Strategies for Mobilizing Voters:
A Toolkit for Nonprofit Community-Based Organizations
Summary
Social Current partnered with network organizations and NonprofitVOTE to provide updated examples from the field, along with the latest resources containing guidance on voter and civic engagement in the Strategies for Mobilizing Voters: A Toolkit for Nonprofit Community-Based Organizations. This toolkit includes network stories, coupled with related tools and tips for executing such practices at your organizations.
Guide to Creating an Effective Equity Diversity, and Inclusion Committee
One of the best ways to gain traction on your EDI efforts is to form an EDI committee. In concert with the organization’s leadership, an EDI committee can prioritize goals, identify strategies, and execute action items according to plan.
We have distilled our decades of experience into this guide, outlining the success factors and lessons learned. It covers:
- Committee purpose and authority
- Committee size and makeup
- Options for selecting members
- Troubleshooting common committee challenges
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Creating an Effective Equity Diversity, and Inclusion Committee
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Child Safety Forward
Implementation Study Final Report
This is the final evaluation report for Child Safety Forward, a four-year demonstration initiative that engaged five sites across the U.S. in research, planning, and implementation around strategies aimed at reducing child injury and fatality from abuse and neglect. The initiative, funded by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and with technical assistance led by Social Current, was launched in October 2019 by the DOJ’s Office for Victims of Crime.
Demonstration sites conducted retrospective reviews of child fatality data and/or collected additional community-level and system-level data to inform their implementation plans. This report summarizes the key strategies and learnings from each site:
- St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut
- Cook County Health in Illinois
- Indiana Department of Health
- Michigan Department of Health and Human Services
- Sacramento County’s Child Abuse Prevention Council in California
In addition, the report delves into key lessons learned and takeaways from the initiative. Recommendations are provided for funders, system leaders, practitioners, and parents and community members for each of five recommended strategies:
- Communications and Framing
- Data Culture and Infrastructure
- Developmental Evaluation
- Equity, Power, and Parent Engagement
- Prioritizing Sustainability
This product was supported by cooperative agreement number 2019-V3-GX-K005, awarded by the Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this product are those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Child Safety Forward
Final Evaluation Briefs
In October 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office for Victims of Crime launched Child Safety Forward (CSF), a three-year demonstration initiative to develop multidisciplinary strategies and responses to address serious or near-death injuries resulting from child abuse or neglect and to reduce the number of child fatalities.1 The efforts were intended to produce models and practices that are responsive to a 21st-Century Child Welfare System as envisioned by the federal Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities.
Five demonstration sites participated in CSF, with technical assistance led by Social Current. The five participation sites in this initiative are:
- St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut
- Cook County Health in Illinois
- Indiana Department of Health
- Michigan Department of Health and Human Services
- California’s Child Abuse Prevention Council of Sacramento County
As part of the final implementation study, each site identified a practice or policy change advanced through their work with CSF for a dialogue on how to impact systems change. The dialogue was facilitated by a team of two to three external evaluators with approximately five to seven local partners involved in the implementation of the policy or practice. These briefs delve into the design of the site’s policy or practice and suggests recommendations for similar initiatives based on the site’s experiences and lessons learned.
Disclaimer: This product was supported by cooperative agreement number 2019-V3-GX-K005, awarded by the Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this product are those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Strategies for Mobilizing Voters:
A Toolkit for Nonprofit Community-Based Organizations
Summary
Social Current partnered with network organizations and NonprofitVOTE to provide examples from the field, along with resources containing guidance on voter and civic engagement in the Strategies for Mobilizing Voters: A Toolkit for Nonprofit Community-Based Organizations. This toolkit includes network stories, coupled with related tools and tips for executing such practices at your organizations.
For the updated toolkit, Social Current is searching for new stories from network organizations that have run successful voter engagement campaigns. If your organization has led or participated in any voter engagement activities, either in the workplace or the community, please reach out to Derry Kiernan, the field mobilization and policy manager.
We’d love to feature you in the new toolkit, which will be a valuable resource for the network and the broader nonprofit community as we head into elections this fall and next year.
2021 Year in Review
Sparking Change with the Launch of Social Current
With the Boards from the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities and the Council on Accreditation voting to move forward with a merger in December of 2020, 2021 marked a momentous year for the two organizations as we worked to come together and form Social Current. This was the start of something big.
In launching Social Current, we engaged the social sector to join with us as we leverage a whole new currency—the currency of impact, of purpose, of equity, and of action—that will spark real change in our sector and our nation. Together we will create a unified, intrepid, just, and purposeful network that propels the sector and our field forward.
This report features:
- A note from Social Current President and CEO Jody Levison-Johnson
- 2021 milestones, as we prepared to launch our new organization
- Engagement stats for our service offerings: COA Accreditation, Engagement Packages, Learning Solutions, and Consulting
- Highlights of our practice excellence initiatives
- Public policy wins
Download the report to learn more.
Reframing Childhood Adversity
Promoting Upstream Approaches
This series of three evaluation briefs was produced by Child Safety Forward, a national initiative to reduce child abuse and neglect fatalities and injuries through a collaborative, community-based approach. This demonstration initiative, for which Social Current is the technical assistance provider, works to develop and test multidisciplinary strategies in five different demonstration sites over three years. These briefs were created as part of the initiative’s developmental evaluation approach.
During year one, the planning year, those participating in the initiative built a theory of change and implementation plans that would lead to a strengthened child and family well-being system. In year two, while focused on implementation, the initiative refined the theory of change to include greater intentionality around three core conditions they believe are necessary to having this impact:
- Elevate families into relationships of equal power within systems
- Build intentional strategy to systematically assess and address racism
- Sustain communications strategy
Each brief in this series takes a deeper look at one of these conditions. They highlight how Child Safety Forward is defining the condition, the strategies and approaches it believes will advance this condition, and the intermediate outcomes from those strategies. In addition, based on early learning during the first year of Child Safety Forward, it outlines a roadmap for this strategy. These roadmaps will be further refined through the implementation study conducted at the end of the second year of implementation and will contribute to each’s sites plans for sustainability.
This product was supported by cooperative agreement #2019-V3-GX-K005, awarded for FY 2019 by the Office for Victims of Crime to the Alliance for the Reducing Child Fatalities and Recurring Child Injuries Caused by Crime Victimization demonstration initiative. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this product are those of the FrameWorks Institute and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
2021 Year in Review
Sparking Change with the Launch of Social Current
With the Boards from the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities and the Council on Accreditation voting to move forward with a merger in December of 2020, 2021 marked a momentous year for the two organizations as we worked to come together and form Social Current. This was the start of something big.
In launching Social Current, we engaged the social sector to join with us as we leverage a whole new currency—the currency of impact, of purpose, of equity, and of action—that will spark real change in our sector and our nation. Together we will create a unified, intrepid, just, and purposeful network that propels the sector and our field forward.
This report features:
- A note from Social Current President and CEO Jody Levison-Johnson
- 2021 milestones, as we prepared to launch our new organization
- Engagement stats for our service offerings: COA Accreditation, Engagement Packages, Learning Solutions, and Consulting
- Highlights of our practice excellence initiatives
- Public policy wins
Download the report to learn more.
Opioid Settlement Toolkit for
Community-Based Organizations
Summary
In the 1990s, health care professionals began prescribing opioid pain medications with false reassurance from pharmaceutical companies that the opioids were not habit-forming. The resulting misuse, addiction, and overdoses have been devastating—841,000 deaths from drug overdoses since 1999—two-thirds from opioids. Prevention and treatment services are essential in addressing this public health crisis. This toolkit is designed to help community-based organizations understand how to access the funds available for prevention and remediation through recent settlements with pharmaceutical companies, manufacturers, and retailers.
States, localities, and tribes have reached numerous settlements with opioid manufacturers, pharmaceutical distributors, and pharmacies over the last few years. The 2021 settlement, frequently called the “global settlement,” 1 between 47 states and the distributors McKesson, Amerisource-Bergen, and Cardinal Health and drugmaker Johnson and Johnson totaled $26 billion, to be disbursed over 18 years and frontloaded at the beginning. In 2022, the “big three pharmacies,” 2 CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart, reached settlements of $5 billion over 10 years, $5.7 billion over 15 years, and $3 billion up front, respectively. After a federal judge held up an earlier deal, Purdue Pharma3 agreed to a higher settlement of $5.5 billion, with another $500,000 contingent on selling their pharmaceutical companies. Numerous other smaller settlements have been reached with other entities, including Mallinckrodt ($1.7 billion), Teva ($4.25 billion), AbbVie’s Allergan unit ($2.37 billion), and Endo ($450 million). In total, $50.07 billion4 has been awarded through settlements with opioid corporations.
The settlement funds will go to states and localities to address the opioid epidemic. The “global settlement,” in particular, requires that at least 85% of the funds go to opioid remediation activities. As funds flow to entities nationwide, community-based organizations must have a seat at the table when decisions are made about how these funds are spent locally. These will be significant investments in the kinds of services our sector provides. The profound impact of the opioid epidemic has made it clear that a considerable part of the solution will be strengthening communities with upstream resources and support.
This guide offers tools and resources to help community-based organizations navigate the complex legal and legislative process and to implement lessons learned from past settlements, like with tobacco companies. Organizations should reach out to relevant stakeholders immediately, as these decisions are being made now in many states.
Policy, Advocacy, and
Communications Toolkits
Summary
Social Current offers two newly updated advocacy toolkits, one with general public policy advocacy how-tos and another with tips for media relations and social media to support advocacy.
These toolkits contain information and resources to assist you in communicating effectively with policymakers, legislators, stakeholders, constituents, and media. These resources can be applied to engagement with all levels of government including city officials, local county board members, members of your state legislature, or U.S. senators or representatives. You’ll find sections on creating impact stories, developing media relations, hosting special events, and conducting social media outreach. They also contain brand new sections on virtual advocacy, constituent engagement, and coalition building.
Social Current is dedicated to providing tools and guidance to help your voice be heard and enhance the effectiveness of our collective advocacy.