Let Justice Roll Down Like a River
This is part of our 2023 "Holiday Highlights" series to showcase some of the
partners and projects Chrysalis Lab has worked with this year.
“The Chrysalis Lab team is amazing! They delivered usable analysis in a timely and cost-effective manner. Their process was thoughtful, respectful, and thorough. They were able to glean relevant organizational needs and trends, while delivering suggestions steeped in sector wisdom and best practices. They were a joy to work with.” Doug Ammar, Executive Director, Georgia Justice Project
Chrysalis Lab understands the profound need for co-created social solutions that are adaptable and sustainable to help transform leaders, organizations, and communities for the greater good. Because of this, the Georgia Justice Project (GJP) invited Chrysalis Lab to assess the current and future needs of the organization to maximize impact and outcomes. The goal of our assessment was to determine the most effective organizational structure and systems that align with the way forward for GJP.
The Georgia Justice Project has been extremely successful in fulfilling its mission of breaking down barriers to opportunity for Georgians impacted by the criminal justice system. GJP has won numerous awards and has been recognized for its innovative and transformative work in criminal justice reform. The holistic approach - casework, advocacy, and social services - to reducing recidivism and supporting the families of their clients makes GJP perfectly positioned to demonstrate the type of disruptive impact needed to tackle the issues within the judicial system. As GJP prepared to set its path for future growth, they acknowledged a need to assess and re-tool aspects of its core infrastructure critical to sustaining impact.
Our assessment process included reviewing key documents – annual reports, job descriptions, organizational charts, the previous strategic plan, and other key resources - to help us gain useful context on the organization. We also surveyed key internal stakeholders to distill assumptions, old and new perspectives, and helpful insights. In addition, we interviewed GJP board members and senior leadership. This data set allowed us to provide recommendations that addressed GJP’s operational structure, new or re-tooled systems, and key performance indicators that aligned with desired operational excellence.
The Chrysalis Lab team acknowledged the work that GJP had done to establish a strong reputation and culture. But with such influence comes a deep responsibility to build an organization that can continue to foster and nurture organizational growth. Now that our recommendations are fully implemented, GJP will be perfectly positioned for sustained success for many more years. We look forward to even greater enhancements in program outcomes and organizational culture, operations that improve delivery of impactful services and information to key stakeholders, and a brand that will be worthy of sizeable strategic investments in the future. More importantly, GJP is clearly poised to continue to be successful and impactful in the lives of its constituents.
Kendeda at the Forefront of Equity in Atlanta
This is part of our 2023 "Holiday Highlights" series to showcase some of the
partners and projects Chrysalis Lab has worked with this year.
Over the last few years Chrysalis Lab has been honored to work with the Kendeda Fund which has been at the forefront of reimagining a more equitable Atlanta. In 2016, several years before 2020, the infamous “year of racial reckoning”, Kendeda launched its ‘Atlanta Equity’ portfolio to support the sustainability of Black and Brown communities through investments in its leaders. Kendeda long realized it couldn’t tackle all the issues confronting Atlanta’s most vulnerable populations. Accordingly, the Fund strategically decided to engage and uplift a group of “changemakers and pacesetters” – emerging community leaders who could leverage their individual and institutional skills to disrupt the status quo by influencing policy makers and funders, challenge long-held assumptions, and incubate bold, innovative ideas.
“We resolved that by the time we completed our spend out, we would have helped establish a series of substantive community-wide conversations wherein grantee partners have defined seats at the tables of power, and institutional voices that are clear, convincing, and resonant”, said Trene Taylor, Kendeda’s Program Officer who led and managed its Atlanta Equity portfolio.
As part of the Atlanta Equity portfolio, Chrysalis Lab facilitated a series of retreats for the portfolio’s nonprofit leaders. In 2023, concurrent with Kendeda’s plans to sunset and desire to capture its work with its grantee partners, Chrysalis Lab conducted individual interviews with the Fund’s Atlanta Equity leaders. The focus of these discussions was to capture their reflections of their work over the last few years and its impact on the community and the systems they sought to change.
The final product culminated in the publication of a book that creatively captured their ruminations - from inequity in education to tackling affordable housing, and everything in between. It is hoped that documenting the journeys of these pivotal leaders will inspire other leaders and community members to collaborate to create a more equitable city and region. The book can be downloaded here: https://kendedafund.org/reports/pathmakers )
When a group of dedicated leaders work together to imagine a shared vision for an equitable Atlanta, we believe, like Kendeda, that a groundswell will form that leads to the ‘good trouble’ necessary to realize a better Atlanta. That’s why we applaud Kendeda’s investment in existing and emerging social justice leaders as they continue to grow their influence and organizations to steward positive change.
We are grateful for Kendeda Fund’s unwavering commitment to paving the way to make “equity” a philanthropic conversation in Atlanta. Through its Atlanta Equity portfolio, The Fund equipped leaders and organizations with new tools to fight for justice. That’s the sort of “dismantling of structures” that’s essential to affect the long-term social change and racial justice we dream of and strive for.