How To Get Involved

Click the arrow next to each item to see a detailed dropdown.

• ⚡🇺🇸 Have time and energy for the “national” community?
• ⚡🏙️ Have time and energy for engaging locally?
• 💸 Have money to give?
• 💼 Hiring or have a job you know of?
• 📚 Have an expertise or idea to share?
• 📢 Want to announce something with the community at large?

How to Stay Connected

These are the best three ways to stay connected with the community:

• 📨 The email newsletter / get updates, this once a month newsletter is a way to get all the high-level, critical updates straight-to-your-inbox. **https://vfacommunitycollective.substack.com/subscribe**
• 💬 The VFA Slack / vfafellows.slack.com / if you need an invite or are having trouble accessing this, please email us at [email protected] (we are currently trying to get Betsye/VFA Board to give us Slack admin status, as of 9/27/2024 we have not been approved for this; we cannot reactivate old accounts or invite anyone new people’s old accounts until we get this). The channels you should most pay attention to are: #fellow-general, Slack channels by city (here’s the directory), and the new community organizing channel: #vfacc-community-collective

Additionally:

• 💬 The VFA 2023/2024 Discord / join **here** / this is a project made by the ‘24 Fellows, though they have warmly welcomed that space up to 2023 Fellows and beyond. This is a great space for anyone who can’t access the Slack for whatever reason and/or wants another space to get information and build community.
• 🤝 The VFA Alumni LinkedIn Group: We’re working to get this group active as a space for people to share updates, ask for help, explore opportunities, and so on. Please join here: ****https://www.linkedin.com/groups/4532112/
• 🤝 Facebook Alumni Group: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/Sb3MijQmQwKtEczb/

Email Lists and Rise Groups

• Fellow Directory: Due to the hard work of Julia Kortberg (’16 + HQ), we have a directory of all Fellows/Alumni. For 2012 through 2021 class, we have names, original vfa cities, LinkedIns, last reported jobs, and last reported cities. For 2022, 2023, and 2024, we only have names. This directory does not contain email addresses (see below re: email listservs). The directory is available HERE and the password is what used to be the password for the old VFAfellows[.]org site (hint: it’s a popular song from the mid 2010s, in all lowercase — if you don’t know it, email [email protected] and ask; please include your Fellow name and year). We are able to pull together a list of email addresses of Fellows but we do not want to share this publicly for people’s privacy. We are happy to respond to any requests; simply write to [email protected] with your request (example: “all Fellows last known to be living in Detroit” and your own Fellow name and year) and we’ll pull together a list for you.
• Note: no email listservs associated with [@]ventureforamerica[.]org work now. If you email alumni@, for example, it will dead-end with no bounce receipt. We are currently exploring building our own alumni/fellow listservs, but to be honest, this has been difficult. Therefore, the best place to stay-in-touch, then, is in the items described at the top of this page.
• For Rise Group information, please click here.