Equity and Inclusion in Action
2022 Impact Report
organization-in-residence
In 2022, Steel Smiling, our Organization-in-Residence, secured a historic $1 Million grant!
Equity and Inclusion in Action
2022 Impact Report
organization-in-residence
In 2022, Steel Smiling, our Organization-in-Residence, secured a historic $1 Million grant!
In 2022, Steel Smiling, our Organization-in-Residence secured a historic $1 Million grant!
This critical resourcing from the Mary Hillman Jennings Foundation amplifies the scale and deepens the impact of Steel Smiling’s mission to connect Black community members to mental health and wellness supports. Through our Organization-in-Residence alignment, their trajectory advanced to new heights in 2022—from growing internal capacity with the addition of a new Full Time staff person, the strategic diversification of funding sources, and the re-envisioning of program design and its ensuing implementation. Both Steel Smiling’s flagship programs, Beams to Bridges (BTB) and the Black Mental Health Fund (BMHF), have been refined in 2022, and are now positioned to better respond to the varying needs of Black community members in the region.
In 2022, Steel Smiling’s BMHF subsidized over 1,000 hours of therapy and medication management for Black community members throughout Allegheny County. This program also advances “Wellness Navigation” services, in which Black community members are connected to a variety of mental health support services, based on their vocalized needs, desires, and healing interests. The Wellness Navigation or “matchmaking” services are free of charge for residents seeking connection to mostly Black-owned-and-operated mental health providers and partner agencies. This may manifest as a referral to a psychiatrist, an introduction to clinicians with a given expertise, and/or a connection to community-based support group, in addition to numerous other possible “healing pathways.” Steel Smiling facilitates the community support groups that we refer to, with several of these supports being place-based in communities. Notable examples are the Men’s/Fatherhood Group with the Kingsley Association in Larimer, a Senior Support Group with Macedonia FACE in the Hill District, and “Chill Sessions” with Center of Life in Hazelwood.
2022 was also a significant year for the BTB Program. Steel Smiling graduated a second cohort of 10 Black community members who are now resourced to identify as Community Mental Health Advocates (CMHA’s). After training, Steel Smiling’s CMHAs are poised to leverage their newfound mental health education, skills, resources, and social capital to serve as advocates and beacons of wellness within their own neighborhoods and immediate spheres of influence.
What the organization-in-residence partnership provides:
Access to Neighborhood Allies’ complete organizational infrastructure, such as Accounting and revenue strategy development, Communications, Human Resources and more.
Heightened capacity for the Organization-in-Residence to meet the needs of those they serve by accessing Neighborhood Allies’ organizational infrastructure.
A holistic, more person-centered approach to community development by aligning programming, networks, and reach.
Steel Smiling and Neighborhood Allies collaboratively envisioned and operationalized the Organization-in-Residence model with the specific intention of elevating local, Black-led nonprofits by strategically interrupting inequitable patterns of resource distribution in the sector. The model has many parallels to business incubators in the for-profit space. The concept centers on the acknowledgement that smaller, aspiring nonprofit organizations often require space to iterate and innovate as they discover their own trajectories. These budding organizations also deserve to grow intentionally and receive guidance from a trusted partner or mentoring entity, instead of being pushed and pulled alone at the intersection of so many systems. The mentoring entity has more history in the local Community Development system and as such, ample “lessons learned” to be shared with other organizations. They also possess a robust network of human, social, and financial capital that can be leveraged for the growth of the smaller entity.
“Too often, the expectations and goals of nonprofits do not align with the complete investment it truly takes to make those goals and expectations a reality. We have created an investable model that allows nonprofits to think, operate and perform like their for profit counterparts. The OIR Model affords Steel Smiling access to our complete organizational infrastructure, including accounting and revenue strategy development, communications, human resources, and more.”
– Presley Gillespie, President and CEO at Neighborhood Allies
Neighborhood Allies
429 Fourth Avenue, Suite 1900
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
412.471.3727
www.neighborhoodallies.org info@neighborhoodallies.org