Happy New Year
We hope you had a joyful holiday season.
As we greet the New Year, we hope you’ll join us in celebrating several stories of impact that were achieved by some of Redstone’s clients through hard work and collaboration.
Restoring the Colorado River Delta
The Colorado River and its tributaries serve more than 40 million people and more than 5 million acres of farmland. In late September, we were thrilled to see the efforts of multiple stakeholders and philanthropies through the Water Funder Initiative culminate in a nine-year agreement for the United States and Mexico to work together to manage this precious resource and restore the Colorado River Delta. Technically known as Minute 323, the agreement will increase water security for people on both sides of the international border. “It’s a big win-win for both countries,” says Bart Fisher, Chairman of the Colorado River Board of California.
Supporting Equity in Education
In the midst of deep divisions across a range of issues in the United States, we have been thrilled to see people come together — and continue to work together — on public education. In states across the country, coalitions have united communities to support college and career readiness for students. In 2013, the national education advocacy group Achieve launched the Coalition Support Network (CSN). The CSN has rallied diverse, nonpartisan coalitions in 15 states to advocate for policies, and practices, that help all students complete high school ready to succeed in college and careers. With the CSN’s help, civil rights organizers, business leaders, teachers, and parents are working side by side to advance equity in education.
Improving Access to Emergency Food
The last story is about Plentiful, the first-ever mobile application for clients of charitable food pantries. We like to think of Plentiful as a sort of “OpenTable,” allowing pantry clients to reserve a spot in line, to avoid cumbersome check-in procedures, and to get real-time updates about available services in their neighborhood. Since its inception in early 2017, Plentiful has already served more than 100,000 families, and more pantries are adopting the application every day. Plentiful only exists because an alliance of New York City’s top providers of emergency food put aside competitive concerns in the interests of the underserved neighborhoods and clients that are their ultimate beneficiaries. By pooling funding, and developing a shared vision of the importance of increasing dignity for their clients, the group accomplished something that could never have happened without their mutual commitment.
The lesson? Working together works.
We’ve seen it time and again when our clients collaborate. And that gives us hope that similar efforts to improve the human condition around the world will work, too. Wishing you all the best for 2018.