Organizational Alignment, Growth, and Sustainability
The consultant served as the feasibility, organizational, and start-up advisor for The Change Center, which was birthed out of the Save Our Sons Initiative championed by Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero. This project focuses on reducing gang-related deaths and increasing opportunities for success among teens and young adults, particularly young men of color, in Knoxville’s inner city.
The Save Our Sons Task Force, put together by Mayor Rogero in 2013, found that inner-city teens and young adults, who think they are too old for after school and existing youth programs, begin hanging out on the streets with no jobs and little to do—a recipe for boredom, bad role models, poor decisions, and death. Existing youth service providers confirmed this gap, and the young people themselves identified and successfully planned events around the kinds of activities—such as roller skating—that would attract them. The Mayor requested the consultant’s help when an extremely active inner-city church that was deeply engaged in the issue offered to donate a warehouse in a highly desirable and strategic location as an attempt to help address this problem. As a result of consultant’s work, the project will be open in early 2018.
The consultant provided the following services on the project:
1. Independently confirmed the need for the project through interviews with Knoxville-area youth-serving experts, and young people in the target demographic;
2. Helped develop the ultimate components for the project that would attract the young people;
3. Determined financial feasibility in a way that resulted in a project that would cash-flow operationally if onetime donations of capital were obtained (see Exhibit A);
4. Determined the optimal organizational legal structure which balanced the need for liability protection, multi-sector capital donations, and alignment of youth-serving and multi-sector partners;
5. Determined the partners that needed to be aligned to break down organizationally competitive “silos” and insure long-term success on the project, and helped recruit the optimal partners to the board of directors;
6. Helped assemble the leadership team to implement the project;
7. Helped develop The Change Center Jobs Initiative (see Exhibit B); and
8. Structured and coordinated the successful capital fundraising drive that resulted in the reality of the project.
The resulting Change Center is a safe, strategically located, center-city partnership facility that provides relational, recreational, leadership development, and jobs initiatives for teens and young adults in an attractive, fun environment.
The Change Center components include a roller skating rink and multi-purpose sports venue, climbing wall, movie wall, concert stage, DJ/music mixing booth, video game center, Hard Knox Pizza Cafe and employee training center, birthday party/special event center, meeting space, and The Change Center Jobs Initiative (direct jobs, job connections, and entrepreneurship).
Committed partners include the Knoxville Police Department and City of Knoxville, Project GRAD Knoxville, Knoxville Ice Bears, First A.M.E. Zion Church, First Baptist Concord Church, Tabernacle Baptist Church, Overcoming Believers Church, All Souls Church, Faith of Steel Ministries, Knox County Schools, Emerald Youth Foundation, Boys and Girls Club, Young Life Knoxville, Knoxville Area Urban League, Sterl the Pearl, Knoxville Entrepreneur Center, Girl Talk, Inc., Youth Leadership Knoxville, Great Schools Partnership, HOPE Central of Knoxville, SEEED, UUNIK Academy, 100 Black Men of Knoxville, Boy Scouts of America, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Urban Alliance at Johnson University, Pellissippi State, YWCA, Wesley House Community Center, and the University of Tennessee. Additional partners continue to be added.
The Change Center is located in the heart of the inner city and in a neutral zone between rival gangs. From 2011- 2015, 76% of all homicides in the Knoxville area occurred within the 3.25 mile radius surrounding The Change Center. Young African American males between the ages of 14 and 24 committed murder with a firearm in 91% of these homicides, and 86% of the victims were young African American males in that age group.
Although hanging out with friends at The Change Center is free, some of the activities are affordably fee-based; therefore, the operations are fully self-sustaining from skating/rink rental (62%), concessions (17%), movies/concert space rental (8%), birthday parties/video games (5%), advertising (3%), and climbing wall (2%). The capital costs for The Change Center, in addition to a $250,000 operating reserve fund, were secured through donations from over 3,300 donors to ensure that The Change Center will have long-term sustainability through the various fee-based attractions, preventing any competition with existing Youth Serving Organizations for annual funding in the community.
The assembled leadership team includes City of Knoxville Police Chief David Rausch and Pastor Daryl Arnold who co-chair a strong, diverse partnership board of directors. Executive Director Nicole Chandler and Chief Financial and Entrepreneurial Officer Bruce Charles handle day-to-day operations.
Nicole, a social worker by training, grew up in the neighborhood, is a respected advocate for youth and families in challenging circumstances, and is a committed, proven partner with youth-serving organizations. She brings to the table a servant’s heart and passion for community change, and strong relationships with the young people the project is designed to attract.
Bruce, an accountant/finance/business development expert by training, is the former president of Johnson & Johnson’s world Finance Corporation. Bruce is currently mentoring more than 40 young Knoxville entrepreneurs, many of whom are in their early 20’s.