“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” E. E. Cummings

For the past month I have been working with Alternatives for Girls (AFG) for my final Challenge Detroit project.

Like our past Challenge projects, we had 5 weeks to work with our non-profit partners to address a specific question or issue they would like help with. Also like past projects, we employed Design Thinking to approach the problem which entails empathizing and interviewing key stakeholders, analyzing that feedback and ideating based on key themes and insights, proposing a solution using a “prototype” (think tangible real-life model representation of your idea) and testing it out by getting user feedback on the prototype.

However unlike past projects, our grand finale has entailed choosing our own non-profit partner, choosing our own teammates (or to work alone as I have chosen), and coordinating and designing our own project.

AFG is a non-profit in Southwest Detroit that helps homeless and high-risk girls and young women avoid violence, teen pregnancy and exploitation, and helps them to explore and access the support, resources and opportunities necessary to be safe, to grow strong and to make positive choices in their lives. They accomplish this mission through three key services: AFG Prevention, the AFG Shelter/Transition to Independent Living Program (TIL) and AFG Outreach.

I had the opportunity to meet the CEO of AFG earlier in the year during a Challenge Detroit networking event with board members of Goodwill Industries. Learning about their mission, programs and services immediately struck a cord with me. Being raised by a young, single mother, I learned quickly to appreciate the struggle and challenges of that life decision, and knew I wanted something different for myself. I was fortunate to have the support and access to resources to help me achieve my goals. Because of this, I believe helping young girls understand and realize their full potential is crucial to their future success. The choice to work with AFG on this final project was a natural fit for me.

In addition to AFG’s core services, they have several special projects such as financial literacy, additional housing options, and a college preparation program which was my focus.

The college preparation program, “Future You,” prepares Middle School girls and their parents for post-secondary education through long-term academic and financial planning during high school and their first two years of college.

Each girl will participate in programming, mentoring and an asset building competent designed to help girls and their families save for the cost of school. Programming includes acaemic exploration activities such as college field trips and learning conferences, workshops for the girls as well as their parents covering various topics from visioning and goal setting to financial literacy and selecting schools. Girls in the program are also paired with a mentor for additional support and guidance. But perhaps the most unique component of the program is its asset-building element which allocates grant funding to help girls and their families save money for school.

Through the program girls will open a youth checking account and 529 savings plan; AFG will match funds deposited into the 529 plan dollar for dollar up to $450 per participant. In addition to opening and funding the accounts, financial literacy is also a key component of the workshop programming for both girls and their parents. Expanding upon and improving tools for financial literacy specifically for parents is a key need for the program.

Most of the girls in the program will be the first in their family to attend post-secondary school. Many of them come from low income families and are academically and financially underprepared. Majority of the families are underbanked and 92% of the parents are Spanish speaking. Additional challenges include scheduling; it has been difficult to coordinate parents and the girls going to the bank with the AFG coordinator to open the program accounts, and attendance for the parent workshops is mixed based the day and time. However parent engagement is improving and a focus for the program. The staff holds one-on-one sessions for parents that can’t make meetings, and just implemented a new text messaging service to pro-actively send parents reminders about workshops and other events.

As with most of the Challenge projects this year, we often start out in one direction and end up somewhere different. Initially I planned on helping with workshop content for the girls but after interviewing AFG staff found the need was really for parent workshop material. I also had thought my primary focus would be on financial literacy, which I’ve gained some experience in over the past couple of months planning youth workshops for our past Challenge partner COTS, a local family shelter. However upon digging further into AFG’s existing program I found they actually have a good amount of resources in place for financial literacy basics, so I created a workshop to help with the FAFSA application process and how to prepare. I also thought creating a strategy for the upcoming program year would entail more content, but it really became a synthesis of best practices and resources gained from community stakeholders and similar programs run by other local non-profits.

And also like past projects, five weeks is a very short amount of time that goes by quickly, but it never ceases to amaze me how much can be accomplished in that little timeframe.

Planning and coordinating my own project has been a great learning experience and has given me an appreciation for all the past projects this year that were planned and executed for us. And even though I’ve already developed an immensely larger threshold for ambiguity than when I started, working directly with a nonprofit partner has provided another new perspective.

While certain aspects of the project remained the same as past projects, this has still been an invaluable learning experience professionally and personally. In addition to project management in future careers, I hope to remain remain connected and continue skills-based volunteering with local organizations even after the program is over.