Capacity Building for Resilient Organizations: We provide nearly 1,000 hours of coaching, consulting, and interim strategic staffing services to creative youth development leaders and organizations in the areas of leadership development and mentorship, staff wellbeing, communities of belonging, staff recruitment, communications and storytelling, grant writing and management, nonprofit compliance, and strategic planning. We also provide referrals to professional services such as legal and financial. We also co-lead and provide programming for approximately 12 convenings for leaders to access peer learning/professional support in centering wellbeing in the workplace, scenario planning, budget forecasting, and adaptive business practices.

Infrastructure for Collaboration and Innovation: We provide financial infrastructure, operational thought partnership, and administrative support to 6 fiscally-sponsored projects including the San Diego Youth Dance Festival, Creating Abundance Collaborative, Sew Loka, SocialRx, and two other community-based art offerings. We also provide backbone support services and operational leadership for the National Creative Youth Development Funders Forum. Lead educational and awareness efforts to position creative youth development as a cross-sector and intersectional solution to broad-based community challenges.

Field/Movement Building for a Thriving Ecosystem: We represent creative youth development on statewide/national coalitions to advocate for diversified streams of support for nonprofit partners. We present workshops in community settings about issues such as partnership development and collaborations. We work within an ecosystem framework that includes arts and culture, youth development, and positive humanities, and that focuses on belonging, connection, mattering, and flourishing. While our roots are in creative youth development, we are broadening our work to include community-based arts, arts and health, creative aging, arts and justice, creative placemaking, creative economy, neuro arts and somatic arts to name a few areas. We are uniquely positioned to bring together creative youth development programs and others practicing in adjacent communities to exchange ideas and resources to create a thriving ecosystem.