The Bold Idea

The Bold Idea brings together practitioners, academics, policy makers, and funders from both within and beyond the AlumniCorps network for dialogue and action over a three-year period. Inspired by previous issue-based projects undertaken in AlumniCorps' early years, like the Tuberculosis Initiative (1997-2002), the Bold Idea enables AlumniCorps to mobilize the resources, strengths, and experiences of the hundreds of partner organizations and thousands of program alumni within its network to build capacity around a social issue. In doing so, the Bold Idea offers an opportunity both to make a defined, palpable impact on an issue of public interest and to advance the development of AlumniCorps’ network by cultivating established relationships and inaugurating new ones.

For the first iteration of the Bold Idea, AlumniCorps partnered with Appleseed, a network of public interest justice centers with locations in the United States and Mexico, to embark on a two-year pilot focused on immigration and forced migration issues. Our goals for this pilot include building connections between and among each of our own partner organizations, raising awareness about key immigration issues, and learning and adopting best practices about network-based approaches to social issues. With generous funding from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, AlumniCorps and Appleseed launched the Bold Idea with a kickoff convening in October 2017 to bring together members from our combined networks and establish a set of priorities for the initiative.

The Kickoff Convening: Crafting a Roadmap

Attendees at the Bold Idea's kickoff convening held October 16 -17, 2017

The kickoff convening, held in Princeton on October 16-17, 2017 brought together 29 participants from nonprofit and public interest organizations, as well as direct service practitioners, academics, and policymakers, for two days of discussion, learning, and planning.

The agenda for the first day included presentations by subject-matter experts on the current federal landscape of immigration policy and the local impact of these policies on vulnerable communities and the direct-service organizations that work with them. The speakers included Adriana Abizadeh, the Executive Director of the Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund; Emily Butera, the Senior Program Officer for Migrant Rights and Justice at the Women’s Refugee Commission; and Prudence Beidler Carr, the Director of the American Bar Association’s Center on Children and the Law.

The convening in full swing on October 17, 2017. Kef Kasdin '85, President & Executive Director of Princeton AlumniCorps, addresses the attendees, who included Deirdre "Dee" Flaherty (far left), President of Appleseed.

The convening also provided opportunities for the participants to engage with one another and brainstorm potential avenues of collaboration. The discussions culminated in a series of immediate project priorities for further engagement, with the aim of strengthening the budding partnerships between the different attendees while expanding the circle of participation as this iteration of The Bold Idea moved forward. These priority areas, supplied by our network members at the convening and reflective of their interests and preferences, encompassed the categories of connection and education, as detailed on the next page.

Connection: The Network Directory & The Chicago Regional Meeting

Chicago regional meeting, left to right: Daniel Te '21, David Abugaber '14 (speaking), Kef Kasdin '85.

Photo credit: 1871- Gregory Rothstein

Network Directory: AlumniCorps and Appleseed set up and launched a network directory using a platform called Airtable, which provides a user-friendly database that is accessible to anyone with the link and includes two separate lists: one that contains the names, interests, areas of expertise, and contact information for network members; and one that contains tangible resources—research articles, presentation materials, and manuals—uploaded by network members.

Regional Meeting: AlumniCorps and Appleseed hosted a gathering for our Chicago network members on June 7. The gathering, entitled “From Learning to Action: Working with Chicago’s Immigrant Communities,” provided a chance for AlumniCorps partner organizations and program participants to connect with one another and learn more about Chicago-specific immigration issues from subject-matter experts such as Seemi Choudry, the Director of the Office of New Americans in the City of Chicago Office of the Mayor; and Margaret Benson, the Executive Director of Chicago Volunteer Legal Services.

Education: The Webinar Series & The Reunions Panel

Webinars: To address the network members’ interest in additional opportunities to learn about immigration issues, we hosted the first Bold Idea Webinar on April 11. The 60-minute session, “Trauma in Immigrant and Refugee Communities,” featured Dr. Usha Tummala-Narra, a clinical psychologist and professor at Boston College; and Dr. Maria Nardone, a professor at Fordham University and a contributor to Appleseed’s Deportation Manual. Some 160 listeners, nationally, tuned in to learn from the speakers talk about the sources and effects of trauma on immigrants and refugees. Since many of these viewers were unaffiliated with AlumniCorps and Appleseed, the webinar also provided a crucial opportunity to expand the network by inviting viewers to join the directory and remain informed about future network activities. Given the enthusiastic response to this webinar, AlumniCorps and Appleseed have planned an additional two webinars on immigration topics to take place in fall of 2018.

Reunions panelists José Quiñonez *98; Phillip Connor *10; Maribel Hernández Rivera, Esq. *10; Maya Wahrman ’16; and Bold Idea Fellow for Princeton AlumniCorps, Sahand Keshavarz Rahbar ’17.

Reunions Panel: AlumniCorps hosted a panel discussion, “In the Service of Humanity: Empowering Immigrant Communities,” during Princeton Reunions. Over 40 people attended the panel, which featured Phillip Connor *10, senior researcher at Pew Research Center; José Quiñonez *98, Founder and CEO of the Mission Asset Fund; Maribel Hernández Rivera, Esq. *10, Executive Director of Legal Initiatives at the NYC Mayor’s Office; and Maya Wahrman '16, former Project 55 Fellow and Program Assistant in Forced Migration at the Princeton University Office of Religious Life.