My instructor happens to be THE Mr. Barry Silverberg, Director of the Center for Community-Based & Nonprofit Organizations at Austin Community College www.nonprofitaustin.org ; and President & CEO of Texas Association of Nonprofit Organizations (TANO) www.TANO.org . You can read Mr. Barry's biographical information here.
Yes, I got all of that info from the syllabus overview. lol. I'm not a grammatical genius.
As with most classes, we started A-NMGT 4325 by introducing ourselves and what we desired to gain from Mr. Barry's teachings. The woman next to me stated that she lives in Bastrop and there is not a strong presence of non-profits there. Especially for any preventive programming for youth, like the ones P4P offers.
You know I made it my business to properly introduce myself to my new classmate, offering my business card and a ride to her vehicle which was way on the other side of the dark, cold campus.
We spoke at length about P4P and how she could easily have programming similar to P4P's simply by securing a venue large enough to hold about 50-100 kids and implementing a good marketing strategy. Yes, it is that easy. The venue and the marketing is the hardest part. Content for programming is relatively found in your local Jr. High School's counselor offices.
The next thing we did was get a better understanding of organizational effectiveness. Having a vision keeps any organization on track - simply put. I had to get clarity on competency within the structure of a well developed organization, even the correct way to pronounce the word. lol. Not minding at all that as a rapper, I rarely use some of the terms involved but may very well be operating full force within the definitions of the terms. Ahh...my life... lol. It comes with so many wonderful surprises.
It is Mr. Barry's intentions to make sure each student benefits from each other's work. We will be sharing all of our writings and me personally am very good at that already as a rap artist. My career survives off sharing my work. lol.
Part of our ongoing assignments is to Journal or Blog our "learning", reflections from each class and questions on a class by class, or topic by topic basis. Piece of cake! I have a never used Blogger.com account from last year that will do just fine. lol.
Needless to say, my first day of class was exciting and I am looking forward to sharing this journey in obtaining a 501c3 certification for Positivity for Purpose as well as making the organization one of the most well built and effective organizations on Austin's Eastside.
www.Positivity4Purpos
e.org for more details!
