the end of June. So it was three full months. But there were some risk, right? We didn't know. Certainly, package on acres as well. We did know Guild is hang on team that we hadn't collaborated with unnecessarily. They've been in the community for over 100 years and. Respecting we knew the players there, but still just because an organization is great as it individual single agency does not mean they're good at collaboration. And what we saw is they were good at collaboration and they actually started collaborating more. Yes, I was just wonderful because of their experience and then acres. Just small agency, they were able to increase their funding. They had never received Greater Worcester Community Foundation funding or United Way funding and now they continue to get it. So I can't remember who asked that question about what you do when you are small agency. You're not being the funding. The other nonprofits are getting collaborate. And that's what happened. The funders, because they were at the table, it was an open collaboration. They saw that package on anchors, really delivered. They did a great job serving infants especially, which was really needed the time. And they were able to secure funding even after the emergency childcare ended because they. Thunder saw how collaborative they were, how successful they were and how families were really relied on them for infant care. So and and just think about one of the most vulnerable responses. People who are having indent, pilot preschool, school age, we went from four weeks to 13 years old, 14 years old. And you know, child care is such a very personal decision and relationship with family makes. Imagine the trust. That was was there for a nurse or a doctor or a police officer to walk into an agency they had never done business with and leave their child there. So the the, the automatic credibility and trust of that collaboration, that in and of itself. Was testament to. 405 new players coming together, really the core players uwmadison the city and then the four providers, SO56, players. Literally overnight to put in a reservation for your child at an agency you've never been at, and then to, and then many of us kept the families we served after the whole thing was done, I mean. That that was a testament to, you know, right people at the table with all of the prescriptions, you saw rules. Being able to make that work, I mean to me. That was. That was an incredible. So I think that's a really good example of an open one that included large organizations that have collaborated before and small organizations that have never collaborated before and working together successfully. They all were willing to give. And then because of that sharing of resources, we were very successful in funding the add childcare reference child had to be completely free. But you had to be open from Elise 7:30 AM to 6:00 PM. So imagine the cost it was for us. And so it was the funders who said. Now you have real partners in this weird whatever you all need. And you missed Morial Healthcare never giving that way before it was new to them. So that was also very special and unique. But also what we learned was that. These were. Opportunities for us to have a better understanding of the health care. I don't think we had a really great understanding of the healthcare landscape of what they were dealing with and they didn't really have a great understanding about youth serving and child care agencies. And I think we. All keep doing more. It is not disrespectful, but really valuing each other. What we were able to do and you know originally they told us in probably only for two weeks. And instead it it became. And then when we explain to our funders, including mass memorial, healthcare was also. They also recipient, right? We wanted to give. Our frontline direct service workers, hazard pay they all stepped up for that too. So every. Person on all of our four teams that are provided direct service received an additional $25 per hour. And it was because of the value that they saw our wonderful team members who really. Put their their lives a little bit at risk is very scary time. You know, doctors weren't sure it was going on. Certainly we weren't sure what was going on. And so I thought this is a really great example of a comedy. Gotta very quickly. The coming together with those shared values coming together, making sure that. We were going to share our intellectual or financial benefits, our human capital together in a very short time and we continue to now collaborate with Patchogue Acres and with Gilda St Agnus and other ways. So those are that's something positive I've seen with the pandemic is that we've all I think worked with new partners that we probably would have never worked with before. And I think we're also seeing now that you could be a youth serving agency. And your youth serving agents, you might have the same shared values. You could be a youth serving agency in the and art organization and actually share the same values. So I think we're thinking more broadly of of our partnerships or collaborations. And it's not just with their user. Say we should collaborate. No, it's more about the shared values of vision and the willingness to truly collaborate to build that trust. So I think we learned a lot during the pandemic. I know. Certainly I have my organization. That was one of the, I think the most positive things that I experienced. At early in the pandemic was that and we did it again, where we collaborate with eight other. So why don't we see a boys and girls from eight other organizations, including Giles St Agnus, to become learning of shortly after that. And that was a quick decision because there was always a kind of when were we gonna come back together at the. Public schools, so we will holding to those to our school partners. They didn't announce until mid August. They decided they were gonna open up the schools for on site. So we had to quickly collaborate and figure out how we're going to serve kids with. We get the money to hire the staff to do the model because we weren't public school educators. You know, we would generally after school programs supporting the education process, but we had to understand how twenty kids in a room with two to three staff who work from eight different schools, you know, how were we gonna so our kind of nimbleness and. Kind of flexibility in the nonprofit sector. Gave us and we asked for training, so we asked for the support that we needed. and again it wouldn't have happened if it wasn't a libraries