kepstein's blog

On September 26, ACT for Alexandria and eight supporters visited the Friends of Guest House, an ACT capacity-building grantee. Friends of Guest House helps women successfully reenter the community from incarceration.  While their numbers speak for themselves – a 10% recidivism rate compared to the national 70% average – connecting with residents in-person and seeing the behind-the-scenes work that goes into supporting these women was inspiring.

On September 19, ACT for Alexandria invited our supporters on a site visit to UpCycle Creative Reuse Center at the Durant Center. We were graciously hosted by new Executive Director Lexi Keogh and UpCycle board chair Lesley Harris. In 2017, ACT for Alexandria awarded UpCycle Creative Reuse Center a $10,000 grant. UpCycle’s mission is to inspire all people to explore and create by engaging the community in art-making experiences with reused materials.

We have made it to the halfway point of our strategic planning process! Since our June 16 community workshop, we have forged forward, continuing to learn from Alexandria by listening to Alexandrians. Our workshop results highlighted common concerns such as affordable housing, collaboration, and inclusion. We have continued to analyze Alexandria from both a broad and a narrow perspective. We have looked nationally to comparable-sized foundations and spoken to their leaders while also honing in on Alexandria’s changing demographics and existing nonprofit environment.

Alexandria was flooded with generosity on April 25th for Spring2ACTion, Alexandria’s Giving Day.  The 8th annual online giving event had another record-breaking year, generating $1,812,851 for 156 Alexandria nonprofits in just 24 hours, an increase of $220,392 over 2017.