Professor Bala Mulloth has been awarded 2023-24 grant funding from the Jefferson Trust, which makes grants to innovative ideas that enrich the University of Virginia and the student experience, for the Changemaker Bootcamp. Through skill development, networking, mentorship, and resource access, social entrepreneurial minded students will gain experience planning, developing, and building a new social venture in this week-long program. 

With advances in technology and the increased participation in new media platforms, engagement between leaders in both the public and private sectors has become a necessary task. However, few have been trained to execute this critical role effectively. 

Leaders within nonprofit organizations experience unique challenges when it comes to developing people and building community. Technical expertise and content knowledge matter, but excellence in developing people allows nonprofit leaders to build inclusive, healthy and sustainable organizations and programs. “Coaching for Success,” an intensive two-day workshop hosted in partnership with the Center for Nonprofit Excellence, will set nonprofit leaders on the path to establishing the core coaching competencies that are most effective in developing people and achieving organizational objectives.

We know that policy should be based on data, but how do we go about transforming data into policy? What does the path from data to policy look like? And what does it mean for policy to be driven by data? The purpose of this program is to help participants gain fluency in the fundamentals of policy research: understanding causality, combating biases in data collection and analysis, accounting for different interpretations of data, and—most importantly—how data can become policy.

Relational policing is at an inflection point. The public’s trust and confidence in this vital institution of democracy is suffering. This has had a corrosive impact on police morale and has sparked public protests in Charlottesville and Albemarle County – and, indeed, in communities across the nation. On August 19-20, 2021, the Batten School brought together a cross-section of community leaders and engaged citizens for a workshop to learn about and consider new pathways forward for policing on Grounds, in Charlottesville, and across Albemarle County.