--Printer-friendly version--

Accomplishments:

• Mixed results were achieved in accomplishing the goals and objectives of the Community Action Grants Program (CAG). A majority of the grantees were able to build capacity to prevent youth violence; however, while rates of violence dropped in several communities, the five-year evaluation was not able to attribute this directly to grantee activity. The evaluation was able to document effective youth development approaches at many grantee sites, but was unable to detect effects at the community level.
• Thousands of young people received mentoring, support, services, and training at the Community Action Programs (CAPs) and Promising Practices (PPs), providing alternatives for youth to stay safe from violence and violent activities. Many of the youth involved in programs at the CAPs “grew up” with the Initiative and developed leadership, policy and professional skills through the VPI, including Youth Caucus activities. The cross-generational reach of the VPI has developed a new cohort of nonprofit leaders and organizations.
• Several CAPs experienced exponential growth over the 10 years of the VPI. This was a result of innovation, organic development, and careful organizational growth throughout the decade of the Initiative. In some cases, violence prevention programs housed in large multiservice organizations developed into stand-alone, grassroots community organizations.
• Many CAG grantees embraced policy change as an important complement to the direct service programs. Organizations became very involved in policy goals in partnership with the Pacific Center and other VPI policy grantees, as well as autonomously at the local level.

Challenges:

• All of the grantees in the CAG Program were funded as VPI grantees at varying stages of organizational readiness. The VPI was the first undertaking of its kind, and there were limited ways to assess organizational capacity to implement a comprehensive collaborative community-based program to address youth violence. Some sites required significant levels of technical assistance from providers. This proved to be challenging for the providers, particularly when trying to organize training sessions for the CAPs.
• Grantees with strong leadership embodied in one or two individuals struggled when the key leadership left the project. In a few cases, organizations struggled to regain the momentum of the early days of the violence prevention project, after original staff left the organization.
• The expectation of providing direct service and engaging in policy work proved to be difficult for many of the CAPs. This was a particular challenge for those organizations that were historically direct service agencies and for organizations that were small and had very limited resources to do one or the other. This also proved to be a challenge for funders to assess performance and measure effectiveness. Promising Practices grantees also had difficulties in becoming involved with VPI policy activities because they were funded five years after the VPI began. As was the case with some of the original grantees, time spent on policy work proved challenging because it took time away from providing direct services, specifically impacting organizations with few staff members.
• Many grantees seemed to have challenges regarding how to best involve youth in the program activities. Several grantees expressed that the missing voice of youth was felt at convenings and that there were few leadership opportunities for young people. Opportunities were developed to increase youth involvement; however, the feeling that youth should be driving the initiative was an ongoing issue for the VPI.

Lessons Learned:

• Identifying organizations committed to the issue was key in the success of CAG. Grantees that were most successful were those that were strongly committed to youth violence prevention as an essential part of their organizational mission. Sustainability, beyond the VPI, of programs housed at multiservice agencies, remains an open question.
• The promise of funding for 10 years can work both for and against the Foundation. Over the course of the 10 years, a few individuals from the grantees developed something that can best be captured as a sense of “entitlement.” This was perhaps because the renewed funding was a fairly sure thing and because the amount of dollars committed was large enough to make it seem as if the Foundation had limitless dollars.
• Incorporating new grantees into a long-term grantmaking program after several years is a significant challenge. Many long-term VPI grantees became insular, making involvement of new grantees challenging. When creating a new component, the Foundation should consider undertaking concerted and ongoing efforts to not only explain the structure of the Initiative, but also to ensure that strategies are in place to engage and incorporate new grantees.
• Providing geographical resources (e.g., VPI directory) and ongoing communications could help sustain and encourage learning and sharing amongst grantees, beyond annual convenings. In an effort to support cross-fertilization between grantees, these efforts are low-cost endeavors with long-term benefits.
• Programs that hired former participants, ex-offenders or others with firsthand knowledge about violence and its effects, were effective in increasing accessibility to and relevance of programs. In many cases, these employment opportunities not only provided a “second chance,” but also encouraged youth involvement and service. These experiences have been transformational – thrusting youth into the position of serving as positive role models for other youth, changing their lives from violence and/or substance abuse addiction, in many cases.
• Developing clarity about the role of youth in an initiative focused on both a specific population and an issue is important to ensure consistency throughout the process. It is important for the Foundation to communicate clearly the role of youth rather than developing differing policies in response to programmatic requests. Some grantees asserted that the VPI was a youth development initiative and that the Foundation should be more involved in this arena. This resulted in many of the grantees contributing to the burgeoning youth development movement in California. While these contributions are significant, many grantees had difficulties striking the balance between involving youth, when appropriate, and understanding the need to involve youth in some, but not necessarily all, activities.