Home » July 30 | A Newsletter for the YANA Community

July 30 | A Newsletter for the YANA Community

by | Jul 30 | All Chapters, Newsletter | 0 comments

UPCOMING EVENTS

Live from NYC

YANA Town Halls provide an ideal opportunity for mission-driven alums to meet each other and exchange ideas and information to help achieve social impact. These events occur live at the Yale Club in New York City AND are accessible via Zoom. Join us from anywhere! 

If attending in person, join us after the program in the Main Lounge to convene and connect over cocktails. You don’t need to be a member of the Yale Club to join us! 

 

Register now for these upcoming events:

Town Hall – YANA Board Matching Night

 

TOMORROW NIGHT
July 31 | 6:30pm ET – In-Person (Yale Club of NYC) & via Zoom

 

Learn about SIX Amazing Nonprofits – and the Opportunities to Serve on Their Boards

Join our Live from NYC Town Hall on July 31st when SIX nonprofits seeking new board members will pitch to YANA’s global audience. The six presenting organizations have been vetted, have a Yale connection, and are open to remote board members: 

If you want to serve on a board or just want to learn more about the work of six amazing Yale-led nonprofits, please come by the Yale Club in person or join us virtually — you’ll be sure to leave feeling informed and inspired!

This event will be moderated by Samantha Heffner ’02, a certified nonprofit board strategist and longtime friend of YANA’s. If attending in person, please join us for cocktails afterwards.

REGISTER

The Climate Crisis: Local and Urban Solutions to a Global Challenge

Aug 28 | 6:30pm ET – In-Person (Yale Club of NYC) & via Zoom

Cities currently hold over 50% of the global population, a number projected to rise to 70% by 2050. Two environmental experts discuss the importance of local and urban solutions to climate change.

Peter Boyd is a lecturer at Yale SOM and School of the Environment, as well as a member of the UN’s Race to Zero campaign, the world’s largest coalition of non-state actors taking immediate action to halve global emissions by 2030. 

Sarah Charlop-Powers ’09 MEM is Co-Founder and Executive Director of Natural Areas Conservancy, a nonprofit dedicated to managing New York City’s 20,000 acres of forests and wetlands. 

REGISTER
Join us as a sponsor! Your support will contribute to the work of YANA and help provide scholarships for those who cannot afford to attend.
See our current sponsors - and thank them!
Save the Date! YANA’s annual Social Impact Conference and Awards luncheon will be a day of inspiration, insight, and connection as we celebrate the impact of Yale alumni working to make the world safer, healthier, and more just.

 

We have a terrific lineup of conference speakers, including:
Our Awards Luncheon will honor three generations of Yale alumni who have dedicated their lives to social impact, including:
Hilary Pennington ‘77, SOM ’83

Hilary Pennington ‘77, SOM ’83

Executive Vice President of Global Programs, Ford Foundation

Demetris Giannoulias ’94

Demetris Giannoulias ’94

CEO, Spring Bank, NY

Caroline Tanbee Smith ’14

Caroline Tanbee Smith ’14

Co-Founder of Collab; Alderman, City of New Haven

Join us for an extraordinary day!

YANA INSIGHTS & CONNECTIONS

Tell Us About YOU!

We want to be sure that we are designing a social impact conference and newsletter content that meets YOUR needs. Please take this brief survey!

TAKE THE POLL

Impact & Innovation – Listen to the Podcast

Take a peek inside the classroom of Dr. Teresa Chahine as she examines the latest trends in social innovation, funding, and impact.

Join the conversation as social entrepreneurs from around the world come to Yale SOM to share the challenges they are grappling with and the insights they are gaining in the field. From rural India and Kenya to the inner cities of the U.S., from the environment to nutrition to maternal child health, this podcast series cuts across sectors to examine the convergence of business and society to achieve social impact.

LISTEN TO THE LATEST EPISODE

David McCullough III ‘17 Discusses Parallels Between American Exchange Project’s Mission and Harvard Economist Raj Chetty’s Research

At YANA’s June Town Hall, American Exchange Project’s co-founder and CEO David McCullough ‘17 presented compelling evidence that cross-cultural friendships developed through the program have lasting impact on the lives of its participants. This evidence has recently attracted the attention of Raj Chetty, the William A. Ackman Professor of Public Economics at Harvard University.
Chetty, a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient and member of the National Academy of Sciences, has been recognized as one of the top eight young economists in the world by The New York Times as well as The Economist. His research on economic mobility, friendship, and social capital validates AEP’s central premise: Americans live in social bubbles that perpetuate division at every level and undermine faith in the democratic process.

(photo: Raj Chetty)

Advancing a People-First Economy (2023), published by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, refers to AEP as a “promising strategy” for increasing “increasing economic interconnectedness.” The nearly one-hundred page report, to which Chetty is a major contributor, argues that “a widely available, no-cost exchange program would enable the building of social capital for Americans in their communities and beyond.” Unlike a stint in the Peace Corps or a Fulbright Scholarship, AEP exchanges are “short commitment,” which “increases the appeal” for young people in, or about to enter, the workforce.
“It’s not,” McCullough explained, “that a kid in Kilgore, Texas can call a banker at Fidelity Investments and secure an internship.” It’s a matter of knowing, rather, that a banker is a real person who will chat, share a meal, and listen. This provides “outside validation,” which so many Americans are lacking (and which Trump exploited, in McCullough’s view).
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s endorsement of AEP in The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic Of Mental Illness is further proof that AEP’s message is gaining wider cultural currency. When McCullough started AEP, he expected politics to be the greatest hurdle. The real enemy turned out to be the smartphone.

“Life is in 3D,” not the little hunk of plastic that entrenches social bubbles, providing a false sense of comfort. Teen depression and suicide has skyrocketed (the latter even more among girls). The shift from the physical to the virtual world, from “play-based childhood” to “phone-based childhood,” has interfered with neurological development.

(photo: The Anxious Generation)

McCullough concluded his thought-provoking and inspiring discussion with a heartwarming story about Matthew, a boy from a dangerous part of Stamford, CT, who traveled to Kilgore, TX on an exchange. Terrified to fly, AEP had to fly a staffer to LaGuardia to accompany him.
As the plane ascended, Matthew “saw the world from a whole new vantage point.” The funder who hosted Matthew took him to Cavender’s, an outfitter for working cowboys. “He bought the shop!” joked McCullough. Suddenly Matthew became “Tex,” full of swagger and a zeal for ranching. Six months later, Matthew entered a psychiatric hospital. His first call was to the rancher, by then not just a friend, but a mentor in whom “he found a version of the self he aspired to be.”
READ PART 1
READ PART 2
RECORDING

YOU ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE!

Meet the YANA-Dwight Hall Fellows

Thanks to your generosity, we are funding eight YANA-Dwight Hall Fellows this summer! These Yale students will gain valuable career experiences while assisting eight nonprofit organizations in the U.S.

 

Meet our final two fellows, Nasra and Jenny!
Nasra Hassan ’25

Nasra Hassan ’25

Blanchard House Institute (National)

Jenny Huang ’25

Jenny Huang ’25

Arizona Courts Project (Arizona)

Nasra Hassan ‘25 is a 1st Gen Yale senior and first-year counselor in the Yale College Dean’s Office focused on architectural and education studies. Thanks to YANA, the San Diego native is working on two distinct, but complementary, projects through the Blanchard House Institute (BHI). BHI is a public-private-philanthropic partnership at the intersection of civic engagement, entrepreneurship, and the preservation of African-American heritage and culture. Based in Punta Gorda, FL, the BHI supports the work of the Blanchard House Museum, which assists underinvested and rural communities parlay their stories into funding. 

The first project, the Punta Gorda Book of Values, aims to develop a portfolio on Google Arts and Culture which highlights past and current Black cultural figures as well as the impact of urban renewal on these communities. The second project involves Milken Institute’s 10,000 Connected Communities Initiative. “I will be focusing on economic development and community revitalization efforts based locally in African American communities throughout the country, collaborating with community leaders, stakeholders, and organizations,” Hassan explained. BHI partners include rural health programs in Tuskegee, Alabama, and public art installations in Miami, Florida.

After Yale, Nassan intends to pursue a career as a Master of City Planning (MCP/MURP, so that she may contribute to the work of urbanists involved in place-making, sustainability, equity, and accessibility.

Jenny Huang ‘25 is working remotely as a judicial researcher for the Arizona Courts Project, a grassroots working group devoted to reforming the state’s judicial system. With support from YANA and Dwight Hall, the sociology major is helping build a legal clinic that documents findings about caseload, judicial misconduct and legal tracking systems, fingerprint clearance and appeals, marijuana expungements, and immigration matters. The Arizona Courts Project believes that onerous fees and fines, as well as warrants, undermine civil rights.