Happy 5th Anniversary to The Hope Institute!

The Hope Institute is proud to celebrate our five-year anniversary this month!

In March 2017, The Hope Institute was founded as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization by Drayton Nabers, Jr. and Liz Huntley. Our mission is to partner with schools to cultivate character development in students. In January 2018, the first Hope Leadership Academy was developed under Dr. Kara Chism, current Hope Institute Director of Professional Learning. Those 22 school teams finished the year wanting more, we listened, and Dr. Chism continued to serve them! In response, the Hope Leadership Academy has evolved into a three-year program, with multiple sessions and ongoing onsite support. In 2018-19, the second Hope Leadership Academy cohort filled up with 25 eager school teams under the leadership of longtime educator and Executive Director, Dr. Jodi Newton.

In 2019, with generous support from The Kern Family Foundation, The Hope Institute expanded to a second location: Tuscaloosa, hired the first full time employee and focused on growing the infrastructure of the organization. The idea of reaching schools across Alabama was becoming a reality.

In 2020, the extraordinary circumstances of a pandemic did not hinder the success of The Hope Institute. We rose to the challenge and became experts in hosting virtual sessions for our schools to continue their character journeys. In addition to hosting between 70-100 participants in each Hope Leadership Academy session from May 2020 through May 2021, we held additional large scale virtual events focused on character education. Approximately 70 attendees from 14 universities joined to learn and share ideas during the first (2020) and second (2021) Higher Education Character Convenings. The Culture of Character Summit, held in 2020 and 2021, included attendees from eight states and included 300+ educators from the K-12 and the university levels.

In 2021, we took it a step further. Hope Leadership Academy expansion included new sites in both North and West Alabama as we resumed face-to-face events. With these expansions, we grew our efforts within the organization as well by adding two employees, creating our program team.

In 2022, we are excited to have the first opportunity to host in-person High Ed Convening and Culture of Character Summit events. We have plans for continued growth and greater impact, anticipating nine Hope Leadership Academy cohorts with up to 25 schools each in the fall.

The Hope Leadership Academy has served 323 school teams from 125 schools, hosted over 770 school leader participants and positively impacted over 65,000 students across the state of Alabama through school culture transformation. Additionally, Hope Leadership Academy participant schools have earned notable recognition from Character.org for their impressive school practices and culture including: 15 Promising Practice Awards, 10 State Schools of Character, five National Schools of Character, one Honorable Mention State School of Character, and one Emerging School of Character. We will continue to build upon this momentum as we carry our mission of bringing Alabama schools the best practices for developing good character in students!

We could not have reached this exciting milestone without the incredible support from our participants, donors, board members and partners. We share this celebration with all of you!