NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation

NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation was established in 1977 to provide a policy and educational complement to sister organization NARAL Pro-Choice America’s work fighting for everyone’s right to choose if and when to have children. Fueled by a strong conviction that the personal reproductive health decisions of women and pregnant people are theirs alone, NARAL’s foundation gives voice to the 8 in 10 Americans who believe abortion should remain legal and accessible. With more than 4 million members representing every state in the union, we are on the front lines of the fight to preserve and expand reproductive freedom and abortion access in the 21st century. We believe in the power of people to make a difference, and we help to drive that change by educating Americans about the threats to reproductive freedom and holding bad actors accountable at every level. With members all across the country, NARAL works to ensure an environment that guarantees everybody the right to informed and empowered choices.

NARAL works at the national and state level, using our grassroots power, communication strategies, and policy prowess to push government to protect and advance reproductive freedom and abortion access. NARAL has a network of supporters ready to take action at a moment’s notice. NARAL works each day to organize and mobilize for access to abortion care, birth control, pregnancy and postpartum care, and paid family leave. NARAL is working toward a future where everybody — no matter who they are, where they live, or what they believe — has the freedom to make their own decisions about whether to start or grow a family.

What we do:

• Fight against anti-choice attacks and hold bad actors accountable at the national and local levels, while working to protect and expand reproductive freedom and abortion access across the country.
• Educate people about the issues affecting our reproductive freedom, and the impact they have on the lives of women and families. 
• Shift the cultural discourse around abortion access specifically, and reproductive freedom generally, to end the stigma and shame that some place on basic health services and that hinder women and pregnant people from accessing the care they need.
• Mobilize our members to expand access in their communities so that a person’s ability to access abortion care isn’t subject to their ZIP code, income level, or race.  
• Create a vocal resistance against anti-choice attacks and hold opponents accountable at the national and state level, while advocating to protect and expand reproductive freedom and abortion access in our country. 
• Educate and increase awareness of reproductive freedom issues, and how they affect women and families, through campaigns such as Reality of Roe. 
• Organize, mobilize, and grow our base at the local and national level, leveraging our voices to make sure officials and the courts hear from the people they represent. 
• Our Government Relations Department tracks policies that affect abortion access, including tracking several hundred bills each year and anti-choice restrictions on reproductive healthcare throughout the U.S. 
• Pioneer innovative research that is uncovering new ways to reach all of the people we need in this fight; NARAL is a leader in messaging and opposition research within the broader progressive movement.

STANDUP FOR KIDS

The mission of STANDUP FOR KIDS is to end the cycle of youth homelessness, one youth at a time. This mission shall be carried out by a national volunteer force whose on-the-streets outreach efforts will find, stabilize and assist homeless and at-risk youth in their efforts to improve their lives. 

The organization's mission shall also be furthered through deterrence and resource programs provided in schools and via the internet. All facets of this mission shall be guided by the mandate that our volunteers shall tell youth they care about them and then, at every turn, prove it. 

The STANDUP FOR KIDS constituency includes all youth, under the age of 25, who were homeless as youth and currently living on the streets. Additionally, our constituency is the at-risk youth, who are in peril of becoming homeless. These youth benefit greatly from our services and resources  by not only having their basic needs met, but also by having a forum where they are able to develop a trusting, caring relationship with our trained counseling professionals who are interested in helping them achieve their personal goals and transition from desperation to success. 

Our resources range from basic hygiene/food/clothing, healthcare, counseling/mentoring, and drug and alcohol rehabilitation to support through our four core programs: Street Outreach, Outreach Centers, Apartment Support, and Mentoring Programs. 

• Street Outreach counselors go on the streets and reach homeless and at-risk youth. The single greatest need for homeless and at-risk youth is to connect with a caring adult offering needed resources providing food, clothing, hygiene products and harm reduction counseling to address risks associated with street life.
• Some of our Programs have Outreach Centers. The Center helps provide the support network of basic human needs and development through education programs, one-on-one counseling, and an ongoing atmosphere of hope and concern. The youth are also able to escape the terrors and hardships of street life for a few hours every day. They are able to do laundry, have a meal and relax before they are back on the street. 
• Apartment Support volunteers provide our youth with the knowledge and skills necessary to take care of themselves and their apartment.  The extent of services offered will vary with the local program’s resources, but at a minimum will require assistance in coming up with deposits, weekly food deliveries, inspection of apartments for health and safety purposes, and training in basic living skills.  
• Mentoring relationships provide youth with the ability to develop their skills, create new opportunities, make healthy choices and ultimately achieve their full potential. Mentors act as guides, role models and accountability partners for our youth.

We also facilitate reunions between youth and their estranged families. Our networking outreach program helps homeless and at-risk youth by providing them with a variety of organizations and people in their immediate community who can help them with everything from legal services to identification services to employment services. All youth can access this network through the internet and will always have up-to-date resources that are specific to their needs. The youth and children are also able to reach our outreach volunteers if they are in need. 

Our organization, founded in 1990, is primarily a volunteer organization, currently utilizing over 500 volunteers from across the country. We use volunteers of all color, race, sexual orientation and physical ability. 

Over the past 29 years, STANDUP FOR KIDS volunteers have performed over a million hours of community services, conducted more than 100,000 hours of counseling services and provided more than 1,000,000 meals to homeless and at-risk youth. 

We consistently recruit board members with a wealth of knowledge and skill set to govern the organization and provide oversight and leadership that are instrumental in the growth of STANDUP FOR KIDS.

Through effective, qualified and well trained human resources, the goal of StandUp For Kids is to continuously establish and launch programs and resources to alleviate the problem of youth homelessness and prepare them for self-sufficiency.

National Association of the Deaf (NAD)

The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) was established in 1880 by deaf leaders who believed in the right of the American deaf community to use sign language, to congregate on issues important to them, and to have its interests represented at the national level. These beliefs remain true to this day, with American Sign Language as a core value. The NAD ensures that the needs and concerns of the nation's deaf and hard of hearing community are well represented on the national level, including through coalitions and collaborative relationships.

Mission and vision: 

The mission of the NAD is to preserve, protect, and promote the civil, human and linguistic rights of deaf and hard of hearing individuals in the United States of America. The vision of the NAD is that the language, culture, and heritage of deaf and hard of hearing Americans will be acknowledged and respected in the pursuit of life, liberty, and equality.        

Major programs:   

Advocacy - Since 1880, the NAD has engaged in public policy advocacy to obtain and maintain the rights of deaf and hard of hearing people. In 1976, the NAD began its Law and Advocacy Center to provide legal services that protected and advanced the rights of deaf and hard of hearing people nationwide in addition to continuing its far-reaching policy efforts. The advocacy scope of the NAD is broad, covering the breadth of a lifetime and impacting future generations in the areas of captioning, early intervention, education, employment, emergency preparedness, health care, mental health, rehabilitation, security, technology, telecommunications, transportation, and more. The NAD has staff attorneys and has also worked with other legal firms on specific cases. In addition, the NAD advances international human rights through its affiliate membership on behalf of the USA and provision of support to the World Federation of the Deaf.    

Policy Institute - Established in 2018, the NAD Policy Institute aims to develop and promote best practices and policy statements regarding communication access across a variety of categories. As part of this mission, the Policy Institute will, for example, identify the status of accessibility in specific categories using ranking procedures and publicly share the rankings. The rankings can be used as a starting point for organizations and the NAD to collaborate on what is needed to improve accessibility for deaf and hard of hearing Americans.
    
Youth Leadership - Since 1969, the NAD's Youth Programs have trained deaf and hard of hearing students and young adults in the areas of citizenship, scholarship, and leadership for eventual involvement in advocacy at the local, state, and national levels. Programs include the annual Youth Leadership Camp sessions, biennial College Bowl competitions, the biennial Youth Ambassador Program, the Jr. NAD chapter network in high schools nationwide with biennial National Jr. NAD Conferences, and the annual National Deaf Youth Day.       
  
Information and Referral - The NAD is a leading national resource for public information and referral on a wide variety of topics, responding to thousands of inquiries every month. The NAD maintains a resourceful website and provides advocacy and legislative training as well as specialized training at three different biennial conferences: the NAD Conferences, Jr. NAD Conferences, and NAD Leadership Training Conferences.      
  
Leadership & Training - The NAD provides advocacy education and training, legislative training, and specialized training at biennial national conferences, biennial youth leadership conferences, and annual leadership training conferences. Specialized training, expert consultation, and technical assistance is also provided to countless individuals and groups across the nation on the civil, human, and linguistic rights and needs of deaf and hard of hearing children and adults.        
 
Captioning - The NAD also administers the federal Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP) through funding support from the U.S. Department of Education, which distributes open-captioned and described media on a free-loan basis to K-12 schools across the nation.         

Donations to support the efforts of the NAD staff, volunteers and interns are greatly appreciated.    

For more information, please visit www.nad.org.

House of Ruth

Founded in 1976 as Washington, D.C.’s first women's shelter, House of Ruth's mission is to help women, children and families in greatest need and with very limited resources build safe, stable lives and achieve their highest potential. At 13 supportive housing programs, a therapeutic developmental day care facility, and a free domestic violence counseling center, we serve more than 1,000 women and children every year.

We enfold clients in an environment that is safe, structured and predictable, where they receive highly responsive, caring and respectful attention from the staff. The women and children participate in a wide variety of services and supports to stabilize the issues that led to homelessness and abuse and acquire the skills for safer, more self-sufficient lives.  This includes case management as well as individual and group counseling.

Our skilled and compassionate staff works hard from the moment a family or individual woman arrives to build a relationship with each person. Early days are spent getting the woman or family connected with critical financial resources, such as food stamps and crime victims' compensation.

Delivering these and other tangible resources (like food and clothing) helps the staff bond with the women and families. Our assistance is practical and hands-on. We will sit with a woman and help her fill out the forms necessary to apply for public benefits and go with her to court appointments concerning child custody and other legal matters.  By being present for the women and children, we establish our credibility with them and they begin to trust us.  Mothers receive parenting support through groups on child development and staff members model positive parenting practices in their daily interactions with our families.

The space where we deliver housing and services is important. It is safe, warm and nurturing. The people that we place in the paths of the women and children we serve are also vital to success. Our Program Coordinators, Case Managers and Life Skills Trainers are the heart of House of Ruth's residential programs. They have the compassion, skills and know-how to build strong partnerships with the women and children, relationships that help the women and children heal and grow. Similarly, the teachers and family advocates at our Kidspace therapeutic day care center and the therapists at the Domestic Violence Support Center are highly skilled and trained, and dedicated to the well-being of the women and children. 

At Kidspace, our therapeutic child development center, homeless children from six weeks to five years old receive enriching child care and developmental interventions, and their parents receive case management to address the challenges in their lives and to positively engage them in the development and education of their children.  Due to the trauma in their lives, nearly all of the children entering Kidspace experience development delays; two-thirds achieve their developmental targets after one year of services. The early childhood curriculum is enriched with speech and language, play and occupational therapy.     

At the Domestic Violence Support Center, located in downtown DC, a team of skilled counselors provides psychotherapy to survivors of domestic violence as well as case management services to help them address the practical challenges in their lives, like housing and employment.