Nine Years and Counting
It's hard to believe we are coming up on our TEN YEAR anniversary in 2025!
We've already started celebrating by asking our students, families, school teachers, business partners and the community at large about the ripple effect our Youth Leadership Program is having in our local, rural community. We hope you will follow along to learn more through our Be the Drop End-of-Year Campaign on social media.
As we prepare for our 10 year anniversary celebration in 2025, we thought this would be a good time to reflect on our accomplishments as a grassroots nonprofit organization whose mission is Positive Youth Development.
The Greater Hartsville and Darlington County communities have been coming together to support Positive Youth Development for 9 years. You can see it in our timeline. What's not included in our timeline infographic are the countless volunteers, board members, civic groups, corporate donors, foundations, business partners who have played the most significant role in helping us survive this long. You can learn more on our website about the people who have gotten us this far.
According to the National Center on Charitable Statistics, about 30% of nonprofits don't survive past 10 years. Those of us who are actively involved with the nonprofit sector, whether as philanthropists, direct serviceproviders, board members, executive directors, we know the top 3 reasons nonprofits fail is because:
lack of funding
poor fundraising strategy
leadership issues
Good news for us is that in 2025, we are strategically poised to address all three!
I feel excited, hopeful, and relieved to kick-off 2025 with multi-year support from the Sonoco Foundation so we can hire an experienced, nonprofit Executive Director to prioritize the development of a fundraising strategy and business plan for our next 10 years.
I want, need, cannot wait to prioritize and focus 100% of my time on directing Programs, writing and publishing our research and developing a replicable model for other rural communities seeking to come together to provide Positive Youth Development; to inspire and empower youth to accept leadership of their lives and their communities.
"Cypress helped me in my relationships with everyone in my life. I understand myself more, my thoughts feel clear for the first time in my life. It is helping me make decisions, the right ones, even when they hurt too." ~12 grade, female student
Adolescence is a critical stage of development in which identities are explored, sensation and risk are pursued, and emotional sensitivity is at its peak. Everything we do at Cypress is to support the physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional development of adolescents during out-of-school time. They deserve the attention, the opportunity, the experiences outside of school and family that help them develop into happy and healthy adults. It is the responsibility of communities to meet this need for all youth.
Cypress Adventures fills a gap between school and home life for over 100 families per year.
We are the only youth leadership development program in Darlington County.
Only 40% of the families who enter our lottery drawing for enrollment are currently being served.
You can help us continue expanding our reach in 2025.