Members of the 2024-2025 cohort of the School for Grassroots Leadership in discussion. (Photo courtesy PhillyBOLT)

For Jalil Meekins, a resident of the Germantown neighborhood, the city’s “best-kept secret” isn’t a speakeasy or hole-in-the-wall eatery — it’s PhillyBOLT.

The nonprofit organization, founded in 2021, runs the School for Grassroots Leadership: an eight-month program that Meekins calls “one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had.”

The PhillyBOLT program has produced three cohorts of graduates, quickly becoming a quiet powerhouse for grassroots organizers across the city. So far, it has trained a total of 32 community leaders, equipping them to expand their work — from developing fundraising plans and budgets to navigating challenging situations and building lasting networks.

For founder and executive director Hillary Do, the goal is simple but urgent: to “build an intergenerational movement for change at the neighborhood level in Philadelphia” by investing directly in grassroots leaders who are driving community-led change.

“The leaders that we work with are already doing the work,” Do says. “When I hear about the work [they] have done, with fewer resources [than] large nonprofits that are often led by people who aren’t from the neighborhoods, I’m just in complete awe.”

“We’re just one part of their journey, and when we help, we help accelerate the work that they do,” Do says.

In the eight-month course, participants are provided with lessons and resources that are designed to expand the operations of their work, helping them maintain and further the capacity of the services that they offer in their respective neighborhoods. Its fourth cohort is set to begin training on Saturday, October 4.

“Their whole focus is elevating your work and increasing the capacity of people’s respective organizations,” says Meekins, who works as the community engagement and communications manager for Pushing Progress Philadelphia (P3), a supportive services program aimed at curbing gun violence. “They are professionalizing your work.”

P3 works with men ages 18 to 35 who face the highest risk of gun violence, providing them with opportunities such as job training, coaching services, and paid employment.

But Meekins, a graduate of the 2024-2025 cohort, also used his time in the school to build up his organization, Families Achieving Success Together. He says PhillyBOLT was crucial to teaching him how to “budget, fundraise, and mobilize.”

The School for Grassroots Leadership runs from October to May annually, and participants commit four hours a week to the school. There, attendees learn alongside other grassroots organizers. Do says the program helps cohorts overcome “some of the challenges that they’re going through” in real-time.

“They put you in front of the best of the best — the cohorts are only about 12 people, so it’s small and intense,” Meekins says. “Some people in my cohort did a similar program at a university, and they said [the difference] is day and night.”

Weekly instruction is led by a variety of guest facilitators who are topical experts that teach grassroots organizers, with 16 instructors in total who lead workshops that emphasize organizational growth. Participants learn strategies for expanding their organizations, with workshops covering a range of topics, including strategic planning, board structures, and HR plans.

Participants are compensated for their time, too, receiving a $3,000 stipend and an extra $1,000 for their affiliated project or organization upon completion of the program. They also receive one-on-one executive coaching twice a month. 

Germantown resident Victoria Best, a member of the 2022-2023 cohort, says the program “changes [organizations], but I wouldn’t say it reinvents them. It amplifies them.” 

Best is the founder and CEO of Victoria Outreach Urban Tutoring Services (VOUTS), now based at Braid Mill on High St., which offers youth free academic tutoring and mentorship support, especially for children within the foster care system.

“We got the classroom [experience] of a thorough, well-thought-out information segment,” Best says. “Some organizations and people stay stagnant because they feel limited. They don’t believe that they can get high resources like high funding, but PhillyBOLT reinforces that you can and will if you continue to do the work.”

Mazzie Casher, co-founder of Philly Truce and a member of the 2023-2024 cohort, says learning the ways of representing his community work through grant writing was another big focus in the program, ensuring that they’re effectively communicating their mission and work.

“[PhillyBOLT] really teaches you how to tell your story in a very strategic and simple way. It comes from answering a few simple questions, such as ‘Why do you do this?’” Casher says. “You then go through your budget, what types of roles you need, what types of supplies you need. Once you have that, you’re ready to apply to a multitude of grants.”

PhillyBOLT’s leadership say they particularly welcome participants whose work gives Philadelphians the opportunities to stay and thrive in their neighborhoods and avoids funding development initiatives that may displace residents. Applications are also encouraged from small businesses that give back to and hire from the community, as well as grassroots initiatives that aren’t yet formally registered.

Casher’s organization, for example, works to identify the city blocks most impacted by gun violence, with the help of the District Attorney’s office. Philly Truce hires formerly incarcerated individuals to conduct “peace patrols,” positively engaging with city residents on at-risk blocks and presenting themselves as a visible deterrent for potential violence.

Casher says PhillyBOLT helps organizers analyze if they “have a means of identifying where you’ve been successful and how to measure that, showing evidence of the success.”

“There was nothing you needed to know to do [grassroots organizing] efficiently and effectively that they overlooked, nothing,” Casher says. “It just answers every question that would probably come up.”

This story was produced as part of Next City’s joint Equitable Cities Reporting Fellowship with Resolve Philly’s Germantown Info Hub.