The work that became DEAP.
This did not begin as a plan on paper. It began in a room, with people who needed something that did not exist yet.
One organization. One program. One idea that held.
A community organization approached us. They work with people returning home from prison and with young people already known to the justice system. Their staff had lived through those systems themselves, which is why the people they serve trust them. That kind of credibility takes years to build and cannot be hired.
What they did not have was the digital side of the work. The people in their programs were trying to navigate a world that had moved online without them. Benefits applications behind logins. Job postings that will not load on a phone. School forms due by Friday.
We built a program together. It became the foundation for everything DEAP does now.
Something we could run again
People built real capability
Participants learned professional tools, created work with them, and began telling their own stories instead of waiting for someone else to tell them.
Participants became instructors
People who arrived to learn ended up leading sessions, recruiting others, and representing their neighbors in conversations that affected them.
Organizations started working together
Technology organizations, justice partners, and community groups that had never collaborated found themselves at the same table and stayed there.
We documented all of it
The curriculum, the sequence, what worked and what did not. Another community can pick this up and run it without starting over.
Participants arrived to learn and left as instructors and advocates. From the program review
Attendance numbers tell you very little
Any program can report how many people showed up. That says nothing about whether anything changed. We look at three levels instead.
What can they do now?
What someone can accomplish independently afterward compared with before. Whether their confidence changed. Whether they finished with credentials or work they can show.
Can they reach and move people?
Whether a group we trained can bring people together and turn that into action, measured before we begin and after we finish.
Who has a seat at the table?
How many participants moved from taking a class to leading one, and whether residents have a voice when technology decisions get made in their area.
If your organization already has trust, we can help you reach further with it
Nonprofits, churches, schools, neighborhood associations, and local groups, wherever they are rooted. You know your community. We bring the training, the technology, and the strategy to help you reach more of it and turn that reach into action. Mississippi is home and where we test everything first, but the model travels.
Talk with us about your organization See what that looks like