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Public Allies Arizona at 15
The inaugural cohort of Public Allies Arizona graduated in summer 2007 after 10 months of service with nonprofit organizations.
Alumni reflect on the "amazing opportunity" that the program offers
by Troy Hill, ASU Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Innovation
June 30, 2021
As one of flagship programs offered under the ASU Lodestar Center, Public Allies Arizona has been serving the greater Phoenix community and Arizona at large since 2006. This year we are celebrating Public Allies Arizona’s 15th anniversary by looking back at its beginning, its impact, and the road to success it developed through its Allies.
The seed for Public Allies Arizona came from happenstance. The executive director of the ASU Lodestar Center, Robert Ashcraft, Ph.D., went to a meeting of grantees of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, where they could discuss the potential of future partnerships.
Dr. Ashcraft met one of the representatives for Public Allies, a national AmeriCorps organization with local sites across the country. The program finds local leaders and places them within a local nonprofit organization for 10-month full-time apprenticeships. During the program year, the cohort comes together twice a month for training in leadership, personal and professional development, diversity and inclusion, and more. By the end of the program, Allies are equipped to engage with and make a difference in their communities, part of the program’s mission to create a just and equitable society and the diverse leadership to sustain it.
At the mixer, Dr. Ashcraft quickly realized it was a good match. Both programs were seeking the betterment of nonprofit and community leadership. Public Allies wanted to move into the Southwest, and the ASU Lodestar Center could use their program model.
The Kellogg Foundation supplied a grant to facilitate the two organizations’ partnership. Quickly they worked to set up a site in Arizona. The leadership at the newly formed Public Allies Arizona got to work and launched the entire program in only a few months - making it one of the fastest Public Allies launches to date.
Celia Robidoux was a member of the very first cohort that Public Allies Arizona convened. She was also the program’s very first Second-Year Ally. Her first-year placement was at the Volunteer Center, and her second year in Public Allies was in-house at the ASU Lodestar Center.
Due to personal matters, Robidoux had to take a break from the program. But instead of withdrawing from the program entirely, she came back and embraced the personal relationships available. As a result, she made friends and connections she still has today.
“Everybody in that cohort… reached out to me, and it really just made me realize that this wasn't something that I wanted to quit, but that Public Allies was more than an apprenticeship program,” said Robidoux, now the executive director of Arizona Serve at Prescott College. “It was a community and I felt like it was something that I really needed at the time.”
Robidoux was also able to grow significantly as a nonprofit professional through the program’s workshops, training spaces and collaborations with other organizations, as well as building an even larger network.
She noted that the program was extremely rich and has helped her to create a decade-long career. It propelled her further than she ever thought was possible.
“I think that it's just a really great place for people to be vulnerable and to grow and to really explore who they are in a safe way. It's been really an amazing opportunity to be part of the Public Allies network,” Robidoux said.
Ashely R. Dickerson was living in Texas and trying to find a way to return to Arizona to start a new career. Enter Public Allies. It turned out to be the perfect opportunity for her. She applied and was accepted into the class of 2015-16, where she was placed with Valley of the Sun United Way.
At the United Way, she built capacity in the school program and was able to engage with communities that she had never experienced before and interact with several other nonprofits in the area.
“My experience was really great because I was placed with an agency who had experience with Public Allies and knew the program and was a huge supporter of the program,” Dickerson said. “They also gave me an opportunity to grow as a nonprofit professional. It wasn't something that I had ever done before, so it was a newer experience for me.”
Dickerson said the relationships she built during her time in Public Allies have lasted to this day. She’s able to talk to the community partners she worked with then, not to mention the strong connections she made with other members of the program.
She said the biggest thing that she got out of Public Allies was the long-term family.
“I have two or three of my best friends, my closest friends in life that I met through the Public Ally experience. I didn't know them before Public Allies and now we talk every day. I was in their weddings as their maid of honor. [They’re] lifelong friendships that turn into family through that experience.”
After she graduated from the program, she has stayed close, serving on panels for current Allies and doing what she can to help the program managers recruit new people for the program. Currently she serves as the chair of the Alumni Council for Public Allies Arizona and works as an education liaison for the National Center for Youth Law.
“So I would say, 100%, Public Allies has impacted my life, and both personally and professionally more than I would have even imagined when going through the process to become an Ally,” Dickerson said. “I had no idea I would get all of this professional development and connections and family and a network, I had no idea that I was going to get that as a result of participating in Public Allies Arizona hands down.”
And these are just the personal stories of a few of the people involved with Public Allies. Since its launch 15 years ago, more than 400 people have graduated from the Public Allies Arizona program, and well over 100 different organizations have hosted an Ally. In 2020, the program expanded to Southern Arizona with its first Greater Tucson cohort.
About the ASU Lodestar Center
Arizona State University’s Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Innovation educates, empowers and connects nonprofit and philanthropic leaders to accelerate social impact. Housed within ASU’s Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions and its School of Community Resources and Development, the ASU Lodestar Center believes that the quality of life in communities is enriched with impactful philanthropy and effective nonprofit leadership. For more than 20 years, the ASU Lodestar Center has provided education, research, practical tools and convenings to help nonprofit professionals, philanthropists and volunteers solve problems and realize their communities’ highest aspirations.