Nonprofit Consortium of St. Croix (USVI)

The Atlantic Hurricane Season has been unprecedented, recording the earliest Category 5 Hurricane in history in July, followed by multiple superstorms. 2024 also saw hurricanes intensify much faster than is typical while veering off usual storm paths. Whether it’s hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, wildfires, deadly heatwaves, flooding, or severe winters, the symptoms of climate change have reached nearly every corner of the globe – and there’s still just under a month to go.

As communities and organizations around the world grapple with what is, for many, a new normal, St. Croix Foundation and our Nonprofit Consortium are more certain than ever that the next era of philanthropy is upon us – one that must fuse immediate disaster response and long-term recovery with the necessity of building community-rooted capacity around resilience.

And make no mistake… resilience is not just about preparation and education around climate change and disaster preparedness; it’s also about the ability to withstand and even progress through economic, political, and social upheavals that exacerbate existing disparities and inequities. In truth, our Nonprofit Consortium has taught us that the wisdom, innovation, and leadership required for real, sustained resilience against any crisis is driven by civic coalitions that collaborate beyond a single project or funding opportunity.

Since we last checked in, our Nonprofit Consortium has officially met several times – but more importantly, members of the Consortium speak nearly every day, they explore new issues emerging, organically growing grassroots working groups that are answering “calls to action” from our community, and they are sharing resources and information to advance new systems of resilience. Today, we sincerely thank all of our friends at GlobalGiving – your early investments and recognition of the Consortium’s potential has built an active new system of civic engagement that is evolving into a model for the field of philanthropy.

Replicating our Nonprofit Consortium at One Eleuthera Foundation (OEF)
In September, our President and CEO traveled to the Bahamas at the invitation of Keyron Smith (CEO of One Eleuthera Foundation) who joined SCF last year on St. Croix for our 2023 Philanthropy Retreat. Inspired by the power and impact of our Nonprofit Consortium, One Eleuthera made the decision to replicate our NPC in the Bahamas. With 700 islands comprising the Archipelago (28 inhabited), the exercise of pulling nonprofits together is a major challenge for coalition-building, but OEF is encouraged by the success of the work SCF is leading through Nonprofit Coalition-building and Civic Collaboration… and the work continues!

Grassroots Movements: System-building to Stem Youth Violence & Transfer Knowledge

Youth Violence Messaging Campaign
Given the socio-economic conditions in the U.S. Virgin Islands, including high poverty rates and crumbling education and healthcare infrastructure, it is not unsurprising yet no less shocking to hear of the staggering levels of gun violence in the USVI. According to Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, in 2020, the islands reported “a firearm homicide rate of 50 per 100,000, 8.5 times the rate of the 50 states.”  And among our youth, ages 16-24, violent crimes escalated from 198 incidents in 2021 to 243 in 2022, a 22.7 percent increase.

After another wave of violence and receiving a “call to action” from a community activist and elder, St. Croix Foundation reported back to the Nonprofit Consortium. Members of the arts, culture, and heritage sector, including Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts and VI Architecture Center for Built Heritage immediately rallied and determined that this was a space for the humanities. This small working group is now meeting to develop a cross-sector approach to designing and implementing a “quiet riot” messaging campaign to encourage new ways of being, new dialogues, and new questions to the forefront about how we interact with each other and what we value. The vision is to engage in peaceful stealth to post messages, signs and signals in everyday places to touch hearts and inspire minds.

Our Living History: Preserving Virgin Islands History
Our Nonprofit Consortium members are also a part of an emergent community working group that is responding to a recent legal ruling.

After a decades-long battle in court, in 2024 it was officially ruled that the K-12 Curriculum in the U.S. Virgin Islands include specifics relative to the Virgin Islands’ long and storied history. In response to this ruling and outreach from a local activist, historian, and Elder, Mario Moorhead, members of our Nonprofit Consortium combined forces with local educators and culture bearers to host an intergenerational conversation with Scholar Mario Moorhead.

The three-hour event will be held this November 17^th and will feature an opening ceremony followed by a presentation from Elder Moorhead moderated by 3 generations of Virgin Islanders. Elder Moorhead will speak on Virgin Islands History, dating back from 1441, including the seven colonial powers that ruled St. Croix and the period of the Dutch’s high reign in human trafficking with the most prolific and brutal slave trade. Moorhead’s presentation, as a Community Classroom, centers on the Virgin Islands’ place in the diaspora and is another critical component of community healing and resilience.

Community Genius and Resilience
In every community there lives a deeply rooted wisdom about their Place: their people, their land, their values, and their history, and at St. Croix Foundation, we call this “Community Genius.” This is the wisdom that links together the alarming headlines with advocacy and action. This is the kind of genius that finds abundance where others see only scarcity and knows the interconnections and relationships that make miracles possible. And while the Nonprofit Consortium works across sector lines in deep collaboration with each member, they are also concurrently helping to improve – and in some cases, save – lives!

The Real Work of Collaboration: Nurturing Space and Time for Nonprofits

Over the past several months, St. Croix Foundation’s Nonprofit Consortium (NPC) has continued the real work of collaboration: intentionally strengthening relationships between nonprofits by creating space and making time to convene, learn, grow, organize, and mobilize.

In April, our Nonprofit Consortium participated in St. Croix Foundation’s Inaugural KIDS COUNT USVI Summit, “We are the System and the Solution,” which convened over 60 stakeholders representing government agencies, local nonprofits, and educational institutions. Focused on fostering action, collaboration, and possibilities, the summit engaged participants around one of SCF’s key priorities for its KIDS COUNT stewardship: activating the data through systems-thinking, relationship-building, shared accountability, and collective action. Among many of the 25 members of our Nonprofit Consortium, the Caribbean Center for Boys and Girls of the V.I., which serves 70+ children a day, was in attendance as regular contributors to our local KIDS COUNT data books. And the Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts, which provides countless workshops, classes, and mentoring opportunities to our children, was also in attendance, demonstrating the diversity of nonprofits that serve our children – and the need to collaborate across missions and sectors. The two-day Summit brought together key policymakers, service providers, and advocates for children, ultimately providing a space and time for people to come together; and cultivate new relationships- all around a single cause – our young people.

Of course, collaboration takes skill and time. We know this on the surface, but real collaboration is not just a partnership for a single program; it is, as our President Deanna James says, a bit like a marriage. It could be said that a successful marriage is a successful collaboration that is consistent, taking place over time and across a multitude of life events. Just as with a marriage, two organizations might sign a contract or memorandum of understanding, making them partners – but that certainly doesn’t mean that they are collaborating in the truest sense of the word. And much like a marriage, there are skills and tools needed to communicate and navigate the collaboration.

Whether through KIDS COUNT USVI or any of the Foundation’s other programming, including AmeriCorps VISTA and the renovation of the Alexander Theater, we are intentionally making space at the table for our nonprofits to engage with us and each other. At the KIDS COUNT USVI Summit, Nonprofit Consortium members worked with Tuesday Rivera of The Outside and heard from Dr. Ulcca Joshi Hansen, learning about the lifecycle of systems and about taking human-centered approaches to broad issues like education. Since March of this year, the Nonprofit Consortium convened twice during our official meetings – but outside of these, members of our NPC routinely “huddled up” in smaller cohorts on joint programming, funding opportunities, and efforts to advocate for safe water, clean air, and child well-being.

Collaborative work is not a new concept. But authentic, sustainable collaboration is also very vulnerable to politics or money – and it can whither quickly if relationships are not maintained. Collaborative efforts that result in system change are, quite often, forged in consistency, in relationships that extend far beyond the project at hand and are employed for large and small matters, usually around the clock.

St. Croix Foundation is committed to opening up time and opportunities for meaningful interactions in a variety of different circumstances – just like in a marriage – to build the trust and the skills – for St. Croix’s Nonprofit Consortium to further demonstrate the power – and impact – of community rooted collaboration.