Celebrating Four Years of Service With Our Partners
A lot can happen in four months. Even more over the course of four years.
This summer was a busy and transformative time for Strategic Community Partners. Since May, we’ve added six talented new team members and completed several inspiring projects focused on delivering opportunities to local educators, community leaders, and youth.
This new growth comes at a critical time for our organization as August also marked the four year anniversary of SCP’s founding. Our President and CEO recently reflected on her journey over the last four years and shared how SCP’s history has shaped its current work in the community. But in order to get a wider picture of what this journey has meant, we knew we had to talk to one group in particular: our partners.
Over the last four years, SCP has been fortunate enough to work with a wide range of leaders and organizations who are at the forefront of impactful work in Detroit, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C. These groups are not only the lifeblood of the communities they serve, but they are also the reason for our work. Their constant commitment to improving the lives of people, especially youth, is a daily source of inspiration for our team. As we pass this important milestone in our organization’s history, it was important for us to uplift the people and organizations that make our work possible.
In order to share SCP’s evolution from their perspectives, a handful of our partners reflected on their experiences working with SCP and shared their visions for the future.
“Strategic Community Partners is a responsive, true partner in the work of equity and a gold standard for collaboration towards community change. WEPOWER enlisted the support of SCP to plan and host a learning trip to Detroit for some of our community members and partners from St. Louis. As a result of our trip, our team saw firsthand the power of community-led change, felt affirmed of their own power, and returned home grounded in their ability to lead a movement to improve early childhood education across the region. SCP's name reflects SCP's values in practice.”
Charli Cooksey
Founder & CEO
WEPOWER (St. Louis, MO)
“Chanel Hampton is a force of nature. She has always been a person with a purpose to make the world a better place. She is a natural leader and is always learning and teaching. She knows each person and each client’s journey is unique and she brings solutions to the table that are well thought out and actionable. Strategic Community Partners has done a great job in four short years and we know the next four will be four times the power for change.”
Maxine Clark
Founder, Build-A-Bear Workshop
CEO, The Clark-Fox Family Foundation (St. Louis, MO)
“Strategic Community Partners' name perfectly describes the organization and its mission. Our relationship with SCP started when we were a vendor at a student career fair they helped to organize. The relationship continued to grow and our young people eventually began working with SCP on a variety of projects, like developing mobile apps for their partners and even helping to build their website. The SCP family always shows up to support our students in a multitude of ways. It's good to work with a group that sincerely has an interest in our organization and, more importantly, our students. Congrats to four years and here's to many more.”:
Richard Grundy
CEO
JOURNi (Detroit, MI)
“Over the last four years, I’ve watched Strategic Community Partners not only grow in terms of the staff size but also their impact. As a head of an organization that has partnered with SCP, and continues to do so, I recognize their commitment to the technical aspects of the work and the communities they serve. It is nothing short of remarkable and inspiring. On SCP’s fourth anniversary, I remain excited to watch their growth and am excited to see our partnership grow.”
Robert Simmons
Chief Executive Officer
See Forever Foundation and the Maya Angelou Schools (Washington, D.C.)
We thank all of our partners for continuing to put their trust in our team and for allowing us to serve and lead alongside them in their impactful work.