Would you like to more actively involve your children in charitably serving Pittsburgh? PSVP Kids is a joint program organized by PSVP and Pittsburgh Cares that offers an unique opportunity to help grow our next generation of philanthropists. This video showcases 6th grade PSVP Kids in action during a leadership meeting with staff of Toys For Tots.
To learn more about PSVP Kids, contact PSVP at info@psvp.org or 412.441.0200.
There are two events relating to the Jail Collaborative that you may be interested in attending on August 31:
1. The annual meeting of the Jail Collaborative will be from 8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. in the Regional Enterprise Tower, 425 Sixth Avenue–31st floor. The aims of the meeting are to review last year’s accomplishments and this year’s goals, and to highlight areas for improvement. You are welcome to take the survey in advance of the meeting:http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WD8LTMC
2. A brown-bag lunch & presentation by Claire Shubik-Richards will be at 12 p.m. – 1 p.m. that day at One Smithfield Street, lower level, Homestead Grays Conference room. Her presentation, which is part of the DHS Speaker Series, is entitled, Comparison of Trends in Jail Populations. Ms. Shubik-Richards will present her research into the decade’s long climb and recent drop in Philadelphia’s local jail population. Her research (conducted for Pew Charitable Trusts) investigated what was driving the change the jail population, the fiscal impact for Philadelphia, and implications for public safety. She will compare these findings and trends to what is happening nationally and here in Allegheny County.
If you would like to attend one or both events listed above, please rsvp to Kathy McCauley at mccauleyk at gmail dotcom
As a follow-up to PSVP’s 2010 partner learning and Fall Pitch investments, we’d like to share the just-published Annual Report of the Jail Collaborative of Allegheny County.
The Jail Collaborative is a large and broad group of people, all working to improve public safety by building a better system of reentry for people coming out of the Allegheny County Jail. Early in 2010, we embarked on a planning process to learn about the problems at the root of a too-high rate of recidivism and approaches that would work. We spoke with over 300 people in the area, including family members, ex-offenders, and people from faith-based organizations. We looked at other cities for models. And we studied the research to look for the strongest evidence of which programs actually reduce criminality. From this we developed a three-year plan for reducing recidivism.
The first year of that plan ended on June 30, 2011. This report summarizes the progress made and the work that lies ahead.
Download PDF: Jail Collaborative Annual Report 2010-11
Take a look at Thursday’s Post Gazette Business section http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11237/1169695-28-0.stm — our own Todd Palcic is featured for his innovative business development downtown.
Way to go, Todd!
According to the latest available figures, nearly on-third of all children in kindergarten through 12th grades are overweight. “This is a statewide epidemic,” said PA’s Secretary of Health.
Statistics like this are one reason that PSVP is looking to showcase programs that are delivering innovative solutions through health and nutrition education in our 2011 Fall Pitch event.
If you are a nonprofit that is programming in this focus area, you may be a candidate for collaboration with PSVP.
PSVP partners and guests will determine award benefits at the Fall Pitch event on October 19, 2011.
Find details on the 2011 Fall Pitch event pages on the PSVP website.
The application deadline is September 15, 2011.
Elizabeth Visnic has been selected as PSVP’s Director of Partner Engagement.
Our outstanding selection committee of partners, Todd, Heidi, Carrie, Tessa and John along with Karl sitting in on the final interviews, met with four outstanding candidates, and unanimously select Elizabeth, who is no stranger to PSVP.
Elizabeth served as a coach during our Fast Pitch and worked with GTECH and our second place winner Community Auto. She also served as our flag girl keeping time during the presentations.
Elizabeth brings over 20 years of professional experience in strategic planning, management by objective, and program evaluation (both in the U.S. and overseas.) In recent years, she has focused her skills to support the organizational capacity of several non-profits in Pittsburgh. Specifically, she has been working with Brother’s Brother Foundation (BBF) to diversify its funding base and manage programs. She also assisted Surgicorps International with developing funding sources for ongoing medical initiatives around the world. While working with the President of the Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC), she developed an operational strategy to integrate international education objectives into ongoing programming across campuses. Thus, her management skills expand across a broad variety of disciplines and across a breadth of organizational objectives (including non-profit, private and government.) The focus of her Masters’ degree is economic and social development, management and planning and her undergraduate studies culminated in a degree in Journalism from UNC- Chapel Hill.
Elizabeth and her husband, Mark, are experienced world travelers. They met in Venice, Italy and together have lived and worked throughout Latin America and the Caribbean with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Elizabeth has also lived and worked in West Africa and Thailand. They have two children (Luke, 17, and Olivia, 13) and are often happily found in the country’s waterways, forests, and mountains with kayaks, bikes, or skis. This summer, Elizabeth and Olivia will be spending several weeks on a Mission Trip– working side-by-side with a local community in St. Vincent and the Grenadines– where she served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the early 1980s.
Officially Elizabeth will start August 1st.
Partner Donnie Wagner sent me a link about google’s new free service for nonprofits. I thought it was so interesting and exciting that I wanted to share this with you for the following reasons:
- Would any of you partners be willing to volunteer a little time to apply to google for PSVP and get our organization involved with this?
- If you are already involved, which most of us are, with other nonprofits, please share this with them.
- If you’re part of a nonprofit, take a look at these great resources available for free!
“Google Announces New Service for Nonprofits (Fast Company)
This is a video by Google about the program, Google for Nonprofits
There’s an article in today’s PG about the SNAP program. For those of you who are new to our partnership, partner Tom Canfield first brought this program to PSVP’s attention three or four years ago. PSVP funded and organized getting the founders of the program from Toronto to come to Pittsburgh. This trip ultimately resulted in millions of local dollars invested in the SNAP program which is now up and running with full backing from the Department of Human Services. SNAP is really one of our biggest success stories!
John Denny contributed a tongue-in-cheek article in this week’s Pop City: “The Five Women I Fear the Most in Pittsburgh“:
The ironic thing is, and you can ask anyone who knows me, I enjoy working with and for women a whole lot more than I do with men– especially highly motivated, inspirational women leaders. So here are five highly motivated, inspirational Pittsburgh women I fear the most. In a good way of course.
Of course, the column is really a chance to spotlight local women who are contributing in amazing ways to western Pennsylvania. Fun and well worth a read. Find the article online here.
PSVP partner Todd Palcic is in Pop City this week, talking about a Penn Renaissance development project in downtown Pittsburgh:
Penn Avenue will get a little more posh this summer, with the completion of L’Enfant Lofts.
French for “the child,” but also the namesake of architect Charles Pierre L’Enfant, the lofts will feature six boutique units. Located at 806 Penn Avenue, Penn Renaissance, LP took over the stalled condo project already in progress.
“It’s going to be a bright light on that otherwise dark half a block at night,” says Todd Palcic, principal of Penn Renaissance. “I think the building will add more of the residential mix that we want downtown.”