The Director of Student Services will supervise and mentor our four current student chapters:

• RISE University of Cincinnati
• RISE Ursuline Academy (high school in Cincinnati, Ohio)
• RISE Montrose (high school in Medfield, Massachusetts)
• RISE UCLA

The director will train students in nonprofit management skills including marketing, fundraising, and communicating with international partners. This includes teaching students how to use mailing list and marketing software to communicate with donors and to sell survivors' handcrafted items online.  The director will also mentor students in effective advocacy, including communicating human rights issues in ways that inspire others to want to learn more and get involved.

RISE chapters serve as ‘mini-RISE’ organizations. Students learn the basics of running an organization, including recruiting members, hosting awareness and fundraising events, and building donor bases. Each year, student chapters are responsible for funding a project benefiting RISE’s partner centers in Uganda and Nepal. Through doing so, students learn the basics of putting out and evaluating calls for proposals, deciding which program to fund, setting and meeting fundraising goals, and communicating the impact their program has on the lives of survivors.

We are growing!  Our first four chapters were established with a volunteer staff.  However, students at several other high schools and universities have expressed an interest in forming RISE chapters at their schools. Each of the student chapters has a leadership team of approximately five students and a  membership of 10-30 students. These students need mentoring, particularly when they are first establishing chapters. To expand Student Services requires that we hire a paid staff person who can devote the time needed to effectively mentor additional chapters.

Current RISE Chapter Leaders

Our mission is to empower survivors and to empower others to act.  These are not mutually exclusive!  Each RISE student chapter funds a project for our partner centers in Uganda and Nepal. On average, chapters secure $1500 in funding annually and 30 survivors benefit from programming. In addition, for each chapter formed, RISE gains a newsletter and social media audience of approximately 100 people. A larger network of supporters helps us sell more products on the RISE Artisan Marketplace and brings in more donations for survivor programming.

Being involved in a RISE chapter helps students internalize the message that they are capable of and responsible for enacting change. This message is one that will serve them throughout their lives irrespective of their eventual choice of career. It’s an attitude towards change that can be applied to many different human rights issues.

Students participating in RISE chapters internalize this message through action. They communicate with partner centers, put out calls for proposals, evaluate these proposals, and organize fundraising efforts to meet the resource needs of these programs. The difference in this approach versus most school clubs is that the students lead the process.

RISE has applied for several national and international grants through foundations that focus on human rights education. We intend to fund the Director of Student Service's salary through donor funding (you!) and grant funding.