Talking to People is a Funny Thing

I had a Board Meeting yesterday.  Lots of fun; ideas and laughter were flowing.  However, we were talking over ways to share Joel's Place and increase the visibility of the organization and I said, "Here's an easy thing that you can do: Share my blog on Fridays when it comes across your facebook feed.  That is a really simple way to let other people know what Joel's Place is and get a window into how we serve the youth of this community."  So I probably have a lot of first time readers visiting this site today.  And it strikes me that I need to make a really good impression so that those first time readers will return...and the post needs to be insightful and funny and moving and serious and provocative and informed and short, but not too short...I may be a little nervous for the imagined flood of visitors who will decide whether to support Joel's Place or shun us forever based on their next three minutes of reading.

(Taking a step back to find perspective and composure...)

Hi.  Welcome to Joel's Place: Live and Unplugged.  Whether this is your first time visiting this site or you are one of the regular readers, thanks for dropping by to spend a few minutes hearing about Joel's Place Youth Center.

Talking to people is a funny thing, especially talking to people about things that are important to you.  If someone asks you what you had for dinner or what the weather is like or how old your kids are, the answers are fairly clear and the conversation progresses neatly.  If someone asks you about a deep theological question or about your hopes and dreams for your child, those answers take some more discerning.  And really it is discerning both your answer of the question and discerning the other person.  How much do they actually want to know about your opinion?  Are they asking in order to fight or to be polite or because they really desire to know.

This is what happens with me when someone asks me, "What is Joel's Place?" What I have to do is gauge what they really want to talk about so I have come up with the one sentence, one minute and five minute responses.

• One sentence response: "Joel's Place is an indoor skate park and youth center for high-risk teenagers."
• One Minute response: "Joel's Place is a youth center for high-risk youth.  We drew 1,100 teens in last year with skating, BMX biking, inline scooter sessions, free food and concerts.  We want it to be a safe place where kids can have a ton of fun while developing the assets that they need in order to thrive in the world."
• The Five minute response simply expands on the One Minute explanation by talking about 600 homeless teens in the Borough and life skill/job skill developmental opportunities and the values that are learned through extreme sports and parallel play and our partnerships in the community and the 6,500 meals that we served in the past year and our Bone Builders Backpacks program and the amazing staff that we have and the stories of life transformation that we have after 15 years of service to this community.

If someone is asking about Joel's Place it is usually because they have heard rumors about us and they are invested in the success and development of teens.  They may want to give of their time or their money or they may want to donate some things that the Center can use.  They may just want to file away this information for future conversations.  They will not be able to do any of those things if I...and if you...cannot explain what Joel's Place is coherently.

If you are a supporter of Joel's Place in any way (donor, parent, alumni, volunteer, etc.), take a moment.  Ask yourself how you would answer, "What is Joel's Place?" 

Feel free to share this post with someone and when they ask you the question, you will already know what to say.

First Quarter

I was taking my daughter to school this morning when she told me that this was her favorite time of the year.

• Me: "Really.  This is your favorite time of the year?  How come?"
• Her: "It is lighter out.  It is warmer so that I can play outside but still not be overheated by my puffy coat.  And it is not summer so there are no bugs.  Perfect."

My 10 year old daughter hates bugs.  She is not scared of them, she just loathes them on a very deep and personal level.  Anyway, we talked about the time of year and how much warmer 0 degrees felt after -40 and how amazing it was that the sun was rising before 9am.  She went into school, whistling at her perfect day.  Parenting win!

The first three months of the year are a unique time for Joel's Place.  January, February and March are the months where we:

• Have our highest attendance throughout the year.
• Have our lowest amount of donations throughout the year.

The youth of Interior Alaska (my daughter being the exception) are getting a little Cabin Fevery.  They are tired of winter.  They are tired of school.  They are tired of being cooped up indoors and asked to sit still for the duration of their days.  This past week was parent teacher conferences on Monday and Tuesday.  We were receiving calls from parents starting at 8am to ask if we were open yet or not.  The kids just exploded when they got here: jumping, yelling, running and lots and lots of falling.  They left sweaty and sore and grinning...six hours of hard work without getting into trouble.  Programming win!

The other side of that coin is that adults are still fully aware that winter is hanging around for several more weeks and they are still trying to catch up from end of the year spending and tax returns are not in yet and oil prices are way down which is threatening the economy.  It is always the lowest time of the year for donations and this year is no different.  Over the past three years we have averaged around $17,000 per month in donations.  January's number was $6,500.  Fundraising fail!

Now this does not take us completely by surprise.  As I said, the first quarter of the year is usually the leanest so we have been using the surplus from 2014 to carry us through.  It will get better, sooner or later...this post is simply written in the hopes of encouraging the "sooner" option.  If you have been thinking to yourself, "I should really send in a donation to Joel's Place sometime," this would be the time to do that.  There is a "Give Now" link towards the top of this page that works very nicely, also.  If you know someone who is passionate about building up young people, please share our information with them.  I always love to meet new people who share our vision.

As always, feel free to contact me if you have any questions, comments, concerns or even great ideas.  Thanks for your support!

James

Measurables

Remember the big grant that I mentioned working on last week?

Still working on it.  On the plus side it is due early next week so I will be done with it one way or the other.  Last night I was telling my wife that I felt like I had spent the day on a road trip.  I sat at my computer for several hours not moving much and popping sunflower seeds and drinks in order to stay focused.  Ahhh, the glamor of my job.

One of the pieces that comes up in grant writing all the time is "Measurables."  Grantors (the people who are giving the awards...not a room full of people named Grant) want to know that their money is making a difference in the community and that we are actually accomplishing what we claim to be accomplishing.  The best way to show that would be to bring the grantors to Joel's Place, allow them to meet the kids, have them spend a couple of years with the kids and observe how their home life, school life and social life all mix together while they see the immense benefits that attending Joel's Place offers to our youth.  Then it would be helpful to hop in their Alternate-Dimension machine to see how the same kids' lives would be different if Joel's Place were not around.  Then they could make an incredibly informed decision about whether to support our mission or not.

Due to lack of time, money and Alternate-Dimension machines, usually Grantors are forced to rely on measurable statistics to make their decisions.  For more relationally-oriented and prevention-related organizations that presents a challenge.  It is easy for me to document how many meals we served this past year.  It is more challenging to document how many influential conversations our staff had with kids over those meals.  It is even more challenging to document how many catastrophic choices were averted because of those conversations over those meals.  How many suicides did we prevent this year?  How many dangerous situations did we help kids avoid?  How many F's did not appear on report cards? 1? 10? 1,000?  What we are trying to measure is the internal growth of our young men and women and there's not really a growth chart for that, is there?  Or is there?

During my first year here, Linda introduced me to a small booklet from the Search Institute, down in Minnesota.  They have been trying to turn internal growth into measurables for over a decade now.  They interviewed hundreds of thousands of young people and found that there are 40 Developmental Assets that all youth need in order to have the internal wherewithal to succeed.  The assets range from a certain number of adults who invest in you to hope for your future to family and school environments to personal restraint.  What these surveys showed was that the more Developmental Assets that you possess, the greater chance you will have to succeed academically and professionally as well as a there being a marked decrease in your probability of making destructive choices.  For example how likely are you to have mostly A's in school?

• If you have 0-10 Assets: 8%
• If you have 11-20 Assets: 20%
• If you have 21-30 Assets: 38%
• If you have 31-40 Assets: 59%

How likely are you to enter a Leadership Role?

• If you have 0-10 Assets: 45%
• If you have 11-20 Assets: 63%
• If you have 21-30 Assets: 77%
• If you have 31-40 Assets: 86%

How likely are you to engage in violent behavior?

• If you have 0-10 Assets: 60%
• If you have 11-20 Assets: 34%
• If you have 21-30 Assets: 15%
• If you have 31-40 Assets: 4%

How likely are you to deal with depression and attempt suicide?

• If you have 0-10 Assets: 42%
• If you have 11-20 Assets: 26%
• If you have 21-30 Assets: 11%
• If you have 31-40 Assets: 3%

There are plenty more stats, but you see the picture.  Joel's Place is positioned to help our teens develop 28 of the 40 Assets, meaning that no matter what their background is when they come here, we can help them move up at least one tier, if not two or three, during their time here.  Those are changed lives.  Those are measurables that I can get excited about.

Teenagers are not the problem

“When adults talk about youth, they talk mostly about problems- alcohol and other drugs, adolescent pregnancy, school dropout. The result is that many Americans have both a distorted, negative view of young people and an imbalanced, inaccurate picture of what they need to succeed.” ( Developmental Assets, Scales and Leffertt, 2004, p I)

"Teenagers are not a problem to be fixed.  They are all force with no vector.  They are full of energy and emotion and drama and potential with little direction.  Developmental Assets provide direction and Joel’s Place gives them a stake in our community so that when they mature they will become adults who reinvest into the Interior instead of becoming a generation that drains our resource and then leaves the state for good." (Excerpt from a grant I'm working on, Menaker, 2015)


I am immersed in grant writing these days.  There is a big 30-page monstrosity in particular that I am focused on.  In the midst of research for the project I came across this Developmental Assets book that was written a decade ago.  The quote that caught my eye is up top.  Most conversations that I have with adults about teenagers focus on what the kids are doing wrong and what we need to do to fix them.  There is a lot of

• "We need to stop them from doing _________________"
• "We need to motivate them to start doing ____________"
• "They need to stop being ____________ so that they can start _______________"

Now I have children of my own and have worked with teenagers for years, so I know how infuriating they can be.  I know that the selective hearing and random dramatic outbursts and general oblivion to anything outside of themselves can drive adults to the brink of insanity.  But youth are not the problem.  They are not broken and in need of fixing.

"Well, James, you don't know my son/daughter/grandchild/neighbor.  They are out of..."  Stop.  Yes, I do know them...or at least someone very much like them.  I can tell you exactly what is going on with them.  They are trying to figure out how to survive and make their way in this sinful and broken world.  The lashing out, the brooding, the parties, the drama, the tension, the bad friends...all of it.  These young men and women are trying to make sense of all the pain that is in the world and in their lives.  They are coming up with the best strategies that they can think of in order to make it through.  Most of these strategies are dumb and actually serve to make their lives worse, but this is their intent.  Even if your kid has a great home and makes good choices, there is an enormous strain upon their hearts and souls and minds as they try to navigate the muck of our world.

What can we, as adults, do?  First realize that teenagers are not the enemy to be conquered and civilized.  They are navigating this fallen world alongside of us, but without the experience and resources that we currently have.  If you have found something that helps you get through life with hope and joy and fulfillment, share it with them, because they are looking.  Personally I have found that my faith, community and a sense of purpose allow me to go to sleep each night feeling content rather than ragged.

Joel's Place looks to give teenagers an environment where they can develop really good life strategies.  We encourage them to pursue community, activity, skill development and dreaming instead of lethargy, isolation and escapism.  This is a place where they can explore the limits of what their maturing minds and bodies are capable of...where they can learn from mentors who are a few steps further along in their journeys.  

Young people need resources to help them along...not because they are broken and defective, but because everyone needs resources to help them along.  That is how we as humans are built.  Joel's Place, thanks to all our amazing partners and donors, is built to maximize how we invest those resources into our kids.