Community Connections: Updates from our Executive Director

Dear Acknowledge Alliance family,

Here we are, beginning a new fiscal year, and I am filled with gratitude for everything we have accomplished together since my January update.

Across our partner schools and programs, the need for mental health support continues to grow. Educators have to navigate ever more chaotic workforce challenges while simultaneously helping students cope with increasing social and emotional needs. Yet, I am encouraged to see how seamlessly our mission aligns with the needs of our community. 

Our Impact by the Numbers

Thanks to your unwavering support, this past year, we delivered critical, life-changing services. We reached 1,554 youth and educators across 27 schools and organizations. Through our targeted work with teachers we positively impacted an additional 11,000 students. Our counselors provided more than 450 individual student counseling sessions and over 4,000 consultations with educators. Our team was there when schools needed them most, delivering 23 life-saving crisis interventions which ensured  that students were safe and school staff had the support they needed to continue showing up for their students. 

Spring Highlights

This spring brought many meaningful opportunities to deepen our local connections. We launched a free Community Resilience Group and created a welcoming space where people could reflect, find support, and strengthen their resilience alongside our trained mental health professionals. In April, we came together for our annual Forget-Me-Not celebration to honor exceptional educators and celebrate the power of community. Throughout the evening, we were reminded that when young people feel seen, supported, and that they belong, they are empowered to flourish.

Behind the scenes, we have continued strengthening our organization for the future. During our annual Board Retreat, we welcomed Steve Martinez, a Director at S&P Global Ratings, who brings 25 years of deep expertise to the role as our new Board Treasurer. We also engaged in thoughtful planning around long-term sustainability and organizational resilience. Our external accounting firm completed our annual financial review and concluded with a clean opinion, demonstrating strong internal controls, transparency, and responsible stewardship of our resources. I am also proud to share that our commitment to accountability has been recognized externally, with Acknowledge Alliance earning Charity Navigator's highest 4-Star rating and Platinum Transparency status with Candid. 

I am also grateful for the opportunity to continue learning alongside our dedicated staff and community partners. My semi-annual fireside chats with our team and continued participation in regional collaborations (including Project Safety Net, Thrive Alliance (COAD), and the Children’s Health Council Leadership Collaborative) continue to actively identify new ways to expand our reach and deepen our partnerships. Every student who feels seen, every educator who feels supported, every school community that becomes more nurturing, and every family that has  access to the support they deserve is possible because of this extraordinary community

As we look ahead, I remain hopeful and inspired by what we can accomplish together. Thank you for believing in our mission and for helping us continue building resilient school communities where youth and educators can thrive.

With gratitude,

Sharon Navarro
Executive Director

P.S. Summer always reminds me of the importance of slowing down and making space for moments that renew us. Whether it's enjoying time outdoors, gathering with family and friends, or simply taking a quiet walk in the evening, I hope you are finding opportunities to rest and recharge. Send me an email and let me know: what are you doing this summer that brings you joy? I would love to hear from you!

Community Connections: Updates from Our Executive Director

Dear Acknowledge Alliance family,

Happy New Year, and welcome to 2026! As we begin the year, I want to take a moment to reflect on the work we accomplished together in 2025 and to share how Acknowledge Alliance continues to show up for our community during both hopeful and challenging times.

This past year reinforced just how essential our mission is in shaping the future, one student and teacher at a time. Across our community and school partnerships, we remained deeply committed to supporting the mental health and resilience of youth, educators, and families - especially as many communities faced increasing stress and hardship. We directly reached 1,554 youth and educators across 27 schools and organizations (and we reached an additional 11,000 students through our work with teachers, which benefits all of their classrooms). Our counselors provided 453 individual and 31 family counseling sessions that led to noted improvements in students’ coping skills, self-reflection, social interactions, and emotional regulation. We also provided more support to educators than ever before - holding 4,000 consultation sessions (including 23 life-saving crisis intervention sessions). This was a remarkable 350% increase from four years ago! I am continually inspired by the compassion and dedication of our staff, partners, and supporters who step forward every day to ensure young people and the adults who care for them feel seen and valued.

In 2025, we deepened our involvement in regional collaborations and systems-level work. I am honored that Acknowledge Alliance was invited to join Thrive Alliance, the coalition of Community Organizations Active in Disaster (COAD) in San Mateo County as part of the Children & Childcare Committee. We are proud to contribute our expertise to this group of dynamic nonprofit and public agency leaders that is focused on addressing gaps in disaster resilience. In addition, I was asked to serve on the Children’s Health Council (CHC) Leadership Collaborative Advisory Group, a group of local leaders and experts focused on youth mental health and suicide prevention. While it is heartbreaking that youth suicide rates in Santa Clara County did not decrease last year, these collaborations are vital spaces for shared learning, advocacy, and action. Alongside our partners, we are doing everything possible to preserve funding, coordinate services, reduce stigma, and support families, educators, and students. We continue to advocate for proven strategies, including psychoeducation for parents and students, peer-led efforts to reduce stigma, and strong social-emotional learning programs that equip young people with tools for emotional regulation and help-seeking. We are also listening to our youth, who have helped us understand that young people engaged in sports will more often reach out to a teammate when in crisis. This valuable insight can help adults plan future suicide prevention efforts that center youth voices.

Our team also engaged in new ways of connecting with the broader community. Members of our Board and staff enjoyed sharing information about our services and meeting community members at the Mountain View Art & Wine Festival and the Palo Alto Weekly Moonlight Run over the summer. Our staff also continued to represent Acknowledge Alliance in important professional spaces. One highlight was our participation in a convening of school-based mental health providers hosted by CASSY: Counseling and Support Services for Youth. One of our mental health clinicians, Marta Franca, attended and connected with county leaders, district partners, and fellow clinicians - strengthening our presence and voice within the broader school-based mental health community.

We were thrilled to welcome two new Board members in 2025: Mary Martin and Steve Martinez. Mary and Steve bring a wealth of experience, insight, and commitment to community well-being, and we are grateful for the leadership and perspective they add to Acknowledge Alliance. Our Board’s ongoing engagement remains a critical part of our strength and sustainability.

Although the challenges are real and at times overwhelming, I remain hopeful. I see hope in collaboration, in honest conversations, and in the consistent, compassionate work of professionals deeply committed to helping our young people thrive. As we move into 2026, Acknowledge Alliance remains steadfast in our commitment to helping create safe, compassionate, and nurturing educational environments where everyone can feel cared for and resilient. We are nurturing today’s teachers to build tomorrow’s leaders.

Thank you for standing with us and for being part of the Acknowledge Alliance family. I wish you and your loved ones health, connection, and peace in the year ahead.

With gratitude,

Sharon Navarro
Executive Director

P.S. Each new year invites reflection and intention. For 2026, I am finding ways to live my values by speaking out for immigrants’ rights whenever I can. I’d love to hear what intentions or hopes you are carrying into this year. Please reach out and share!

Community Connections: Updates from our Executive Director

Dear Acknowledge Alliance family,

A new fiscal year is a wonderful opportunity to reflect on all that we have accomplished together since my last update in January.

This past year has been especially heavy for so many in our community. War, political uncertainty, discrimination, and traumatic global events have triggered stress and anxiety across the nonprofit sector. Unfortunately, as expected, the uncertainty and disruption have also impacted our school partners. Students are in need of our resilience counseling support to navigate fears around immigration, and staff are managing high levels of distress regarding fear of possible immigration enforcement raids at school. Principals and teachers have felt unsure of how to respond on both a practical and emotional level. I am so proud of our team for stepping up in the face of obstacles - sharing resources on immigrants’ rights with those who have requested them and providing much needed support to educators. This is all the more meaningful since many of our staff are managing not only educator fears, but also their own personal and community crises during these chaotic times. 

We also know it is just as vital to come together as a community and celebrate our wins as it is to face troubles together. And celebrate we did on April 30, when the Acknowledge Alliance family gathered at our long-standing, annual Forget-Me-Not event. Together we learned about nurturing resilience in ourselves and young people, and honored this year’s outstanding educators and community leaders. The evening was filled with so much passion, hope and gratitude. Mike Tinoco’s keynote, “Slow Urgency: How Do We Sustain Ourselves and Work From Within Unjust Systems to Create Change,” resonated with our need to nourish hope and care for ourselves and others during challenging times. It was also such a joy to celebrate the inspiring leadership and commitment of Resilience Consultant Jean Hamilton, Principal Sebastian Benavidez III of Graham Middle School, and Superintendent Michael Gallagher of Sunnyvale School District. 

Behind the scenes, we stayed committed to our work around diversity, equity, inclusion and justice (DEIJ) while many organizations are shying away from such initiatives. We are considering offering a BIPOC resilience group to our staff, and we are drawing insights from four years of running a staff-led Inclusion Task Force to create new initiatives that foster inclusion and a sense of belonging within the agency. In May, I held our semi-annual fireside chat with our team. These meetings have resulted in productive one-on-one discussions with team members, and a chance to foster transparency and strengthen relationships. I am consistently learning and evolving from these sessions, and I value the feedback and the opportunities for continuous improvement to the agency, programs, meetings and my own leadership style.

In May, I had the pleasure of convening with our Board of Directors for our annual Board retreat. We engaged in deep discussions about our Strategic Plan; reviewed our SWOT analysis; and spent time building and strengthening the Board’s connection to our mission and vision. We also relished the opportunity to deepen our relationships through a thought-provoking ice breaker that prompted us to name five people that we admired, along with the traits in them that earned our respect. 

In June, the Board and I collaborated to recruit new members for the Board. We are currently meeting with a number of outstanding candidates and will be excited to introduce new Board members to you soon!

With the end of the school year, we bid farewell and express our heartfelt gratitude to Jean Hamilton, LMFT, who is retiring after an extraordinary 20 years serving as an Acknowledge Alliance Clinical Supervisor and Resilience Consultant. Throughout her tenure, Jean has shown unwavering compassion, empathy, expertise, and commitment. Thank you, Jean, for supporting so many educators to grow and navigate life’s challenges, which in turn has positively impacted the lives of countless students.  

As we look ahead to the 2025-2026 year, I am inspired by the tenacity and determination of our community to keep building nurturing school environments where everyone feels cared for, competent and resilient. Thank you for transforming lives with us, one classroom at a time.

With gratitude,

Sharon Navarro
Executive Director

P.S. The summer is a great time to build and practice summer traditions. I cherish every moment I can spend outside. Sipping my morning coffee on the patio of a nearby cafe or having lunch in a serene park brings me joy, and I particularly look forward to the fun outdoor movie screenings and free concerts organized by various local towns during the summer. What are your favorite summer traditions? I would love to hear from you, so please let me know!

Community Connections: Updates from our Executive Director

Dear Acknowledge Alliance family,

Happy New Year! As we kick off 2025, I am excited to share some of Acknowledge Alliance’s special accomplishments in 2024.

This past September, Acknowledge Alliance celebrated our 30th anniversary of providing vital mental health services and resilience support to local schools and community organizations. Last year, we reached 2,014 youth and educators across 34 schools and organizations. Our youth engaged in 10,965 hours of counseling, leading to decreases in anxiety, improved behavior, and more positive relationships. We also served more educators than ever before - holding 3,350 one-on-one tailored consultations promoting professional resilience. This was a remarkable 300% increase from three years ago! Although the numbers alone are impressive, the countless comments we receive from teachers truly illustrate the magnitude of our impact. As one teacher put it, “[Our resilience consultant] has helped me balance work and personal life. She’s given me helpful tips and strategies on how to set boundaries, work through crises, and manage stress and anxiety. She’s always positive and finds ways to connect and bring our school together even when some days felt hopeless.”  

In fall of 2023, we broadened our scope to serving PreK and early childhood professionals who work with younger students. We continued that work this year by partnering with two Mountain View preschool locations, both of which are state-funded and tuition-free for eligible families. There is often very high turnover in early childhood education staffing, with preschool teachers and instructional aids receiving the lowest pay and lowest appreciation in comparison to other educators. Despite these trends, Mountain View preschool staff have long tenures and are an incredibly dedicated and caring group of early childhood educators. Like other PreK teachers, they have faced a recent increase in preschool students with behavioral challenges and other special needs. Student behaviors such as biting and “elopement” (also known as wandering away) impact other classmates, and result in additional stress on classroom teachers. These are just a few of the challenges preschool staff are dealing with on a daily basis. Our resilience counselors have been supporting these amazing preschool educators in areas such as:

• Personal coping skills for teachers who are 'sandwich generation' caregivers at home, caring for children and their aging parents

• Real-time strategies for managing difficult moments with students, to increase teacher

• self-awareness and self-management

• Communication frameworks for stressful conversations at work, and understanding impact vs. intent

• Witnessing and acknowledging the amazing job each Mountain View preschool teacher is doing in their fast paced, high-need, never-a-dull moment environment

We also continued to explore working with new community partners by participating in the Boys & Girls Club of Silicon Valley’s Wellness Day 2024. BGCSV offers innovative and effective afterschool and summer enrichment programs primarily for low-income, at-risk Santa Clara County youth ages 5-18+. On Wellness Day, over 230 of BGCSV’s youth development staff gathered to embrace the day’s theme of Holistic Wellness: nurturing the mind, body and spirit. Acknowledge Alliance Program Manager Poonam Raj Singh, Ed.M, PCC gave the keynote address titled “Collective Resilience: How can we be well TOGETHER?” Poonam shared her own wellness journey as a youth development professional, and guided attendees in figuring out what wellness means together by discussing concepts around collective resilience. The group learned how we can draw from our own stories, nature and indigenous wisdom, Black feminist thought, and radical imagination to anchor our definitions of collective resilience. Our Resilience Consultants Cheyenne Berry, Cheree Clark, and Cortney Richardson were also on hand providing wellness check-ins and self-care resources. From having confidential conversations about work-related or personal issues, providing mental health resources, or sharing fun Self-Care Bingo cards, our staff loved meeting members of the BGCSV team. 

I am thrilled that we were once again selected by BoardLead, a selective board-matching organization available to successful nonprofits at no cost through a competitive application process. This year’s round was especially competitive with over 20,000 applications; Acknowledge Alliance was 1 of only 400 organizations selected. I am grateful that our partnership with BoardLead has resulted in matching with several of our Board members, including our newest Board member, Neha Narang, a Senior Management Consultant at PwC.

Although 2025 has started with a long list of challenges and disappointments for our communities, I find myself continually inspired by the courage and dedication our students, educators, and staff bring with them each day. As we look to the year ahead, we remain deeply committed to helping to create safe, compassionate and nurturing education settings where everyone feels cared for, competent and resilient. Thank you for joining us in this work, Acknowledge Alliance family.

I wish you and your loved ones health and peace in the new year.

With gratitude,

Sharon Navarro
Executive Director

P.S. Every year I make a promise to myself for the New Year. For 2025, I’m leveling up my social justice advocacy, and will reach out to community partners to maximize advocacy and share resources. What promise or hopes do you have for yourself in 2025? I would love to hear from you, so please let me know!

Community Connections: Updates from our Executive Director

Dear Acknowledge Alliance family,

It is hard to believe that we are already two months into the start of a new fiscal year for Acknowledge Alliance! I am so proud of all that we have accomplished together since my last update in January. 

All year long, we have been celebrating Acknowledge Alliance’s 30th anniversary of providing vital mental health services and resilience support to local schools and community organizations. Last year, we reached 2,150 youth and educators across 28 schools and institutions. Our youth engaged in 7,357 hours of counseling with our therapists, who spent an average of 14% more time supporting each student this year. The benefits from this increased treatment were clear - students reported significant decreases in depression, less anxiety, greater capacity for dealing with stress and grief, and improved ability for expressing their emotions constructively. Our Resilience Consultants provided 2,435 consultations and coaching sessions to 412 educators and other staff on campuses, promoting professional resilience tailored to meet individual needs. This work is making a real difference in our schools. As one teacher said, “seeing our resilience counselor brightens up my day. I feel more positive and optimistic about my interactions with students and classrooms after having been heard and listened to by my Acknowledge Alliance counselor.”  And this teacher is not the only one that feels this way - 84% of educators we served said they felt increased empathy and understanding of the lives of their students. 

On May 23, the Acknowledge Alliance family gathered at our 30th anniversary Forget-Me-Not event to learn about nurturing resilience in young people, and to honor our outstanding educators and community leaders. The evening was filled with so much passion, joy and gratitude. Whether it was one of our therapists sharing a touching story of how counseling changed the trajectory of a teenager’s life, or the incredible educators from Jose Antonio Vargas Elementary School expressing how deeply they care about ensuring their students feel seen each day, I was humbled and inspired by each person we heard from at Forget-Me-Not.

Behind the scenes, we continued to build our organizational culture and priorities around diversity, equity, inclusion and justice (DEIJ). In April and May, I held our semi-annual fireside chats with our teams. These meetings have yielded fruitful one-on-one conversations with staff, and I am continuing to learn and grow from them. In one memorable meeting, the team gave me the opportunity to lead a grounding and breathing practice, which was such a treat and allowed me to connect with them on a different level. In May, all staff attended the second of our “Equity in Action” DEIJ workshops entitled “Designing a Positive and Inclusive Workplace Culture”. Our Inclusion Task Force also piloted its first Breakfast Club session, a follow-up conversation to help integrate and carry forward what we learned from each other in the DEIJ workshop. 

In late May, I was honored to visit San Miguel Elementary School in Sunnyvale to accept a generous gift of support from a professional, international organization for women educators, named Delta Kappa Gamma. The group includes current and retired educators from Redwood City down to South San Jose. Sunnyvale School District Teacher Colleen Lynch-Espinoza, who is the current president of this chapter, helped select the three organizations to receive a portion of their raffle basket proceeds, and we are so grateful that Colleen suggested Acknowledge Alliance. In Colleen’s words: “The team was thrilled to hear about your organization's important and impactful work and was eager to donate and learn more.” It was wonderful to receive a tour of the campus, visit our counseling room which is beautifully decorated with student art, and hear first-hand how our team is making such a difference.

I am proud that our Resilience Consultation Program was recently featured in Stanford Children’s Health’s 2023 Community Benefit Report and was 1 of only 11 youth mental health programs funded by the El Camino Healthcare District (as highlighted in ECHD’s press release). As our Development Director Ryan Magcuyao shared in both pieces, RCP directly supports the mental health of educators, so they have “less burnout, better classrooms, and can better meet their students’ needs”. 

I am very thrilled to let you all know that we are exploring expanding our consultation work, and partnering with PreK and Early Childhood Educators. In the words of one of our long-time supporters; “early education teachers need to be prepared and supported, since ‘life’ seems to be affecting even our younger students.” 

I look forward to the 2024-2025 year ahead as we continue creating school communities where all students and teachers can thrive. Our commitment to pushing the boundaries in school-based mental health care, and teacher support and retention, through the power of integrity, inclusion, relationships, and collaboration remains steadfast. Thank you for joining us in this work and transforming lives with us, one classroom at a time.

With gratitude,

Sharon Navarro
Executive Director

P.S. The summer is a great time to take advantage of the longer days by practicing self-care. What are some of your favorite summer self-care activities? I would love to hear from you, so please let me know!

Community Connections: Updates from our Executive Director

Dear Acknowledge Alliance family,

At the start of this new year, I want to wish you the absolute best for 2024 and share some of Acknowledge Alliance’s special accomplishments in 2023.

Remarkably, Acknowledge Alliance celebrates our 30th anniversary in 2024! The generosity of our community helped fuel our efforts to push the boundaries of what’s possible in school-based mental healthcare. We are honored to have been providing mental health services and resilience support to schools and community organizations for decades, changing the lives of thousands of students and educators every year. This past year alone, our agency provided direct services to over 1,700 students and over 400 educators, while also reaching over 10,000 students with our indirect services. 

• 100% of our students who may have been on a probation track are instead in the process of graduating. 

• 84% of the educators we work with report having increased empathy and understanding of the lives of their students. 

The moving personal success stories of students and teachers validate these outcomes. We have heard from so many students how counseling has transformed their perspectives and behaviors in the classroom and beyond, and how the modeling and support of resilience counselors have helped educators become more resilient in their personal and professional lives. 

Behind the scenes, we continued to make strides forward in our efforts to center diversity, equity, inclusion and justice (DEIJ) in our work. In October, the entire Acknowledge Alliance team gathered for the first of a series of DEIJ professional development workshops. This training, led by Cory Ervin-Stewart, was titled “Sharing Ourselves”, and helped the team to learn how to connect through trust and empathy and to build an environment of workplace trust. Staff participated in exercises where we shared possessions that held personal significance in our lives and engaged in meaningful conversations with each other. This training was driven by our staff-led Inclusion Task Force, a working group charged with recommending meaningful changes to DEIJ initiatives at our agency, and ensuring its concepts underpin all the important functions of our work.

I have continued meeting directly with all of our program staff through quarterly fireside chats, both to give me the opportunity to share important organizational updates and to hear directly from staff. These conversations have increased our team’s ability to communicate and allowed staff to get to know me as the Executive Director so they feel more comfortable surfacing issues with me. This year, I added one additional fireside chat with our group of interns, furthering inclusion at the agency.

We remain laser-focused on continuing to recruit diverse leaders by partnering with two prominent organizations to broaden our reach in the community. We were once again selected by Boardlead to participate in their free board matching services. It was an especially competitive selection process this year, with Acknowledge Alliance chosen as one of only 509 organizations from over 20,000 applications. The selection criteria included the strength of our mission and programs, solid organization and board structure, demonstrated need for board development, attainable resource development expectations, financial stability, and a commitment to DEI. I am incredibly proud that Acknowledge Alliance’s strength in these areas was recognized. In November, I attended the Asian Pacific American Leadership Institute’s (APALI) board match event. APALI is committed to leadership representation and influential participation in civic life for members of the APA community. I was grateful for the opportunity to speak about our work and network with prospective board candidates. 

As we look to the year ahead and celebrate Acknowledge Alliance’s 30th anniversary of nurturing resilience and building positive relationships between students and educators, it is clear that we have come a long way and transformed so many lives thanks to the unwavering commitment of our community of supporters. Thank you for making this all possible, Acknowledge Alliance family!

I wish you and your loved ones health and peace in the new year.

Sharon Navarro
Executive Director

P.S. Every year I make a promise to myself for the New Year (I’ve decided “resolution” feels too stiff and stern!) This year, I’m committed to maintaining my connections to family and friends, and building new ones, by actively seeking out opportunities to collaborate. What promise or hopes do you have for yourself in 2024? I would love to hear from you, so please let me know! 

Community Connections: Updates from our Executive Director

Dear Acknowledge Alliance Family,

Happy New Year! Because July 1st marks the start of our fiscal year, it’s a great opportunity to take stock of all we’ve accomplished together.

Remarkably, Acknowledge Alliance will celebrate our 30th anniversary in 2024! We are so honored to have been providing mental health services and resilience support to schools and community organizations for decades, reaching thousands of students and educators every year. Last year, youth in our Collaborative Counseling Program engaged in nearly 7,000 hours of counseling with our psychotherapists, a 10% increase from the prior year. This more frequent and extended timeframe of counseling led to students reporting decreases in depression and anxiety, fewer trauma-specific symptoms, deeper connections with their community, and stronger positive family and social relationships. Our Resilience Consultation Program served 645 educators, which was a 48% increase from the previous year. This means our resilience consultants helped more teachers and principals than ever before to feel healthy and empowered to address classroom challenges.

In May, we were thrilled to welcome everyone in the Acknowledge Alliance family to the relaunch of our annual Forget-Me-Not celebration, our first time holding the event in-person in 4 years. The room was filled with joyous energy from beginning to end. We had a wonderful time sharing our passion for the work we do, learning together about nurturing resilience in young people through an illuminating panel discussion, and honoring this year's outstanding educator honorees. We also played some spirited rounds of Connect Four and Jenga and created beautiful mandalas in our Art Therapy and Play Therapy Activity Zones. The lively return of events continued through June with our first board retreat in two years and our all-staff summer gathering. Both events helped to nurture connections among staff and board members, and allowed us to celebrate another successful year. 

Behind the scenes, we continued to center diversity, equity, inclusion and justice (DEIJ) in our work because it directly complements Acknowledge Alliance’s guiding principles and agency values, especially in regards to the vital role relationships play in our strengths-based services. I firmly believe our agency must not approach DEIJ as just another “thing on our plate” - it IS the plate. DEIJ concepts must underpin all the important functions of our work, and we must implement them in a way that enhances our connections to the youth and teachers we serve, and model inclusive and equitable organizational policies and practices. With these goals in mind, the second iteration of the Acknowledge Alliance Inclusion Task Force, a staff-led working group charged with moving the needle on DEIJ at our agency, was able to accomplish so much in the last six months including:

• Creating an agency equity statement

• Organizing an arc of DEI learning concepts for all staff

• Holding DEIJ facilitated workshops for the RCP, CCP and management teams 

This year, I was honored to be selected to collaborate with two leading organizations on efforts to engage community leaders and drive capacity-building grant funding. First, I was selected once again to partner with BoardLead, a selective board-matching organization available to successful nonprofits at no cost through a competitive application process. I am grateful that our partnership with BoardLead resulted in matching with our two newest Board members, Cindy Goldman and Ankur Jain. Second, I again have the honor of participating in the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) Steering Committee, a group of seven nonprofit leaders who help guide the design of their capacity-building grants program by providing insights and recommendations to CZI staff. The committee’s members help shape capacity-building activities so they will benefit the larger community of grantees, and serve as strategic advisors to help ensure that CZI’s funding efforts are anchored in the real experiences and needs of their grantees.

With the end of this fiscal year, we say farewell and express our deepest gratitude to Steve Hope, who is retiring from our Board of Directors after an extraordinary 9 years of service. Steve held many roles on the Board, including multiple terms as Board Chair. His commitment to the agency and leadership has been invaluable. Thank you, Steve, for helping to shape Acknowledge Alliance into the amazing organization that it is today.

As we look ahead to 2024 and Acknowledge Alliance’s 30th anniversary of nurturing resilience and building positive relationships between students and educators, I want to reiterate that we were only able to accomplish our goals thanks to the steadfast commitment of our community of supporters. 

I look forward to celebrating the accomplishments of the last 30 years together and furthering our commitment to building thriving school communities for many years to come.

Sharon Navarro

Executive Director

P.S. What is your favorite Acknowledge Alliance memory from our last 30 years? I would love to hear from you, so please let me know!

Community Connections: Updates from our Executive Director

Dear Acknowledge Alliance family,

At the start of this new year, I want to wish you the absolute best for 2023 and share some of Acknowledge Alliance’s special accomplishments in 2022.

Since Acknowledge Alliance’s founding in 1994 (yes, 2023 marks our 29th anniversary!), we have been providing mental health services and resilience support in schools and community organizations that reach thousands of students and educators every year. Our staff are creating and reinforcing bonds that last a lifetime. Whether it’s through our Resilience Consultation Program, our Collaborative Counseling Program, or our intern training program, we are strengthening the teaching profession, disrupting the pipeline to prison, and training the next generation of mental health professionals.

How do we know this? We have data! In 2022, we reached nearly 3,000 students and over 600 educators, and trained 6 mental health interns. Anecdotally, I can vouch for this too. We’ve heard from so many teachers, students and interns about lives transformed, burn-out prevented and the exceptional quality of our training program. 

• 93% of our students who may have been on a probation track are instead in the process of graduating. 

• 86% of the educators we work with are using our strategies to promote their own resilience, like setting boundaries and recognizing their own strengths. 

• 100% of interns agreed that our training helped them develop new clinical skills

Behind the scenes, I found that our staff and board work needed to be further centered around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) values, so that we can continue to do better in the DEI space. To this end, I invested in building a more representative Board and staff, and am ensuring DEI principles continue to guide our strategic plan and continuous learning at the agency. With help from grant-funded DEI consultants, I was encouraged to continue to advocate for transparency in salaries, pay equity, and open paths to leadership for staff and board members who bring diverse perspectives – from BIPOC folks to the LGBTQ+ community, to people with disabilities and neuro-divergent folks. We launched a staff-led Inclusion Task Force – a working group charged with moving the needle on DEI at our organization. The task force members will rotate every six months, and in just two iterations, have accomplished so much:

• operationalizing our values 

• planning staff and board training 

• updating our employee handbook and performance reviews 

• and many other exciting projects

Serving on the boards of other nonprofits is deepening my connection to the nonprofit ecosystem, giving me fruitful ideas for my work at the agency and opportunities to collaborate. I am thrilled that I was asked to join the Board of the Center for Excellence in Nonprofits’ (CEN) in June 2022. I was also honored to be President of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), Silicon Valley Chapter’s Board of Directors. 

Like many other nonprofits, we carefully returned to in-person events in 2022. We had our annual agency all-staff retreat at Campo di Bocce in Los Gatos, where we enjoyed being together after 2 years of Zoom retreats. And, we were so excited about the agency’s Community Open House event, our first in-person gathering since 2019! Held on a beautiful October evening in our office courtyard, it was a wonderful opportunity to showcase our programs, and thank our staff, donors and Board. 

2022 was also a year of feeling honored: we were 1 of only 10 local nonprofits to participate in a cohort training created by Jim Morgan, founder of Applied Materials, and we were selected to partner with BoardLead, a selective board-matching organization available to successful nonprofits at no cost through a competitive application process.

In 2023, we will continue to grow and expand our efforts as we move into the new year, advancing our core values of integrity, inclusion, relationships, and collaboration, and celebrating the diversity – and the strength born from that diversity – of our community. In doing so, we hope to further the connections that foster relationships.

As I like to say, there is a magic to this special agency, and I want to assure you of your belonging in this exceptional Acknowledge Alliance family that we share. We know that relationships and community connection are at the heart of our mission, and we are all stronger together. 

I wish you and your loved ones health and peace in the new year.

Sharon Navarro

Executive Director

P.S. Every year I adopt a New Year’s resolution and this year it is self-care – for all of us. What resolution(s) have you adopted for 2023? Let me know!