2018 Community Progress Makers in Miami
As we shared in our May 2018 newsletter, we are honored to be a recipient of Citi Foundation‘s Community Progress Makers grant supporting nonprofit organizations addressing the most pressing urban economic challenges of our time. Along with bread sales, crucial funding partnerships like this will allow us to deepen our impact and train exponentially more women in 2018. After attending the convening in Miami, we are excited to share a few of the opportunities that have already come out of this important partnership.
In June 2018, Hot Bread Kitchen’s Workforce Development Program Coordinator, Kelsey Minten, attended the webinar “Understanding Data Capacity: A Self-Assessment”, run by the Urban Institute and the Citi Foundation. The trainers provided a valuable self-assessment tool to help Kelsey assess her workforce development training team’s strengths and opportunities for growth in the area of impact assessment, data collection and evaluation, and theories of change. Understanding the tool with guidance from the trainers was eye-opening and, in Kelsey’s words, “helped me better understand all of the different organizational capacities that are necessary to build a team that effectively collects data, uses data to guide program decisions, and sets goals and metrics to define success. It is a great tool that I can bring back to my team and use to guide conversations around our skills, strengths, and opportunities for growth.”
Additionally, Hot Bread Kitchen’s Executive Director, Shaolee Sen, recently connected with the Community Progress Makers Technical Assistance team to explore opportunities for support from the Urban Institute as related to the longitudinal impact study we’re conducting as we approach our 10th anniversary as a social enterprise. The study seeks to quantify and qualify our impact on the individuals, families and communities we serve, and help inform our work and that of the broader field moving forward. We’re interested in particular in learning more about the logic models and quality of impact audit tools we might apply as we analyze our impact and incorporate learnings as we move forward with our workforce development strategy and programming. We are grateful for this timely opportunity, and we look forward to connecting with the Urban Institute team in the coming weeks to learn more about technical assistance opportunities available to us as we advance this important project.
