Description of Organization

Denver Urban Scholars, also referred to as DUS, is a small nonprofit located in

Denver, Colorado. When DUS is full staffed there are 18 staff members. That includes 9
case mangers, also know as program managers, the development team, and the CEO,
Patrick. According to the Denver Urban Scholars website states their mission as, Denver
Urban Scholars partners with high poverty, high performing schools to unlock the
potential of students facing added challenges by creating individual pathways to career
and college, The website also states the values as, Purposeful in our organizational
structure and how we collaborate with one another to accomplish our mission, authentic
in our approach to fulfilling our mission, ensuring a genuine connection and
understanding of the outcomes we affect, inclusive of all individuals as vital participants
and stakeholders, embracing all voices and promoting self-determination, relationship
oriented in how we engage others to positively impact our work, strategic in developing
opportunities for our Scholars to create individual and evolving pathways for success
Lastly, DUS website states the vision as, Denver Urban Scholars envisions a life of
choice and opportunity for every young person
The neighborhood in where DUS resides is Five Points. Five Points is an
interesting mix of an area. Half of five points is higher income and the other half is lower
socioeconomic families. Five points is known for its gang activity and high crime rate. In
the past few years, Denver has been trying to transform Five Points into a art district with
less crime. Since this has occurred rent in Five Points has sky rocketed. DUS is located in
the Tramway Nonprofit Building located in the center of a neighborhood, surrounded by
blocks of houses, excluding a charter school across the street from DUS.

Denver Urban Scholars is considered to be a wrap around nonprofit. It provides

tuition assistance in charter schools such as money for uniforms, school supplies, bus
passes, etc. Secondly, the program provides case management. The third and most
focused on service DUS provides is career-focused mentorship within a volunteer within
the Denver community. DUS has 224 mentor/mentee matches from 7th to 12th grade. Sixth
graders are put into small groups with mentors to prepare them for a one to one
mentorship.
Denver Urban Scholars fulfills two main aspects in the community. Going into
lower socioeconomic areas of Denver and providing a healthy adult relationship to help
build skills that may have been lacking earlier in life. For example, some of these kids
have not been provided with anger management skills. A mentor may be made aware of
their school behaviors and can specifically work on building anger management skills
through talks, trainings, or other activities. Furthermore, career opportunities are
explored. Often DUS will hold senior and junior nights to help these students prepare for
college or their career after high school. For example, this week they are holding an
senior night where the seniors can create a senior vision board to help them start focusing
on what they would like to accomplish by the time they graduate. A large portion, 95%,
of students are African American or Latino. The populations DUS serves tend to be in the
lower income housing and schools throughout Denver.
Practice Models and Roles
Denver Urban scholars has two practice models it follows. Those two would be
positive youth development and strengths based focus. Strengths based approach is a
belief that all challenges should be lead with finding strength within the clients current

life or problem. A client at Denver Urban Scholars is considering joining a gang, his
father and brother where both in that gang. He is getting a lot of pressure to join the gang.
If someone were to come at this clients situation in a strengths based perspective, one
might strength in the fact that he has not given into the pressure, Or another strength
could be that the student is involved in after school programs that can provide the support
that the student is looking for.
Positive Youth Development theory, referred to as PYD, is more of a systems type
theory. It focuses on prevention. If a child has positive relationships, experiences and
environments then the student can have a positive development. This leads to higher
grades, a better sense of self, and can cut down on risky behaviors as a teenager. PYD is
a theory that has become trendy in the youth sector of nonprofits in the last few years. It
is similar to the strengths based perspective in that the positive should always be found.
In addition, PYDs intervention wants to give youths a more higher self-esteem so when
they are faced with the tough decisions they can chose to say no and believe it is the best
choice. DUS sees this as their main focus when dealing mentors and case managers are
attending to a client.
Social workers at DUS have many roles, mainly case management and
advocating. If someone asks any of the social workers, from case managers to
development team, they will say that advocating for students is a role company wide.
Social workers on the development side are often organizers, facilitators, and educators.
They are constantly organizing events, creating new curriculum for DUS, and running
smalls groups with mentors. Meanwhile, the case managers are more counselors and
mediators to the clients. They have offices in the schools and meet with clients one on

one on a monthly basis. The generalist practice is used at DUS. At any given time a social
worker could be changing their rolls to fit the needs of the agency or the client. After
talking to coworker in a workday they will use up to 5 different roles. This exemplifies
the generalist approach in that social workers are not restricted to one specific role.
Knowledge and Skills
To work at Denver Urban Scholars, a wide array of skills is needed to be
successful. All of the case mangers bur one have a secondary degree in social work. The
only case manager who does not have a degree is social work exercises many skills that
social workers use. The development team, has 9 people, 5 of those have MSWs. The
other 4 have a Masters of Nonprofit Management.
One of the main skills a social worker needs to work at DUS is communication.
Many of the case managers have to constantly communicate with mentors, families, or
students. This can be challenging at times. On the development side of thing social
workers are often in meetings together communicating what is going on, what curriculum
is being formed, what still needs to be done.
Furthermore, employees need to have a strong knowledge and passion for social
justice. After all, the work in which DUS is doing is in the realm of social justice. Social
workers need to understand Social Justice and explain why it is important to people who
may not know what social justice is or understand it.
Moreover, cultural competency is a skill needed at DUS with 95 % of the clients
being from a minority group the social workers are constantly being exposed to new
cultures. Many social workers at DUS expressed that when they know that they are
going to be exposed to a new culture they do research on what to expect. A majority of

the 95% is Latino and their families do not speak English. So every case manager must at
least have a basic knowledge of Spanish to be successful and able to communicate with
families.
Furthermore, the social work toolbox that is taught in Social Work to 286 is often
utilized. Four of the case mangers and three of the development social workers went to
CSU for their undergrad or graduate degrees for social work. When interviewing them
about what skills are needed, they often brought up the toolbox analogy and said they use
it more than they thought they would. The social workers at Denver Urban Scholars
utilize a lot of social work skills.
Agency Cultural Competency
After interviewing five of the case managers a lot of light was shed about cultural
competency at Denver Urban Scholars. Ironically, for cultural competency being an
expected skill at DUS, they do not have a program to ensure it in the workplace. After
speaking to coworkers they stated that since most of the employees at the nonprofit have
a social work degree, it is an assumption that people hired are going to be culturally
competent. This assumption is made in the interviewing process. They ask questions that
assess cultural competency. For example in an interview the interviewer would ask, Tell
me about your experience working with diversity and how do you promote differences?
This is supposed to help gage how culturally competent someone is. DUS is lacking in
culturally competent training. Just because someone attained a degree in Social Work
does not mean they can express cultural competency. Also, someones full cultural
competency or lack there of cannot not be measured by a few questions in an interview. It

was shocking to find that an agency that deals with such diverse populations does not
have a protocol for cultural diversity.
The demographics of the company have changed in the past year. A year ago there
was one employee who was Latina; and there was one male, the CEO. Currently, there
are three Latinas and three males. The nonprofit realized they were lacking in the staff
demographics reflecting their target population. They have been actively trying to change
their staff demographics to relate better to the populations they are serving. DUS could
improve on hiring more males; three out of eighteen is a low percentage.
Eduardo, a male Latino caseworker, gave a lot of perspective about how DUS
could be improving. He said that the language used a DUS is not culturally diverse. Often
in job postings or newsletters that are sent out the use of language is not presented in a
way that is culturally diverse. Eduardos perspectives are so interesting, but very
thoughtful and knowledgeable. Often he says things that many people are taken aback by
because his perspective aligns so much with cultural competency. Eduardo is the one case
manger that does not have a social work degree; he actually has a degree in architecture.
It is interesting, but also sad that the one person without the social work degree has the
most cultural competency. Denver Urban Scholars even though Denver Urban Scholars is
trying to be culturally competent, they have a long way to go.
Effects of Policy
There a two legislations have affected Denver Urban Scholars in the past year.
Firstly, Prop BB was passed in 2015. This legislation made it that the taxes acquired from
marijuana would go back to schools and nonprofits. Tony Grampsas Youth Services for
Prevention Grant recently sought out DUS to provide them with a grant funded by

marijuana taxes. The legalization of marijuana in the state of Colorado and the passing of
Prop BB directly affected DUS. DUS is still in the process of trying to figure out if they
want to take the grant or not because of the stigma surrounding it; never the less, this is
an example of how policy can help a nonprofit.
Secondly, Patrick told me about a bill going through congress right now that can
deeply impact Denver Urban Scholars. This is a highly political bill. The bill is twofold
and trying to amend itself in congress right now. Originally, when it passed it put federal
funding into mentoring programs. DUS has received grants previously from the act.
Currently, the act is trying to double the amount allotted to the grant. Now Boys and Girls
Club has hired a lobbyist to try and change the way the bill is written so they can receive
the money from the act. The lobbyist is simply trying to redefine the definition of mentor
so they will be included under the acts umbrella.
Furthermore, this act is trying to make it so mentors are excused from jury duty. If
this becomes a law the amount of mentors will most likely skyrocket, due to the fact that
most people would like to escape jury duty. The need for mentors may eliminate and even
create a waiting list. Currently, DUS is turning away clients because of the lack of
mentors. This bill could quite possibly enhance DUS. In an ideal world this bill would
pass and create growth with in Denver Urban Scholars.
Organizational Assessment and Evaluation
Denver Urban Scholars distributes two different Surveys. The first is called the
PYD, Positive Youth Development, Survey for Students. This is given at the beginning
and ending of each school year. This survey is presented in a liker scale format from NO!
to YES!, four boxes to chose from. The question ask such things as I do great in school,

my friends follow to rules, and even if I set a goal I will complete it. This survey is
distributed by DUS, but used as data for PYD grants. It helps DUS know if the
intervention they are providing is successful. In order to keep the PYD grant between fall
and summer DUS must show a positive increase in the answers. For this reason PYD
Student Survey is summative. Actual assumptions are formed about the programs
successfulness after the results are gathered.
The second survey distributed is called the Developmental Assets Profile. This
survey is given quarterly to assess the students progress every few months. This survey
can in some circumstances show how well the mentor intervention is working. This
survey assesses their life overall and how they are feeling themselves, their families, and
others. This survey also uses a liker scale that has four boxes from no not at all to
extremely. This survey is more to check on how students are doing. If a program manager
sees something alarming he or she can address it. This is more of a formative evaluation.
It shows the areas in which a student needs help or more services applied to.
Currently, there is no measure for mentors. The intern, Abby Rambo, is creating a
survey that will assess the effectiveness of DUS mentor training. This survey will be a
combination of liker scale, open-ended questions, and multiple choice. DUS is lacking in
having an evaluation for mentors. This is one of the projects Abby is working on this
semester. When this survey is complete, it will hopefully help DUS with how they can
improve mentor trainings and curriculum. Also provide insight into how they can better
support mentors; despite being volunteers they are just as important as the clients. DUS
would not work without their mentors. This will be a formative survey hopefully given
twice a year to evaluate the development side of the nonprofit.

Organizational Chart

Reference Page
ByMaggieMcEntee,digitalcommunicationsmore>.(n.d.).
Recent News. Retrieved September 19, 2016, from
http://denverurbanscholars.org/