Public/Private Ventures (P/PV) is a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to improve the effectiveness of social policies, programs, and community initiatives. As T/TA provider to the Corporation for National and Community Service, P/PV leverages its proven experience and expertise in working with faith-based and community organizations (FBCOs) to provide effective technical assistance to programs across the country. This assistance focuses on enhancing the capacity of these FBCOs to apply for and participate in the Corporation's family of programs and resources; to operate service-learning models and utilize volunteers effectively; and to implement solid mentoring-children-of-prisoners, prisoner reentry, and family-strengthening programs. In this way, P/PV supports the Corporation's efforts to expand its network of volunteer programs and resources, effectively work with FBCOs, and fully understand the unique elements of the programming these FBCOs can provide.

Through the design and development of new training manuals, curricula, and other documents—as well as through the adaptation of existing Corporation training manuals, guides, and resources—P/PV executes highly effective, engaging, and outcome-driven T/TA modules. These strategies are designed to help FBCOs achieve the following learning outcomes: 1) know the common mission and key differences among the Corporation-funded programs; 2) understand which Corporation program is most appropriate to apply for and know how to apply for this program using eGrants; 3) know how to identify and implement strategies that increase their ability to operate national service programs and projects that incorporate best practices and principles; 4) know how to generate and sustain volunteers who will provide service to support ex-offender reentry and mentoring children of prisoners; 5) understand how to build infrastructural and organizational capacity; and 6) develop skills in operating effective prisoner reentry, mentoring children of prisoners, and family-strengthening programs.

Services and
Resources Available

P/PV does its work in four basic ways:

• We develop or identify social policies, strategies, and practices that promote individual economic success and citizenship and stronger families and communities.
• We assess the effectiveness of these promising approaches and distill their critical elements and benchmarks using rigorous field study and research methods.
• We mine evaluation results and implementation experiences for their policy and practice implications and communicate the findings to public and private decision makers and to community leaders.
• We create and field-test the building-blocks-model policies, financing approaches, curricula and training materials, communication strategies, and learning processes that are necessary to implement effective approaches more broadly. We then work with leaders of the various sectors to implement these expansion tools and to improve their usefulness.

P/PV's staff is composed of policy leaders in various fields; evaluators and researchers in disciplines ranging from economics to ethnography; and experienced practitioners from the nonprofit, public, business, and philanthropic sectors.

P/PV's work addresses a wide range of critical social issues and involves a varied group of sectors and institutions. This diversity provides us with the perspective and experience to assist policy makers, funders, and communities in setting priorities and identifying realistic opportunities for advancing promising or proven policies and practices.

Publications

The following P/PV publications relate to the Corporation's priorities, such as mentoring children of prisoners, prisoner reentry, high-risk youth, and volunteering. These publications are available as free PDFs from the P/PV website or may be ordered in hard copy for the price listed.

Mentoring of Children of Prisoners

Building from the Ground Up: Creating Effective Programs to Mentor Children of Prisoners (The Amachi Model)
W. Wilson Goode, Sr., and Thomas J. Smith, July 2005, 45 pages

Amachi In Brief
Chelsea Farley, February 2004, 4 pages

Amachi: Mentoring Children of Prisoners in Philadelphia
Linda Jucovy, June 2003, 48 pages

Prisoner Reentry

When the Gates Open: Ready4Work—A National Response to the Prisoner Reentry Crisis
Joshua Good and Pamela Sherrid, October 2005, 32 pages

Just Out: Early Lessons from the Ready4Work Prisoner Reentry Initiative
Linda Jucovy, Februrary 2006, 27 pages

High-Risk Youth

Faith in their Futures: The Youth and Congregations in Partnership Program of the Kings County (Brooklyn, NY) District Attorney’s Office
Susan Blank and Fred Davie, April 2004, 35 pages

The Promise and Challenge of Mentoring High-Risk Youth: Findings from the National Faith-Based Initiative
Shawn Bauldry and Tracey A. Hartmann, March 2004, 48 pages

Moving Beyond the Walls: Faith and Justice Partnerships Working for High Risk Youth
Tracey A. Hartmann, January 2003, 52 pages

Faith and Action: Implementation of the National Faith-Based Initiative for High Risk Youth
Alvia Y. Branch, July 2002, 70 pages

Faith-Based Institutions and High-Risk Youth
Harold Dean Trulear, March 2000, 28 pages

Volunteering

Faith in Action: Using Interfaith Coalitions to Support Voluntary Caregiving Efforts
Carla Herrera and Sarah K. Pepper, June 2003, 48 pages

Making the Most of Volunteers
Jean Baldwin Grossman and Kathryn Furano, July 2002, 18 pages

Contact Information

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