PLATINUM2022

BRINK LITERACY PROJECT

Stories for Change

aka Brink   |   Denver, CO   |  https://www.brinklit.org/

Mission

Brink Literacy Project is devoted to utilizing the power of storytelling to positively affect the lives of people on the brink. Through our education, community, and publishing divisions, our nonprofit works worldwide to foster a love of literature, increase literacy rates, and use storytelling to empower underserved communities.

Ruling year info

2012

CEO

Ms Dani Hedlund

COO

Ms Helen Maimaris

Main address

150 S. Harrison Street, Suite #101,

Denver, CO 80209 USA

Show more contact info

Formerly known as

Tethered by Letters

EIN

45-2793438

NTEE code info

Arts, Cultural Organizations - Multipurpose (A20)

IRS filing requirement

This organization is required to file an IRS Form 990 or 990-EZ.

Sign in or create an account to view Form(s) 990 for 2020, 2019 and 2018.
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Communication

Programs and results

What we aim to solve

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Illiteracy figures are staggering. Lower proficiency in reading and writing skills has been linked to and impacts crime rates, negative educational experiences, increased teacher burnout and stress, and multiple other social factors. Brink Literacy Project is devoted to utilizing the power of storytelling to positively affect the lives of people on the brink, with a particular focus on delivering our initiatives to communities where the literacy deficit is having the greatest impact on society and tackling the issue from multiple angles.

Our programs

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?

Frames Prison Program

The goal of the Frames Prison Program is to increase literacy rates, reduce recidivism, and use storytelling to empower incarcerated persons within the US prison system. Through our graphic memoir course, we work with individuals to develop their storytelling skills, promote literacy, spark critical thinking, and help them grow through self-reflection.

By helping students to transform a single turning point in their lives into a short graphic memoir, this program seeks to:

- Introduce storytelling as a means of positive self-expression
- Engage learners in creative and flexible education that unlocks their boundless potential
- Strengthen the reading and writing skills of each participant regardless of current proficiency
- Empower inmates to reflect on their lives, assess important past decisions, and set positive goals for the future
- Share student work within a safe group as well as with the greater community
- Build students’ individual skillsets as they learn components of graphic design, writing, self-expression, analysis, and problem-solving skills that will help them achieve their own personal and economic goals
- Revolutionize the way in which literacy is approached and taught, especially within low-literacy, underrepresented populations

Population(s) Served
Incarcerated people

Brink’s publishing internship program seeks to bring underrepresented and diverse voices into the publishing industry itself. Through our twelve-week program, interns learn the essential ins and outs of the industry and become crucial contributors to the positive social change Brink affects every day.

Population(s) Served
Adults

F(r)iction, Brink’s triannual literary journal, is at the heart of our mission to increase literacy rates and engagement with storytelling that pushes the boundaries of convention.

Drawing together the best works from our education programs and submissions, we pull more than 50% of the content in each issue from our slush pile, working closely with authors to hone their work and arm them with the skills to succeed in the publishing industry.

Each issue also features work from a community partner, spotlighting marginalized and underrepresented voices that are often ignored by the mainstream publishing industry. Partners include the Afghan Women’s Writing Project, Lambda Literary, and Veteran’s Writing Project.

We also publish diverse talent, from debut authors to pioneering writers seeking to push the boundaries. Our celebrity writers range from international literary greats, such as Alasdair Gray, to trailblazers who are carving out a unique space in the literary field, such as Jeff VanderMeer. Along the way, we’ve published poetry by Kwame Dawes and Mary Ruefle, flash fiction from Kathy Fish and David Galef, prose by Christopher Moore and Kirsty Logan, and nonfiction by Lee Gutkind and Phillip Lopate.

And if that wasn’t crazy enough, each issue also includes an original short comic and custom artwork to accompany every piece, creating a collection that is as visually engaging as the stories within.

Population(s) Served
Adults

Where we work

Our results

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.

Number of periodicals distributed

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Related Program

F(r)iction

Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

Total annual number of units distributed of our triannual literary journal F(r)iction since its inception at the start of 2015.

Total number of works developed

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Related Program

F(r)iction

Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Holding steady

Context Notes

The number of prose, poetry and graphic pieces we published each year in print via our literary journal.

Total number of works commissioned

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Related Program

F(r)iction

Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

Number of original pieces of editorial artwork commissioned to accompany work published in our literary journal.

Total number of classes offered

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Population(s) Served

Incarcerated people

Related Program

Frames Prison Program

Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

Total number of classes offered of our Frames Prison Program in the Denver Women's Correctional Facility.

Number of free registrants to classes

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Population(s) Served

Incarcerated people

Related Program

Frames Prison Program

Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

Total number of participants in our Frames Prison Program, all of whom participate free of charge.

Number of hours of training

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

Hours of training time delivered by executive and leadership staff and received by volunteer base. (NOTE: This is a conservative estimation.)

Number of organizational partners

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

Total number of organizational partners spanning: university, community organization, corporate and foundation partnerships.

Hours of volunteer service

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Input - describing resources we use

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

Total annual volunteer hours spanning volunteer editing, administration, and marketing services as well as volunteer web management and tech support.

Number of pro bono hours contributed

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Type of Metric

Input - describing resources we use

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

Total annual pro bono legal and accounting hours contributed.

Hours of expertise provided

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Related Program

F(r)iction

Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Context Notes

Hours of free editorial guidance and mentorship offered to writers of all backgrounds.

Our Sustainable Development Goals

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.

Goals & Strategy

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.

Charting impact

Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.

EDUCATION: Create and deliver innovative education programs with a strong focus on delivering our initiatives to communities where the literacy deficit is having the greatest impact on society and tackling the issue from multiple angles.

PUBLISHING: Provide a platform for voices that are otherwise often rejected by the mainstream publishing industry, reinvigorate the entire reading experience to attract new readers, create a paradigm shift in the industry.

COMMUNITY: Forge a network of partnerships with other humanitarian and literary organizations to build expertise, collaboration, and opportunities to tackle social issues related to literacy and support underserved communities.

EDUCATION
Use our education programs to actively target underserved communities. This means developing programs specifically for the empowerment of low-literacy, low-income, and marginalized populations.

For example, studies show that inmates who engage in literacy programs are 50% less likely to reoffend. Thus, after two years of preparation, Brink began teaching a graphic memoir course in the Denver Women’s Correctional Facility in the fall of 2017. Using comics as a way to engage reluctant readers, Brink helps students transform a single turning point in their lives into a short graphic memoir. Through this prison program, Brink strives to empower these students to take a hard look at their lives, assess past decisions, and set positive goals for the future.

PUBLISHING
Through publication of F(r)iction, our triannual literary journal, we: mentor emerging writers, encourage experimentation and genre-melding, provide a platform for underrepresented voices, and breath new life into the literary journal industry.

With a focus on unusual, emerging, and experimental work, F(r)iction provides a platform for voices that are otherwise often rejected by the mainstream publishing industry. Underpinned by a mentorship ethos—facilitated by close ties to Brink’s Free Editing Program—F(r)iction has quickly become a platform for launching new careers and providing a space for unusual and emerging work, such as debut authors, graphic literature, and speculative content.

Further, with the readership for literary journals dwindling every day, we want to breathe new life into the publishing industry by reinvigorating the entire reading experience. We commission custom, full-color illustrations for every piece published, creating a visual experience that is as stunning as the literature within. In addition, we publish a graphic short story in each issue, championing this medium as a serious and beautiful storytelling form.

By publishing work from unique and unusual authors and artists, opening up the literary-journal experience to a wider readership, and showing that genre and experimental storytelling can be just as powerful as traditional literary work, we believe we can rejuvenate the industry.

COMMUNITY
Through our Community division, Brink has forged a network of partnerships with other humanitarian and literary organizations. In collaboration with these partners, we create innovative curriculum, build research teams, and offer hands-on teaching, editing, and outreach experience across the globe.

Through F(r)iction, we spotlight work from community partners such as the Afghan Women’s Writing Project, Veterans Writing Project, Lambda Literary, PEN America, Words Without Walls, Writers Without Margins, and other phenomenal humanitarian programs, providing a platform for marginalized and underrepresented voices and highlighting individuals who write as a way to cope with difficult situations.

STAFF TEAM
Brink is run by a dynamic team of experts and industry leaders, bringing together decades of diverse experience in education, literacy, writing, editing, publishing, and prison reform. Through dedicated departmental teams, we develop programs, launch initiatives, grow our publication's distribution and industry impact, and forge new partnerships.

ADVISORS
Brink is supported by a number of advisors and consultants who offer their expertise, advise, and experience to help us develop programs and make key structural, financial, and steering decisions.

COMMUNITY SUPPORT
Brink has developed a wide network of partnerships that offer varied skill sets, perspectives, and collaboration opportunities. These include partnering with: universities to develop research teams, other nonprofit organizations to spotlight work from marginalized communities and collaborate on curriculum, and corporations and companies that offer high-level advice and expertise.

In 2018 alone we taught 4 courses of our Frames Prison Program to 52 students at the Denver Women’s Correctional Facility. We printed 3 journals, publishing 53 writers from 7 countries and 16 states. We launched a new education initiative for low-literacy youth, a beautiful new website for our nonprofit, and began development for a teacher storytelling program.

This year we aim to:
- Launch our teaching storytelling program, through which we seek to inspire teachers to realize their full potential and celebrate their everyday heroism through the act of telling their own story
- Expand our Frames Prison Program into 2 more prisons in Colorado through a peer-to-peer training system developed and launched in collaboration with the Morgridge College of Education at the University of Denver
- Take our prison program internationally, launching it in the Scottish Prison System in summer 2019
- Grow our subscriber base for our journal, F(r)iction, through the launch of a new website and the use of innovative marketing techniques such as a Kickstarter campaign
- Following extensive trials of our Youth Writing program over the last eighteen months, we aim to launch several flagship courses in high schools in Colorado and Ohio by the end of 2019

How we listen

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.

done We shared information about our current feedback practices.
  • How is your organization collecting feedback from the people you serve?

    Electronic surveys (by email, tablet, etc.), Focus groups or interviews (by phone or in person),

  • How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?

    To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve,

  • With whom is the organization sharing feedback?

    We don’t share the feedback we collect,

  • Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?

    We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We act on the feedback we receive, We tell the people who gave us feedback how we acted on their feedback,

  • What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?

    It is difficult to find the ongoing funding to support feedback collection,

Financials

BRINK LITERACY PROJECT
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Operations

The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.

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lock

Connect with nonprofit leaders

Subscribe

Build relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.

  • Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
  • Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
  • Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations

Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.

BRINK LITERACY PROJECT

Board of directors
as of 02/21/2022
SOURCE: Self-reported by organization
Board chair

Ms Dani Hedlund

Jon Schindehette

Jennifer Leong

Suzanne Hickox

Ian Leprino

Board leadership practices

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.

  • Board orientation and education
    Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Not applicable
  • CEO oversight
    Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Not applicable
  • Ethics and transparency
    Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Not applicable
  • Board composition
    Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Not applicable
  • Board performance
    Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Not applicable

Organizational demographics

SOURCE: Self-reported; last updated 2/21/2022

Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.

Leadership

The organization's leader identifies as:

Race & ethnicity
White/Caucasian/European
Gender identity
Female, Not transgender (cisgender)
Sexual orientation
Decline to state
Disability status
Person without a disability

The organization's co-leader identifies as:

Race & ethnicity
Decline to state
Gender identity
Female, Not transgender (cisgender)
Sexual orientation
Decline to state
Disability status
Person without a disability

Race & ethnicity

Gender identity

 

Sexual orientation

Disability

No data

Equity strategies

Last updated: 02/21/2022

GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more

Data
  • We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.