READING AHEAD: THE TELLING ROOM’S 2023 - 2027 STRATEGIC PLAN
Have you ever read a book so good that you couldn’t put it down—you just had to keep going to see what happens next? That’s exactly how The Telling Room team feels as we look towards the future with eagerness and excitement.
Support Our Work Ahead
The Telling Room began our three year strategic planning process in the summer of 2022 in partnership with Reflector Lab, a consultant group with roots in the literary arts, serving youth, and Maine. As we began this work as an organization, we were grateful to the many Telling Room stakeholders who shared their perspectives and experiences with us, as well as the opportunities and possibilities they saw ahead. We heard from all corners of our community and—most importantly—from youth and alumni. We convened a board and staff retreat in the fall of 2022 to synthesize this input and shape our priorities. Smaller committees then focused on these priorities, structuring our goals and objectives for the next three years. This input, along with our working group comprised of board and staff, has guided the creation of the plan presented here.
In this reflective time, we have closely examined what we do and what is important to us as a youth-serving, literary arts nonprofit based in Maine. Together, we have revisited and revised our organizational values, and crafted our first- ever vision statement, which shares what we aim to accomplish when we apply our values to our mission.
Over the next three years, we will strengthen what we do by deepening our understanding of the impact of both our programs and publications. This means looking closely at access and how it presents itself, both physically and pedagogically. We will learn more about the youth we serve and stay connected with them as they transition from students to alumni. Along the way, we seek to enrich our relationships with community partners while cultivating new networks of support for Maine’s young writers.
Simultaneously, The Telling Room will be positioning ourselves for the next chapter, building on our strong foundation of support as a beloved organization, and exploring our future as a lasting institution. To do this, we commit to expansively living our values of diversity, equity, and inclusion, both internally and externally, so that youth exploring their voices can find support at The Telling Room, now and for years to come.
We hope you will join us in reading ahead—and writing this bright future together.
Youth find a quiet corner of the Desert of Maine’s Gemstone Village to write in during a free six-week afterschool workshop in 2023. Photo by Rylan Hynes
Our Mission
The Telling Room empowers youth through writing and shares their voices with the world.
Our Vision
A future where youth make themselves heard and their communities value their voices.
Our Values
Creativity: We engage in writing to spark imagination, foster courage, and cultivate joy in the creative process.
Curiosity: We believe awakening the innate curiosity of youth builds their confidence in learning and engaging with the world.
Voice: We uplift the transformative, powerful voices of youth writers and changemakers.
Justice: We commit to racial and social justice by centering our community’s diversity of perspectives, experiences, and identities.
Community: We build a community that is rooted in empathy and inclusion, nurturing an authentic sense of belonging.
In partnership with the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School,Telling Room summer campers head into the Maine wilderness each year on our Writers Expedition. Photo by Jenny O’Connell
Foster & Expand Community Partnerships
The Telling Room engages with the literary arts, education, and youth empowerment communities. We aim to deepen our ties with existing partners and alumni as we forge and foster new connections.
By furthering our values-centered funding and resource opportunities, we will collaboratively expand access to our programs and publications while advancing alumni engagement.
We will deepen our partnership model by:
Formalizing existing (and seeking new) partnerships to enhance organizational development goals in:
Program access
Publication and distribution
Culture of learning
Literary Arts field leadership
Expanding opportunities to engage alumni
We will strengthen our fundraising and resource development partnerships by:
Advancing values-centered fundraising
Diversifying funding opportunities
““...everywhere you go
someone will always have your back.””
Summer sessions of Young Writers & Leaders bring middle school students from Portland Public Schools into The Telling Room for a week-long writing intensive. Photo by Brooks Peters
Strengthen Program Model and Impact
Our programs uplift the voices and perspectives of thousands of Maine youth across the state. As we deepen our understanding of our organization’s impact through refined evaluation and data collection, we seek opportunities to advocate for and expand access to our programs, ensuring youth have space to explore their world through writing.
Curiosity drives us to continue to examine our program model while strengthening the systems and infrastructure that support our mission. We will regularly share our practices and the impact of our work with the community.
We will understand our program efficacy by:
Launching systems for data management
Revising our program evaluation model through:
Partnering with an evaluation consultant to refine evaluation tools and create a Theory of Change
A longitudinal narrative study that demonstrates our long-term organizational impact
Evaluating program growth feasibility through:
Focus groups that explore growth and identify community needs and interest
Surveying communities to understand their interest in future engagement
Executing an expansion report that maps growth recommendations, including partnership and program targets, staffing model, and financial model
We will advance our program model by:
Creating impact-centered decision-making tools
Establishing accessibility goals that serve as a guide for decision-making
We will increase program visibility by:
Connecting to the field of youth writing and publishing
Communicating our program impact
““We are living.
We are existing.
We are verbs.
And isn’t that beautiful?””
The soil is rich with stories at Growing to Give’s Scatter Good Farm, where young writers find inspiration in greenhouses, the woods, flower gardens, goat pens, and more. Photo by Kelsey Kobik
Enhance Infrastructure for Growth
Since its inception, The Telling Room has built a foundation that has enabled our organization to grow continually. We commit to formalizing systems and centering our culture of learning so that our team, the youth we work with, and the broader Telling Room community, are holistically supported.
With enhanced infrastructure, we position The Telling Room to effectively support and reach more of Maine’s young writers, now and in the future.
We will align our space with The Telling Room’s needs by:
Assessing physical and virtual space needs
Evaluating alternate space possibilities through:
Reports from established space committee outlining adequacy for current and future needs, based on projected growth
Exploring and evaluating creative solutions and space alternatives based on needs and financial impact
Budgeting for future space, outlined in a financial plan
We will advance people, talent, and culture by:
Mapping staffing and compensation aligned with future growth through:
Developing salary bands based on regional market studies
Creating a multi-year compensation and benefits plan that guides hiring decisions and references regional market studies
Developing our culture of professional learning through:
Staff developing annual professional learning goals
Offering regular professional learning opportunities that are accessible to individuals, teams, and the full organization
Advancing board governance through:
Developing a board matrix that identifies skills and characteristics of current and future members
Assessing and reviewing governance documents annually
““What have I been digging for
These past few years if not a garden?””
Author Leela Marie Hidier reads from the first chapter of her novel, Changes in the Weather, in Augusta before Maine’s Capitol building at Maine Youth Climate Justice’s Youth Day of Action. Photo by Kaitlin Toto
Build a More Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive Organization
We aim for justice to be authentically felt, seen, and centered in our practices as an organization. We intentionally foster belonging and actively uplift the diverse identities that strengthen our organization and community. Through continuous learning, we commit to developing our individual and shared cultural competency, advocating for youth, and increasing accessibility at The Telling Room. Led by Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) practices, we will align operations and build organizational infrastructure to better support staff and volunteers who reflect the youth we serve.
We recognize that this is the largest area of growth for The Telling Room. This ongoing work is integral to each aspect of our organization, both internal and external. Once we meet these current goals and objectives, these outcomes will be palpable organization wide—in all that we do.
We will advance cultural competency by:
Defining and facilitating DEI learning
Centering and embedding DEI in organizational structures and strategies
Developing and supporting diverse talent
We will expand internal systems for justice by:
Setting and tracking diversity goals that will inform staff hiring and Board recruitment
Assessing and refining our Human Resources structure through:
Reviewing staff benefits and Human Resources policies annually through a lens of inclusion
Planning our annual calendar with the diversity of our team and community in mind
Using salary bands and market studies to drive compensation decision-making and hiring strategy
Expanding recruitment strategies through:
Developing a DEI-centered board recruitment and staff hiring strategy that results in prospect identification, hiring, and onboarding
Recruiting efforts that yield a diverse group of new staff and board members who represent the community we serve
We will increase program accessibility by:
Defining who we serve through data-informed criteria that guides enrollment outreach and decisions
Centering and uplifting diverse voices, regularly weaving diverse student identities into:
Mentor texts utilized in Telling Room programs & curriculum
Our physical space and library
Publications
Program guest authors, mentors, teaching artists & ambassadors
We will advocate for youth and their communities by:
Rooting communication in our values
Defining audiences and accessibility needs, ensuring that messaging and methods are aligned with accessibility requirements
Advancing values-based messaging by detailing our organizational positions and beliefs in public-facing statements, such as the following:
Equity statement
Land acknowledgment
Positionality statement
Pronoun use language
““It was more than just a foundation with walls. more than just a home.
it was a story. our story.””
Timeline
Planning Phase
Strategic Planning | June - December 2022
Operational Planning | January - June 2023
Activation Phase
Year One: Fiscal Year 2024 | July 2023 - June 2024
Year Two: Fiscal Year 2025 | July 2024 - June 2025
Year Three: Fiscal Year 2026 | July 2025 - June 2026
Progress Checks
Quarterly
Led by Working Group
Evaluation & Calibration
Annually in 1st Quarter
Led by Executive Committee, Leadership Team, Strategic Plan Working Group
Conclusion & Reflection
Monthly | July 2026 - January 2027
Led by Strategic Plan Working Group
Strategic Plan Working Group
Kristina M.J. Powell, Executive Director
Anya Endsley, Board President
Sonya Tomlinson, Young Writers & Leaders Program Lead
Rob Gould, Board Vice President
Subcommittees
Partnerships Subcommittee
Lead: Marjolaine Whittlesey, Staff
Sally Newhall, Board
Sonya Tomlinson, Staff
Molly McGrath, Staff
Ninette Irabaruta, Board
Sarah Schneider, Staff
Kristina M.J. Powell, Staff
Meghan Vigeant, Staff
Khalil Kilani, Ambassador
Programming Subcommittee
Lead: Nick Whiston, Staff
Rob Gould, Board
Catherine Richards, Board
Laura Shen, Board
Sara Crisp, Board
Anya Endsley, Board
Kristina M.J. Powell, Staff
Amy Kimball, Staff
Infrastructure Subcommittee
Lead: Deanna Harnett, Board
Peyton Black, Staff
Rachele Ryan, Staff
Bob Zager, Board
Donna Simonetti, Board
Kristina M.J. Powell, Staff
Peg Smith, Board
Justice Subcommittee
Lead: Rylan Hynes, Staff
James Kim, Staff
Sarah Welch, Board
Tanuja Desai Hidier, Board
Hipai Pamba, Staff
Kristina M.J. Powell, Staff
Mo Nuñez, Board
Amanda Dettmann, Ambassador
This plan was created in partnership with Reflector Lab of Chicago, Illinois.