🪴 Growing up from humble beginnings and life experiences fed my passion to establish a foundation that serves and empowers historically marginalized youth.🛫 I founded NextGen Thriving (formerly Silver Tree Foundation) four years ago and committed to donating 50% of Silver Tree Consulting & Services profits to this worthy cause.

With the help of many friends and colleagues and the support of my loving family, we have awarded more than $430,000 in grants to date, and our goal is achieve over $1M in grants by 2025. Your donations help us accelerate the impact on the number of youth positively impacted. 🥹 Words cannot express the feeling of seeing something you built find its place in the world 🌎 and become something bigger than you ever imagined.

As the Foundation grows, I see the potential of our collective impact. The combined professional experience of NextGen Thriving’s Board of Directors spans decades across diverse fields such as technology, nonprofit leadership, business transformation, and community service:

• Lauren Holt, Vice Chair, brings a strong background in financial and administrative leadership, with prior roles in both public accounting and corporate finance.
• Tony Doye, Treasurer, has over 25 years of leadership in IT services and nonprofit transformation, including work at the Girl Scouts of the USA and as CEO of CompuCom.
• Melissa Ricks, Secretary, contributes personal and professional experiences, including her life-long passion for Yoga and community engagement.
• Sarah Takatani, our newest Board member, has over 25 years of expertise in nonprofit & digital transformations, including her current role at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, as well as her impactful tenure at IBM and the Girl Scouts of the USA.
• Pastor Todd Cullen is a spiritual mentor and leader with more than 20 years of experience building communities of worship in Georgia, New York, and most recently in Hilton Head, South Carolina. He brings a passion for providing young people with a greater opportunity for achievement and success in life.  
• Janice Ricks has been fundamental in enabling the Foundation’s vision of serving and creating opportunities for youth with special needs. As the caregiver for their disabled son Patrick for his entire life, combined with her years of service work, she brings deep perspective to the challenges disabled youth face.

The addition of Emily Mallozzi as our COO is invigorating. We are working hard 💪 to build a best-in-class team and making big plans. We are now a 501(c)(3) operating foundation and will ensure every💲invested has a significant return on investment 📈 in lives changed through skills development of our underprivileged, underserved and disabled youth.

🕊️ My hope is that more of our colleagues will join us on this journey to create opportunity to change our youth’s future!

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Thank you from the bottom of my heart,

Richard C. Ricks

Founder, NextGen Thriving: A Foundation for Youth Life Skills