Mara Christy

I serve as the research and operations manager at Allies for Children, a nonpartisan nonprofit that serves as a bold voice for policy and practice changes that improve the lives of children in the Pittsburgh region. I conduct research to determine what policy changes are needed to address a problem, such as child hunger and public schools funding. After analyzing the issue, I assist in convening partners to determine potential solutions. As the project manager for the Crossing Guards Study, I helped form a collaboration among diverse stakeholders, facilitated focus groups and ensured the use of qualitative and quantitative research to take an in depth look at how the City of Pittsburgh utilizes its public safety officials. In 2016, I also co-managed a county-wide study on school breakfast participation in Allegheny County. The completion of this study resulted in a strong advocacy tool used to discuss different opportunities schools could use to increase breakfast participation throughout the county. Using data from the Pennsylvania Department of Education I was able to complete the full data analysis and graphs used in this study. An updated report is prepared on an annual basis. Additionally, I served as a project manager of the regional portion of the state-wide Campaign for Fair Education Funding. In this role I confirmed legislative visits, helped mobilize hundreds of individuals on a bus trip to Harrisburg, and managed logistics for the several southwestern campaign member organizations. Due to the small size of our organization I am able to learn new skills each and every day, that's where the operations manager part comes into play. I work with our Executive Director to manage our internal processes, invoice system and payroll, accounting, grant reporting, and other internal areas. Since we are a newer organization, established in 2013 I've been able to help create many of our internal processes. http://www.alliesforchildren.org/our-staff/mara-christy/