Arizona Community Foundation 2011--Arizona Organizing Project Grant Application

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Arizona Organizing Project - Arizona Community Foundation Grant Application
Description of Project and Services: A. Summary Mission: Develop and nurture healthy, effective and powerful peer organizations of homeless and formerly homeless individuals by utilizing tools drawn from the best community organizing and recovery model curriculum. AZOP s belief is that the combination of these two forms of education, united with targeted community resources and heightened attention to peer development unleashes human spirit, dignity, and value in each person in partnership with communities. In 2009, Arizona Organizing Project (AZOP) began gathering support and resources to demonstrate a popular education approach to end chronic poverty while building a healthier and thriving population in Arizona. With a specific focus on people who live in chronic poverty and suffer homelessness AZOP aims to find and strengthen these human resources by teaching and developing skills to create power. With increased confidence and genuine tools, formerly homeless individuals can and do take action to change and dramatically improve their destiny. Our model places homeless participants at the center of their succession plan and relieved them of the label and job of being recipient . An important stage of recovery in our program is that the experts in homelessness advance to serve as Interns and teach leadership skills that help others build a sustainable and independent life. This unique format of peer education and support has proven successful not only in saving lives, but has created a strong and lasting social fabric of meaningful support. Our program has assisted formerly homeless individuals reach the goal of genuine self sustainability while yielding a renewed and viable commitment to community. Continued and consistent financial support for AZOP will transform lives in Arizona communities, reduce the number of chronically homeless individuals and increase the employment rate among the formerly homeless population, which will result in greater stability to Arizona in general. We aim to reduce the number of chronically homeless in Phoenix by 10% by the end of 2012, while creating a strategic coordinated community-wide plan to end homelessness within 7 years. Field work through these programs accomplishes our mission: 1. Internship Program 2. Neighborhood Leadership Institute 3. Recovery Model Services & Housing for Formerly Homeless Interns 4. Direct Services: Food, Kitchen space, Referrals & Computer access 5. Social Enterprise (currently in development are a bicycle repair business, community gardens, raising fresh produce, sewing and crochet creations) 6. Peer Group Organizing (5 groups) -Jefferson Street Gentleman s Association - Senior men -Madison Street Veterans Association - Veterans group 1

-Capitol Mall Fellows - Former inmates -Women of Wealth, WOW - Homeless and formerly homeless Women -Phoenix Street Life - Homeless Street Leaders B. Project Purpose The opportunity we have is to create viable pathways out of chronic homelessness. We believe that the solution to our problem lies within the shared experiences of ordinary people: the homeless, those who work to aid the homeless, and their collective wisdom. We use a recovery empowerment model curriculum that provides an opportunity for those with behavioral health issues, mental illness, or the affects of homelessness to heal and grow. By generating community partnerships with those dedicated to end homelessness, we lead community organizing efforts of people who are homeless with those who want to help. We use a recovery model curriculum that provides an opportunity to heal areas of human frailty that allowed homelessness to occur. We teach and fortify skills in all participants, to listen, learn, and foster an environment of empowerment, respect and dignity for themselves and others. Where we restore and rebuild community involvement by engaged citizens who were formerly homeless and those in a position to provide support, knowledge increases for everyone, peer involvement develops, and our Arizona communities advance from a position of weakness to strength. Arizona Organizing Project needs financial support to do this work and respond to the increasing numbers of participants. As we have advanced awareness in the general community we have found there has been a greater demand for our training, development, and support services. Our efforts are working and we are building our capacity to keep our commitment to assist homeless people we meet, but this success has upped the ante for our stakeholders in the community. We have transformed our office space into an Intern residence and help desk while still tending to the needs of new members; we provide direct assistance with services to a growing number of people daily. As such, our staff is in need of office space. Some programs are operating and growing, while our Social Enterprise Development program needs financial support to reach completion. In partnership with the Recovery Empowerment Network we seek to expand our effectiveness to meet the needs of our members in recovery, yet with every step of expansion there are new obligations of support. Our outreach must continue and to do so we need financial partners to share responsibilities, build programs, and expand our accessibility with another location. AZOP s pathways out of the homeless condition depend on core programs: 1) Internship Program: Designed to provide a stable living environment for people who are currently homeless, we incorporate hands on leadership development in neighborhood organizing and public and private life skills development. Responsibilities include conducting relational meetings throughout the neighborhood, participating as peer support specialist, leadership development training, and creating and leading community service projects. 2) Neighborhood Leadership Institute: The cornerstone of the institute is an internship program which develops a cadre of neighborhood leaders and organizers who will create grassroots 2

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neighborhood organizations that transform the health and well-being of their communities and its members. Recovery Model Services and Housing for Formerly Homeless Interns: Personal discovery and empowerment are essential for holistic wellness and healing from the inside out. Through modeling and coaching people in supportive listening and responsible leadership, our interns learn the importance of recognizing their core gifts and develop tools necessary for healthy esteem of self and others. Recovery empowerment practices a peer-run approach to recovery from homelessness and all that it entails. Direct Services: Food, Kitchen Space, Referrals and Computer Access: We offer referrals for people experiencing homelessness to social service organizations that provide access to food, clothing, health, mental health, housing and other services. We provide weekly wellness checks through the sponsorship of ASU Nurses. We also offer access to computers, the internet, and printing for interns and participants. We offer instruction in career development skills, such as resume-building, interview readiness, and assistance to secure public benefits. Social Enterprise Development: We view social enterprise development as a unique opportunity for individual and collective leadership to cause economic social change. We work with people currently living in chronic poverty with a desire and aptitude to be social entrepreneurs and create partnerships with companies and community leaders to mentor and teach job skills. The work of social entrepreneur partnerships create enterprises that improve the common good and solve a social problem in a new, lasting, and effective way that offers greater sustainability than traditional approaches. AZOP peers have launched a bicycle repair business, community gardens and fresh produce, (thanks to Tigermountain Foundation and Phoenix Clean and Beautiful) and sewing and crochet classes with assistance from WOW and ASU Fine Arts. Peer Group Organizing: We organize and support peer groups for people living in chronic poverty and currently associated with social service agencies. While well intended, social service agencies become increasingly dominant in the lives of homeless people and clients often feel that agencies are not accountable to them. Peer groups are the platform from which the chronically poor can speak and act on matters important to them. These groups build a foundation for members to effectively partner with the social service agencies to work together to end chronic poverty and build healthy and thriving communities.

C. Assessment Our primary objective is to end chronic poverty in Arizona by providing a participative and inclusive environment where peer groups of people living in chronic poverty successfully collaborate with social service agencies and actively transform our Arizona communities to sustainable health and prosperity. In order to reach this goal we must organize the people most affected by the conditions of poverty and balance the power between those who are paid to manage and paid to live, with those who pay.

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We intend to measure our success in two broad areas: 1. Health and well-being of peer group participants. 2. Transformation of policies and practices of social service agencies and systems charged to end poverty and build healthy, thriving communities. In measuring the individual s health and well-being we will create a system to document the length of their homeless and other key indicators of their health and well-being and how those indicators change through the life of their participation. We are currently doing weekly wellness checks sponsored by ASU Nurses. We intend to partner with a social service provider who has an understanding of our peer group organizing and education model. This agency would assign a social worker or sociologist to periodically observe and record the conditions of health and well-being of at least 50 peer group participants. We plan to utilize standard health indicators already developed, however one of the key indicators of success is the number and percentage of participants who find and sustain housing for at least two years. In measuring the transformation of the policies and practices of social service agencies and social systems affecting the lives of the homeless, we will track changes that the peer groups intentionally caused in those agencies and systems. At this time the peer groups are considering actions in the following areas: 1. Successfully move into new headquarters that is within easy reach and access of our main target population in central Phoenix and build a 3 year sustainability plan for present and future growth. 2. All 5 peer groups have credible business and development plans by year end. 3. The successful completion of strategic plans and execution initiated for 4 new enterprises, including a bicycle business; community gardens; women s sewing and crochet business by March of 2012. 4. A legal services and counseling service launched for all our peer partners in English and Spanish by October of 2011. 5. The completion of a written curriculum that combines AZOP and Recovery Empowerment Network's unique approach to community organizing and recovery empowerment model curriculum by March, 2012 for possible national franchising and distribution. 6. Implementation of assessments by various schools at Arizona State University and Grand Canyon University in social work, nursing, behavioral health and social justice by September, 2011. 7. Become a nationally recognized model program by January of 2012.

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D. Organizing Status In the relatively short time that the Arizona Organizing Project has been established we are proud to say that our efforts have been effective in connecting with and engaging hundreds of people currently homeless in being involved in sustainable solutions to end their homelessness. We have been effective at communicating and demonstrating our services and commitment to ending homelessness in Arizona, with that success, the need for those same services has escalated well beyond our projections. We need to expand our campus, add office space, and intend to create a multipurpose community space for our programming. With growth we face the need for expansion since demand for services has outgrown our 2010 facilities. We believe this move is sustainable due to our partnership with Recovery Empowerment Network and other organizations and because we have dedicated staff of two employees, one partner, and one intern to secure this funding. However, if we find that we are not able to sustain this level of growth we would go to a smaller or virtual office arrangement to subtract overhead before we would cut funding from services. E. Budget The budget funding we have committed to AZOP for this fiscal year is $463,000. We have engaged in a grant writing campaign to request for the project/program expenses approximately $700,000. including the Pakis Family Foundation Expenses for the project/program including line items are located on the attached budget. Priority funding for our organization is always program and services. Attachments: a. b. c. d. IRS determination letter IRS Form 990 tax return Organizational operating budget List of current Board of Directors

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