Leadership Transition

A Season of Change at Youth ALIVE!

It is with anticipation and appreciation that the Board of Directors announces Anne Marks’s upcoming departure as Executive Director of Youth ALIVE!.

A Letter from YA!’s Board President

It is bittersweet to announce that Youth ALIVE!’s long-time executive director Anne Marks has begun planning her transition out of Youth ALIVE!, effective some time this winter, no later than January 31, 2023.

Since 2010, Anne has been an incredible leader, helping Youth ALIVE! reach new heights in its work preventing violence and bringing our healing services to victims of violence.

We want to thank Anne for her twelve years of dedicated service, which involved many significant accomplishments, including:

• GROWING the agency from eleven to forty-plus staff while expanding our programmatic reach and impact.
• ADDING essential new violence prevention, intervention and healing programs:
  • Khadafy Washington Project (homicide crisis response)
  • Mental health counseling
  • Violence Interruption (street-based conflict mediation)
  • Community advocacy and training
• TRAINING and helping to launch sister programs in over a dozen cities across the U.S.
• LAUNCHING the independent Health Alliance for Violence Intervention, a White House recognized, international collaborative of dozens of violence intervention programs using the model originating with Youth ALIVE!’s Caught in the Crossfire program.
• CREATING a supportive and healing environment for our staff, who deal with trauma and violence every day.

We have been preparing thoughtfully together with Anne for this transition and have every confidence that it will be a smooth one.

The job announcement is available here.

In the meantime, we are preparing to properly send off a passionate and dedicated leader. More to come on that front.

Sincerely, Angela Jenkins Board President

A Message from Anne Marks

I am so grateful to have had my name associated with Youth ALIVE! for these past dozen years. It is with a lot of mixed emotions that I decided to end this journey as Executive Director – the best job for the best organization that I could ever hope for.

In fact, I’m leaving because I love Youth ALIVE! – our work, our amazing staff and our values of Relentlessness, Community, Innovative Leadership, Diversity and Healing. I believe that for new leadership to rise up, longtime leaders need to step aside. I do not have any plans for what is next. I am completely focused on sticking the landing here at Youth ALIVE! and ensuring a successful transition to the next Executive Director.

I want to give my deepest thanks to everyone who has supported Youth ALIVE! and me personally throughout the years: staff who do the most difficult and gut-wrenching and beautiful work, board members who lifted me up in hard times, youth leaders who astonish me with their wisdom, clients and former clients who inspire me through their resilience and healing, partners in government and hospitals and nonprofits, comrades in our advocacy work including the elected officials who opened their ears and doors to our causes, and our broad community of donors, volunteers and other supporters who have made a place for us in your hearts.

As someone who cares about our organization, I hope you share my excitement for the promise and possibility of our next leader and where they will take us. Given the remarkable, dedicated, life-changing staff who already work here, I know the next Executive Director will have an incredible team supporting them. And I will be cheering them on.

With love, Anne Marks Executive Director