This is a story about networking.
After Steven Jones was appointed as a general session and juvenile court judge in Sullivan County, Tennessee, in 1984, he quickly realized that many of the problems in his courtroom could never be solved by prison terms or fines. Their roots ran too deep.
Most troubling to him, many teenagers in his court were trapped in a dead-end life without help from home, school or any agency. There was no full-time juvenile court system, much less any other support for kids headed for danger.
“We had a monster of a problem with no resources,” he recalls. That situation, he decided, needed to change.
So, for his entire 23-year career on the bench and since his retirement last year, Jones has voluntarily poured himself into raising awareness – and money – for programs to help at-risk children. He traveled nights and weekends around the country, building connections to launch and sustain programs helping children get out of trouble or, better yet, avoid it in the first place.
As the years passed and juvenile case numbers dropped, Jones learned to negotiate the maze of public funding, discovered sources of grant money and gained grant-application skills that would prove valuable.
He also noticed the work of many faith-based organizations – their aid to poor and homeless people, children’s camps and after-school programs, counseling services and more. But their efforts were restricted by lack of money.
“They provide vital functions to the community, irrespective of their religious affiliation,” he said. “But it’s getting difficult, because many times they’re competing for the same dollar.”
Jones, a Christian, felt frustrated because faith-based groups not only missed out on funding that could serve the community, but they usually worked in isolation from each other.
Meanwhile, in 1994 Chris Martin, a Knoxville minister with a track record of coordinating inner-city development, “began catching a new vision,” he said, one for the entire city.
He formed the Knoxville Leadership Foundation, starting with a $40,000 budget to help local organizations coordinate programs for needy people in the five counties around Knoxville.
“It made more sense to work behind the scenes, to let others on the front line,” Martin said this week. “We wanted to help the city and help grow up indigenous leadership.”
Today, the foundation works with more than 200 organizations, reaches into 16 counties, and handles a $9 million budget. It operates some of its own programs but specializes in connecting people, organizations and their resources to address community needs.
The Knoxville foundation is part of the Leadership Foundations of America, a network of more than 30 similar organizations in the U.S. and abroad, with more to come. While these foundations are faith-based – Christian, to be specific – they bring together any community leaders and organizations to tackle problems facing poor people.
“It’s not rocket science, what we’re doing,” Martin said. “What we’ve offered is to be a friend in as many sectors (of the community) as possible, and through those relationships, recognize needs and then ask what we can do. That’s the important role of the Leadership Foundation: it ties the community together around the needs of the city.”
For his part, Jones’ work in the juvenile system led to his 2004 appointment to the Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, a select body organized through the U.S. Justice Department that coordinates federal programs aiming to prevent or reduce juvenile delinquency. The council works with numerous organizations.
That’s how Jones met Reid Carpenter, president of the Leadership Foundations of America, who, in turn, introduced Jones to Chris Martin. With a common cause, Jones and Martin began discussing the Tri-Cities area.
“Whether we do this now or later, we’ll have to look at having an organization that can link needs to the resources,” Jones explained. “We are a growing area, and Knoxville has already faced this battle. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel.”
So these two Tennesseans have organized an open meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 23, for area congregations and faith-based organizations to explore how they might collaborate to address the needs of this region, including the search for funding.
It’s networking.
“What I’m trying to do is put together the people,” Jones said. “All I’m doing is trying to plant some seeds.”
The Jan. 23 meeting begins at 10:30 a.m., at the Quality Inn Conference Center in Kingsport, followed by a noontime lunch. To attend, phone 245-3141 or 349-0600.
First published in the Johnson City (Tenn.) Press, 19 Jan 2008.
