The Ally

Greetings Friends, I hope you have had a productive summer that included a bit of vacation time. After all the challenges that nonprofit organizations have faced – and, in fact, are still facing – you deserved some quality down time. We all know that our effectiveness in serving others is directly related to our own […]

Information Sources City of JacksonMS Emergency Management AgencyWater Distribution List w/ Contacts Support Opportunities Jackson Leadership FoundationMississippi Rapid Response CoalitionNational Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD), MS Chapter

In our lifetimes, Labor Day has become the unofficial end of summer. A three-day weekend where we plan that last family trip before Thanksgiving or a time for a backyard BBQ with friends. The pandemic and the ripple effect it caused in our labor market is a great time to reflect on its original purpose. […]

Former Governor William Winter often remarked, “the road out of the poorhouse runs past the schoolhouse door.” Under his leadership, Mississippi reformed its education system and made significant new investments, starting with the establishment of public kindergarten. As a result, the generation of Mississippians born in the 1980s and 1990s graduated from college in record […]

National Day of Service and Remembrance Our colleagues at AmeriCorps, who are charged with leading this day of service, are honoring this year under the banner “Unity through Service” in recognition of the great spirit of unity and service that our country displayed in the aftermath of 9/11/2001. As we honor those we lost on […]

One of the roles of an executive director of a nonprofit is to help identify and recruit talented and passionate individuals to fill staff positions within the organization. It is these individuals that will be the cornerstone of ensuring organizational success. I have been quite fortunate to have been part of bringing incredibly gifted individuals […]

What Is the True Cost of a 1:1 Device Program? One State’s Careful Rollout Offers a Look As summer vacation winds down, thousands of devices—including Chromebooks, iPads, and laptops—are in the care of school district IT departments. There, the devices have had updates installed, missing keys replaced, cracked screens repaired and decorative stickers removed. Soon, […]

Greetings friends, We find ourselves as a country again at the place where the reactions to a tragedy – this time a mass shooting at a Buffalo, NY grocery store – fill our waking hours. We continue the routine of wringing our hands, vocalizing prayers and condolences, repeating rhetoric about the mental health status of […]

Each May, the National Council for Mental Wellbeing joins a national movement to bring attention to mental health during Mental Health Awareness Month (MHAM).  Here is some helpful information about mental health in America: Facts & Figures 1 in 6 adolescents (aged 12-17) in the U.S. experienced a major depressive episode in 2020 1 in 3 […]

Mental health, what does it mean to you? May is Mental Health Awareness Month. When we think of mental health, we automatically think of mental illness, but those are two fundamentally different things. Mental illness refers to our health condition involving changes in emotion, thinking, or behavior. The best way to know if you or […]