Last week, our Executive Director, Jason Baker, and several Board officers attended an event at the St. Louis Community Foundation celebrating the completion of the Network for Strong Communities (NSC) Capacity Building Scholarship program. The program, funded by the Nina Needleman Charitable Fund and Centene, guided Bilingual International in increasing its organizational capacity to continue its clinical work with foreign-born populations in Saint Louis. This began with an assessment of agency strengths and challenges. Using the assessment, we worked with NSC to engage in Board visioning sessions and monthly Executive Roundtables, where nonprofit directors from participating organizations met to discuss different challenges they were facing and share experiences with one another.  Agency staff and Board members also participated in targeted trainings in areas such as Board development and fundraising. 

We would like to give a special shoutout to Nina, as she worked to create this program and encouraged us to apply for it. Nina has supported Bilingual International for many years, as a volunteer, patron, and advisor.  The unique program that she created and NSC implemented now moves into its second year of guiding medium-sized nonprofits at a pivotal point in their organizational lifecycles.

We are very excited to announce that we will be continuing the Capacity Building Program for a second year, allowing us to further build knowledge and grow as an organization. We cannot express enough how thankful we are to Nina Needleman and NSC for the continued support and guidance. After year one, we are very excited to see how this second year of Capacity Building Training can help to grow and sustain Bilingual International.