“A high-capacity, responsive, and agile local workforce ecosystem is critical to increasing the chances of sustainable and equitable economic recovery,” says Sheila Maguire, Senior Fellow with the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program. “The Academy provides leaders with the rare opportunity to think and act strategically across siloes to advance outcomes for workers and businesses.”

Slingshot Memphis, an innovative nonprofit fighting poverty in new and creative ways, is supplying community members with tools and resources that get more mileage out of their end-of-year-gifts this holiday season. These new resources are enhancing and taking poverty-fighting philanthropy efforts to new heights.

“(We're trying to) ultimately close the racial wealth gap in our city, for students to either own their own businesses or to have the skills necessary to secure high wage jobs,” says Larissa Gregory, Executive Director of LITE Memphis. “We believe that those things combined will really help close the racial wealth gap in our city.”

“The heart of it is…making space for organizations who wouldn’t be able to readily afford the experience. It gives their participants space to have voice. Space to express themselves. Space to be empowered and stumble upon epiphanies…Touch humanity with other people,” says Ann Wallace, program director for Playback Memphis.

“I was looking at my shirt one day and I said ‘I don’t play polo,’” says Jerald Sanders, founder of Midsouth Coffee and Tea Co. He chose a symbol that meant more to him, an image that reflected his efficiency and job-oriented nature, and that’s how he decided upon a single bee, wings spread in flight. This bee is now the logo of the Midsouth Coffee and Tea Company.

“The Executive Program offers class participants the opportunity to experience firsthand the difficulties many within our community face and allows them the opportunity to enact positive change,” says Reggie Crenshaw, President and CEO of Leadership Memphis and Volunteer Memphis.

“STEAM subjects are not only an important element in the education of our young people, but a crucial hiring need for both Memphis businesses and nonprofits,” says Kevin Thompson, Executive Director of MoSH.