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These students running a ‘think-and-action tank’ might be a new breed of nonprofit leaders

December 21, 2015 Category: PurposeUncategorized
What began as one Penn undergrad using academia to try to wrap his head around a horrific incident has grown into a widely recognized, multi-issue organization on its way to receiving a 501(c)3 status.

The student-run group’s quick growth is due to two things: an ability to see the interconnectedness of social problems, and youthful enthusiasm for doing the unexpected. Its leaders are pretty sure they’re onto something, too.

ENGAGE started in 2014 with a mission to reintegrate the University of Pennsylvania into the West Philly community through research-driven projects and the mobilization of community leaders to enact change based on that research — in the words of its website, the group is a “think-and-action tank.”

Where’s the Love, Philadelphia?, which collects and publicizes personal stories of Philadelphians who have been affected by gun violence, was the group’s first project. It was inspired by an incident ENGAGE co-founder Daniel Kurland witnessed the summer before his sophomore year: While he was being hospitalized for heat exhaustion, a gunshot victim was brought into the same room as Kurland and died while receiving treatment.

Traumatized by the experience, Kurland sought to gain a better understanding of the systemic issues Philadelphians face by enrolling in a few urban studies courses. As his research progressed, Kurland found himself growing more passionate about the issue of gun violence and partnered with friend Neil Cholli to form ENGAGE.

“We could not stand idly by,” Kurland said. “We couldn’t turn a blind eye to the needless suffering of other people. We decided to found an organization that was built to be a resource to the community.”

The organization recruited members in May of 2014 and began conducting research on Philadelphia’s socioeconomic issues over during the summer. The results were published that August in ENGAGE’s first status report. (The second came out this fall.)

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“When we released that [first] status report, we just expected a couple pats on the head,” said Dan Esposito, ENGAGE’s executive director. “[We] sent it out to anyone we could think of — nonprofit leaders, community leaders, elected officials, professors — and the response we got was overwhelming.”

When over 70 recipients responded immediately encouraging the students to continue with their work, the small organization had to make some serious adjustments to accommodate for its growing workload. Leaders were appointed and more students were recruited to join the team, now topping 20 members. 

The group also decided to expand ENGAGE’s focus from West Philly to the entire city. In addition to Where’s the Love, Philadelphia?, two projects were established to conduct research and implement social action: Engage for Change, which examines low voter turnout in minority and low-income communities, and Job Access Initiative, which looks at workforce development disparity.

But the students were surprised to find that multi-issue groups are a rarity in the nonprofit world.

“People are blown away by that [being our model] — I didn’t think it would be such a fresh new idea, but apparently it’s something that’s actually discouraged,” Esposito said. “I guess a lot of nonprofits have their hands full with one issue.”

Despite warnings from several advisors that the group had too much on its plate, ENGAGE’s multi-issue platform has worked to its members’ advantage as they are able to collaborate with the community to enact the findings of their research.

“There is a big trust gap that needs to be bridged between nonprofits and the Philadelphia community at large,” Esposito said. “We listen to their needs, try to respond, do neighborhood block-by-block research and then go back to the community with some common-sense solutions. We always have to walk the line between advocacy and activism.”

And with enough work, Esposito said, it’s possible to gain support from both the community and the greater Philadelphia nonprofit structure at large.

“Most nonprofit leaders believe that the stronger the nonprofit community is as a whole, the stronger each of us are individually,” he said. “It’s going to take a few more groups like us to bridge those gaps and really make it into the strongest nonprofit community in the country.”

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