In January, CCT awarded consulting grants to seven Boston-area nonprofit organizations, chosen based on demonstrated need, organizational stability, and readiness to plan and implement change.
LEAP For Education (Youth Development)
Lucy's Love Bus (Health Care)
Massachusetts Health Quality Partners (Health Care)
RIA House (Human Services)
Samaritans (Mental Health & Crisis Intervention)
Thrive Support & Advocacy (Human Services)
Union Capital Boston (Human Services)
Volunteers have been assigned to project teams to fulfill these consultancies and are becoming acquainted with their respective clients. Project managers and sponsors have been working on refining project scopes to provide their clients with actionable deliverables.
LEAP For Education
LEAP For Education provides free academic, post-secondary and career services for underserved youth, ages 11-24. In order to increase program participation, they would like a CCT team to help them improve their messaging and outreach to students, parents, teachers and school counselors. Learn more: https://www.leap4ed.org
Lucy's Love Bus
Lucy’s Love Bus delivers comfort and quality of life to children coping with cancer or other life-threatening illnesses through free integrative therapies such as massage, Reiki, meditation, acupuncture, music therapy, and therapeutic horseback riding. Since Covid hit, they have been supporting their families who are struggling financially with basic necessities including housing, utilities, groceries, medications, and gas. They would like a CCT team to conduct a SWOT analysis and peer review, as foundational elements to creating a strategic plan. Learn more: https://lucyslovebus.org
Massachusetts Health Quality Partners (MHQP)
Powered by deep expertise in research techniques, MHQP drives improvement in patient care experiences by: measuring and reporting patient experience data; sharing tools, guidelines and best practices to support improvement efforts; and catalyzing collaboration throughout the health care industry. MHQP identified an opportunity to expand their measurement of the patient experience into the clinical trials industry. MHQP would like CCT to perform a market opportunity assessment of this potential offering. Learn more: http://www.mhqp.org
RIA House
RIA House supports women with experience in the commercial sex trade, and its associated exploitation, trafficking and prostitution, by providing community-based services. Their work has shown that housing, employment, and emotional well-being are the three most important needs and challenges faced by women survivors in the region. They would like CCT to help develop the housing component of their strategic plan, such that they can evolve to implementing an integrated service model that addresses housing, employment, and mental wellness together. The CCT team plans to design a client needs assessment survey and conduct a peer review exploring housing models. Learn more: https://riahouse.org
Samaritans
Samaritan's Boston Chapter is the largest provider of suicide prevention services in MA, operating a Crisis Helpline, providing Community Education/Outreach programs, and offering Grief Support services. Finding, vetting, training and retaining volunteers has been a challenge, especially during the pandemic, which has seen an influx of volunteer applicants and callers to their helpline. Samaritans would like a CCT team to take a strategic look at their volunteer management and operations, since this is the key bottleneck in serving its constituents. Learn more: https://samaritanshope.org
Thrive Support & Advocacy
Thrive Support & Advocacy empowers children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and their families, to lead rich, active and self-directed lives. More than 800 participants benefit from Thrive’s program: Adult Residential Services; Individual Support Services; Family Support Services; Youth Services; and Social, Recreation and Transportation Services. They have decided to open a Therapeutic Day School serving students on Independent Education Programs who cannot receive adequate services in their school districts. They would like a CCT team to create a financial model of the project and recommend positioning in the therapeutic school market. Learn more: https://www.icanthrive.org
Union Capital Boston
Union Capital Boston works with residents in several Boston communities to increase their civic engagement, thereby improving their employment, educational and financial status. UCB uses an innovative mix of individual incentives, community networking and technology to promote participants’ engagement within their community. UCB has asked CCT to conduct a SWOT analysis as a key input into their upcoming strategic planning process, which will guide their expansion plans. Learn more: https://www.unioncapitalboston.org