Part of the Stevenson Center for Community and Economic Development’s mission is to provide excellent service to host organizations and opportunities for learning to our students through the Professional Practice placement process. This 35-hour-per-week placement takes up the majority of the fellows’ second year and allows them to dive deeply into the work of one of our partner organizations, building upon skills and knowledge acquired in their first year and previous work experience. This was the first year the National Alliance of Community Economic Development Associations (NACEDA) applied to host a Fellow.
NACEDA is a non-profit organization that aims “to give hope, tools, and resources to low-income communities,” said Frank Woodruff, NACEDA’s current executive director. Frank leads the policy and advocacy work in Washington, D.C., and has been in his position since 2012. NACEDA was originally formed in 2008, and its predecessor was a trade association for community-based organizations that functioned from 1975 to 2005.
Chanse Sonsalla is a second second-year Sociology placed with NACEDA. She has been working on various projects, including a publication called “the family snapshot.” Sonsalla is also involved in developing NACEDA’s Grounding Values study and helping facilitate the survey for community-based development organizations. This census is being administered to organizations across the country for the first time in almost 20 years.
“It’s obvious that Chanse has been amazing to work with,” Woodruff said. “She’s talented, she brings skills to the organization that we don’t have, and she’s flexible. Which is really important to us as she does a lot of different things on a daily basis. And that’s, I think, the nature of any small entity, nonprofit or otherwise. You[‘ve] got to be able to be flexible and nimble and be able to add value. And she does! It not only helps our programs, it helps our members and the communities that we serve.”
The Stevenson Center does its part to make sure second-year fellows are prepared for their placement while giving them the tools to forge their own success.
“Stevenson Center has really hammered home that ‘applied’ in ‘applied community and economic development’ as far as the class work we do,” Sonsalla said. “It’s less rote memorization and more engagement with the materials, more critical thinking on how we apply this in different contexts. I think that has been key to making sure I can be flexible in my work at NACEDA and wear a lot of hats while feeling confident in doing that.”
Sonsalla has enjoyed the opportunity to apply her educational background to her work which involved a lot of training, information sharing, and peer networking. The opportunity to apply those skills in a community development capacity helps her “fit into a niche.”
During her placement at NACEDA, Sonsalla has gained valuable experience in the field of community development. She says gotten to see, firsthand, the balancing act of securing funding and accomplishing the organization’s mission. She commented specifically on the“concerns about equity, community engagement, and making sure that things are grassroots-driven.”
“I’ve gotten to see how people are balancing those and making those tough decisions, and that’s been really cool,” she added.
Woodruff hopes that Sonsalla will take away a lot from her experience at NACEDA and continue to grow in her career in this field and its related research.
“She’s certainly proven that skill. I hope she uses that as a platform to stand on and grow in her career and grow the organizations that she’s going to serve in the future,” Woodruff said.
The Stevenson Center wants to thank NACEDA for their partnership and the fantastic opportunity they have provided Sonsalla. For more information about hosting a fellow visit the Stevenson Center’s website.
