The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, just passed by Congress, includes several provisions of importance to the charitable nonprofit sector, yet curtails essential relief enacted earlier this year. The nonprofits listed below celebrate many helpful aspects of the law and urge Congress and the administration to quickly take action to enact further #Relief4Charities:

“The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes several priorities that will assist nonprofits and the communities they serve. We are glad to see the inclusion of a Nonprofit Energy Efficiency pilot program that awards $50 million in grants for charitable organizations to make upgrades to their facilities and $65 billion to support broadband access for all.

“We are disappointed however, that the bill eliminated the Employee Retention Tax Credit for the fourth quarter of this year. The ERTC, which has been a lifeline for many nonprofits, is a refundable payroll tax credit for nonprofits and small businesses designed to provide a financial incentive for employers to keep employees on their payrolls and continue to deliver important services during the pandemic and in its immediate aftermath. It has allowed them to retain critical employees in the face of the economic challenges caused by the pandemic. Tens of thousands of organizations are now counting on fourth quarter 2021 access to an ERTC to support the financial decisions they made to bring employees back on the payroll and increase operating capacity to serve their communities.”

“As Congress and the White House continue negotiations on the best ways to support American families and the economy, we encourage them to prioritize continued support for ERTC allowing charitable nonprofits to access the ERTC during the Fourth Quarter of 2021; extending nonprofit eligibility for the ERTC through 2022 to help ensure a strong economic recovery from the pandemic; and, amending the definition of nonprofit “gross receipts” for the ERTC program to better reflect revenue available to support nonprofits amid the pandemic.”

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Washington, D.C. – Social Current, formerly the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities and Council on Accreditation, announced today a cooperative agreement with the Department of Justice’s Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) for Fostering Resilience and Hope: Bridging the Gap Between Law Enforcement and The Community. The agreement will support a three-year demonstration initiative that will infuse hope theory to assist law enforcement officers with addressing trauma and adversity in order to repair and rebuild relationships within the community. Social Current will receive $1 million to oversee technical assistance to two sites with the full grant totaling $4 million. Selected sites will be announced at a later date.

“The Department of Justice is committed to advancing work that promotes civil rights, increases access to justice, supports crime victims, protects the public from crime and evolving threats, and builds trust between law enforcement and the community,” commented Stacy Phillips, Victim Justice Program Specialist for the Office for Victims of Crime for the Department of Justice. “This program furthers the Department of Justice’s mission by advancing law enforcement policies and practices that promote justice and healing for all victims.”

“The award of this cooperative agreement reflects recognition of our expertise in helping support organizations in their equity, diversity, inclusion (EDI), and racial justice journeys, as well as our work in engaging victim-centered organizations in multidisciplinary, national scope technical assistance projects to accelerate innovation and knowledge,” commented Jody Levison-Johnson, president and CEO of Social Current. “The work of Social Current is to facilitate collaboration and innovation and advance policy and practice excellence within organizations and across systems. We believe this initiative will play a significant role by creating a learning community and building a body of knowledge around resilience and community engagement.”

“Building hope is about honoring, trusting, respecting, valuing, and amplifying opportunities within communities,” noted Dr. Chan Hellman, a respected expert in hope science and training and founder of Chan Hellman LLC. “We believe that hope may provide a simple shared language that can be useful to the community as they work to move past awareness status into actionable goals and pathways aimed to dismantle systemic oppression and racism.”

The initiative will include training, capacity development, advocacy, and outreach with a goal of repairing and rebuilding trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve and enhancing law enforcement officers’ ability to effectively engage with community members. Additionally, the effort is geared to increasing the likelihood that the community will assist in investigations to make communities safer and hold those responsible accountable. The goal is to increase the likelihood that crime victims will report their victimizations to the police, reducing the likelihood of re-victimization, and helping to build safer communities, where all residents thrive.

The program builds on a previous initiative known as the Healing Justice Alliance Initiative, which explored demonstrated strategies for implementing a trauma-informed and collaborative approach to build trust between communities of color and law enforcement agencies. Informed by young men of color who are survivors of violence, the project’s outcomes improved lives, by pointing to ways to manage trauma, and focusing on changing community conditions that produce trauma.

Romero Davis, senior program manager for Practice Excellence at Social Current will head the technical assistance team. He also serves as senior program manager for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion and Engagement at Social Current. Romero is a mentor; an award-winning leadership, professional development, and life coach; published author; and an advocate of safe communities and families. Romero has been active nationally working with agencies in areas such as poly-victimization; trauma in families; equity, diversity, and inclusion; juvenile justice; and domestic violence. Romero previously served as program manager for agencies focused on sexual assault and domestic violence.

Romero will be joined by Social Current colleagues Undraye Howard, Amy Templeman, Karen Johnson, Kelly Martin, Rehana Absar and Phyllis Richards who bring a range of expertise and experience to the team. They will be joined by a talented team with diverse expertise that includes Dr. Chan Hellman and T/Cpl Meghann Holloway.

Key elements of the technical assistance will include:

• Working with demonstration sites to develop a train-the-trainer curriculum to foster a law enforcement culture rooted in Hope Theory;
• Development of a detailed plan for implementation and dissemination agency wide;
• Development of a strategic plan for the agency that incorporates tangible goals and objectives for implementing a hope-centered agency framework and practice that responds to the needs of officers;
• Development of new or expanded policies and best practices that operationalize a common language of hope tailored for law enforcement that promote safety, well-being, and community-oriented policing practices that can be adopted by other communities across the nation;
• Creation and implementation of a cohesive and actionable plan to respond to and reduce traumatic stress throughout the agency;
• Development of a diverse community advisory council that will be charged with helping law enforcement implement a hope-centered approach by creating and maintaining community relationships and coordinated outreach; and
• Documentation and dissemination of best practices and lessons learned informed by national research and local analysis that can serve as guide for system transformation.

Media Notes: For more information or to request an interview, please contact Jennifer Devlin at 703-966-3241 or jdevlin@social-current.org.

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New organization unveiled during SPARK 2021 Conference

Washington, D.C. – The Alliance for Strong Families and Communities and Council on Accreditation (Alliance-COA), which earlier this year announced their intent to merge, today unveiled their new organization, including their name and brand. Social Current will represent a network of thousands of social-sector organizations working in partnership to activate the power and impact of the social sector. Social Current is headquartered in Washington, D.C.

The announcement comes after a nine-month integration process that began in January and follows a year-long exploration and due diligence process overseen by both organizations, which share a long history and vision, with the Alliance serving as one of the original founders of COA in 1977.

“We are incredibly excited to come together as Social Current with a mission to advocate for and implement equitable solutions to society’s toughest challenges through collaboration, innovation, policy, and practice excellence,” noted Social Current’s inaugural president and CEO Jody Levison-Johnson. “At a time in our history where the need to do more and do better have never been so clear, Social Current will ignite change and spark greater impact across the social sector. With Social Current, we will bring together a unified, intrepid, just, and purposeful network that fuels each other’s knowledge, expertise and experience to make real and lasting impact.”  

Social Current will engage a broad, multifaceted and larger network of organizations and partners with a diversified range of offerings that contribute to the reach and influence of the human and social services sector. Core service offerings include:

• Community and Networking: Peer exchange groups centered around leadership, fund development, performance excellence and human resources as well as key issue areas such as health, education, and equity. 
• Innovation and Collaboration: Unique learning communities that will enable collaboration among like-minded organizations and leaders to enhance their knowledge base, share ideas and strategies, deepen their insights, and build a professional network of colleagues in critical issue areas including developing neuroscience-informed and equity-centered programs, practices, and policies and creating approaches for action to advance organizational equity, diversity and inclusion.
• Advocacy, Policy and Mobilization: Ongoing advocacy, toolkits, policy updates, online campaigns, and workgroups joining forces to advance key social sector policies.
• Accreditation: A rigorous process for organizations that helps ensure infusion of best practice in service delivery, administration and management of programs, supports continuous improvement and often provides regulatory/licensing relief and/or access to governmental funding streams. 
• Strategic Vision and Planning Services: With an outcomes-focused lens and an inclusive approach, strategic visioning and planning services that engage staff and key partners to develop values-aligned and innovative approaches that drive mission and impact and center equity in their work.
• Learning: Access to a library offering more than 19,000 scholarly journals, books, and network-contributed materials; webinars and podcasts; self-paced and instructor-led courses; online-communities around a course or series; access to a learning management system with learning solutions and exchange. 
• Conferences and Special Events: Access to national conferences featuring sector leaders, including SPARK 2021 (October 12-14, 2021) a virtual learning experience designed to advance equity and inspire individuals and organizations in their efforts to implement innovative practice, policy, and research for the well-being of all people; and Executive Leadership Institute (November 1-5, 2021) an annual event offered in partnership with Loyola University Chicago’s Quinlan School of Business, that equips senior-level managers and executives with the knowledge and skills to oversee day-to-day operations, preparing them for the future to  promote greater systems change.  

For more information go to www.social-current.org. Follow us on social media: 

• Twitter: @SoCurrentNews https://twitter.com/SoCurrentNews
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• LinkedIn: @Social Current https://www.linkedin.com/company/socialcurrent/