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Quality Counts California (QCC) continues to release compelling new details about the upcoming Quality Counts California Grant that is taking a partnership approach by integrating First 5 California and California Department of Education funding streams for quality rating improvement systems (QRIS) into one grant. (Read the FAQ released by QCC January 24, 2019) Nine years after the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge catalyzed the development of QRIS in California, and five years after the expansion of support for…

Let’s face it – meetings can sometimes be a bit dull. But to start a meeting with the wind at your back, we recommend using these ice breakers to allow everyone a chance to arrive in the space, have a laugh, a moment of reflection, and an opportunity to learn something new about their colleagues. Enjoy!

Helping children understand and value differences can be quite a task. VIVA worked with Quality Start LA to create Me and My Friends, a short e-book about a preschooler named Mateo who lives in LA County. The book was positioned alongside tips for parents and providers to help guide conversations about diversity and inclusion.

That’s the question we’ve been asking during a year-long research and storytelling project to understand families’ experiences accessing and using public services to create better lives for their children. The first thing we did was research to understand a system that was redesigned to better work for the families that need it. Michigan made significant investments in redesigning its public service system using human-centered design principles, and the result is impressive. Learn more about what Michigan has done right, and where they have room…

Having celebrated VIVA’s 8 year anniversary as a firm, we are proud to reflect on how we view our work, our team, and those we serve. We regularly discuss as a team what brings us together and what unifies our efforts, and at the end of these conversations, we always land on social impact partnerships. With this in mind, we began to think about our firm’s name. But before we go further, let’s take a brief walk back in time. When Nicole and…

At this year’s Build #QRIS2019 Conference, we participated in some excellent sessions, delivered three presentations, spread the word about VIVA Goods, caught up with many familiar faces…and, of course, ate more than our share of beignets!

Did you know that summer reading programs began in the 1890s as a way to encourage school children, particularly those in urban areas, to read during their summer vacation?

Yes, meetings can be powerful. As professionals, there are times when we wonder, “Why are we meeting? Was that worth my time?” And other times when we walk away feeling the WOW of a great meeting. For those of us focused on social impact, it is worth pausing to think about how we can make our time together even better.

Quick—how long would it take you to grab your phone and take a picture right now? 30 seconds? 1 minute? The ubiquitousness of smartphones means that we each have a camera, video camera, and ways of sharing what we’ve captured with the world at our fingertips, virtually all the time. So what do we do with that?

Effective nonprofits are vital to the healthy development and quality of life in any community. An effective nonprofit, is one with a strong capacity to deliver on its mission. Naturally, this starts with a clear mission and purpose, but it also includes strong governance and leadership as well as financial and professional development systems and infrastructure capacity.