Las Vegas Sands honored Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth (NPHY) as the second graduate of the Sands Cares Accelerator.
The casino operator describes Sands Cares Accelerator as an exclusive, three-year nonprofit membership program designed to help fast-track rising organizations on the tipping point of making a leap in community impact.
Sands feted NPHY as part of a virtual global celebration held March 24.
NPHY joined the Sands Cares Accelerator program in 2018. Officials with the organization said the goal was to focus on building its strategic vision for the next stage in its evolution as the most comprehensive service provider for the thousands of young people experiencing homelessness in Southern Nevada.
Through the invitation-only Sands Cares Accelerator, Sands creates longer-term relationships with select nonprofits via extended funding, structured guidance and customized support.
The operator says the program is inspired by the entrepreneurial and philanthropic spirit of Sands’ founder Sheldon G. Adelson, adding the Sands Cares Accelerator carries on Adelson’s legacy of building successful businesses and making impact on communities through dedicated engagement. During the three-year membership, nonprofits focus on building their capacity in a strategic area or enhancing a program offering to better serve the community.
Sands and NPHY began working together in 2014. Sands reported it has supported a variety of NPHY programs to provide resources to youth in crisis, help clients create pathways to independence and address long-term solutions for youth homelessness, which has included co-founding the Movement to End Youth Homelessness and the Southern Nevada Youth Homelessness Summit.
NPHY says its entry into the Sands Cares Accelerator was a “natural fit,” as Sands recognized the nonprofit’s desire and potential to evolve its offerings to address youth homelessness.
Sands celebrated NPHY’s graduation as part of a global virtual event highlighting the work of Sands Cares Accelerator members in the United States and Singapore. It also welcomed the program’s newest participant, Green Future, which has become the first member in Sands’ Macao region.
Green Our Planet in Las Vegas and Art Outreach in Singapore are the program’s other current members. The Marty Hennessy Inspiring Children Foundation in Las Vegas was the program’s first graduate, completing its membership at the end of 2019.
“The Sands Cares Accelerator helped us create space beyond our day-to-day services and programming to look at strategic opportunities for how we can build lasting solutions to address youth homelessness in Southern Nevada,” Arash Ghafoori, CEO of NPHY, said in a statement. “With the consulting support, guidance and funding resources provided through the Sands Cares Accelerator, we were able to complete our goal of developing a comprehensive and long-term strategic plan to chart our course for the future. Our time in the program provided an incredible growth opportunity for NPHY.”
Ron Reese, Sands Senior Vice President of Global Communications and Corporate Affairs, who spearheads corporate responsibility for the company, added: “NPHY’s journey through the Sands Cares Accelerator is a good example of how we have evolved the program over its brief, five-year history, as we gained experience, better understood our members’ needs and found new ways to help them succeed. During their membership, we added a more structured approach for project management and goal-setting, which helped them work through the process for developing a strategic plan. Establishing a blueprint for their future is the type of lasting impact we aim to help nonprofits make.”
