With budgets already stretched thin and staff cutbacks leaving more work for fewer employees, non-profit organizations across the state are struggling to keep up with the day to day tasks that keep them afloat. To encourage them to maintain a vision for the future, though, the Rhode Island Foundation has awarded $150,000 to 10 non-profit leaders.

“In this challenging and ever-shifting economic landscape, with the pressure on non-profits to deliver more and new and improved programs and services, we want to provide leaders with an opportunity for research and development that could lead to true innovation,” said Neil Steinberg, the Foundation’s president and CEO.

Among the recipients is the Cranston-based WE LEARN, or the Women Expanding Literacy Education Action Resource Network.

By being named a Foundation Fellow, WE LEARN founder and Director Mev Miller will receive a stipend of $10,000 to assist her in crafting goals for her organization. WE LEARN in turn will be given a $5,000 grant.

“This project through the Rhode Island Foundation is going to help us get a better grasp on how we network with constituents and organizations,” Miller said.

Between 2000 and 2005, 100 local non-profit leaders went through the Fellow program, 79 percent of whom reported that they had brought their organization in a new direction thanks to the program.

“Most organizations are simply too overloaded and have neither the time nor the capacity for this critical work,” Jill Pfitzenmayer, the director of the Foundation’s Initiative for Non-profit Excellence, said in a release last week. “The 2010 fellows will focus on coming up with the next ‘great idea’ for their organizations.”

Miller started WE LEARN, which serves women nationwide, in 2003 after seeing firsthand how much of an impact literacy has on the lives of women. She is the sole full-time force behind the organization, relying on the volunteer efforts of others for added help.

“Some of it comes from my own personal experience, which is that I’ve been a feminist community organizer for many years,” she explained. In her work as an advocate and in publishing, Miller found inequities where she least expected them. “If the women’s movement really is about serving all women and creating advantages for all women, I realized a lot of it was happening in print.”

Resources for women, from information about heath care and breast cancer to materials on parenting or even poetry, were found in books and pamphlets that were often inaccessible to the women Miller was meeting.

“If we really do want to involve all women’s voices in creating a better world for women then we have to find ways to make that information accessible,” she said.

That realization is what prompted Miller to get into the business of advocating for literacy for women. WE LEARN started as a sort of clearinghouse for information, filtered through the organization’s Web site.

The site continues to provide resources for women, and Miller hopes the Rhode Island Foundation’s assistance will allow her to find more effective ways of disseminating them.

“Because we are working with adult women with limited literacy proficiency, keeping that in mind, what’s the best way to use this media?” she said.

That’s where the research component comes into play. In her application to the Foundation, Miller noted that she wants to reach out to members through surveys and focus groups to find out how they’re using the Internet to access information.

“A lot of the direction that the organization takes is pretty much defined by the membership,” Miller said. “Initially we’re going to be talking to them as much as we can.”

WE LEARN is in essence a forum for women who are challenged by literacy, and while it does not provide direct services; it does connect women to other organizations and resources.

One of the ways WE LEARN connects women to literacy education opportunities – and each other – is through an annual conference. The event attracts approximately 150 people from the United States and beyond, representing literacy education groups and adult education facilities, as well as students.

“It’s one of the few times when students really feel valued as adult women,” Miller said. “It’s a time when the folks who come feel very empowered and connected.”

The seventh annual gathering will take place on March 5 and 6 this year at the University of Rhode Island Providence campus.

“It’s not your typical conference. We actually call it the un-conference,” she added with a laugh.

The (Net)Working on Women & Literacy gathering will feature open forums and discussion groups, as well as guest speakers and workshops.

Miller believes that being a Foundation Fellow will allow her to improve the conference and the Web site through user input. She will travel to similar events and organizations, such as a literacy conference in Chicago, to get new ideas for WE LEARN.

Down the line, she hopes the research might allow her to add more services. Ticking off several options, she suggests directly publishing more materials for women. Currently, WE LEARN publishes a journal, Women’s Perspectives, once a year that includes writing from women who have struggled with their own literacy.

“It’s a big morale booster for a lot of these women who typically feel like they don’t have anything to say, or even if they do, no one will listen to them,” Miller said.

For now, she is pleased that WE LEARN is being recognized on both the local and national level. And as the list of women and educators using the Web site grows, she believes the organization will evolve accordingly, regardless of the challenges ahead.

“We’re an organization that is doing a lot of work with extremely limited resources,” Miller said. “We do the best we can.”