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Dear Alliance Community,
The Alliance: Building Trust, Practicing Prevention, Deepening Impact
“We need communities that have enough internal trust to move at the right pace for the communities they’re serving.”
— adrienne maree brown
As we close out Fiscal Year 2025, we offer deep appreciation to each of you, our members, partners, and co-leaders, who continue to shape The Alliance with your wisdom, creativity, and dedication. This year, we witnessed both deepening hardship in our communities and growing alignment across our network. We know the pressures people are facing are real. And we also know that connection, compassion, and prevention are powerful tools when practiced in relationship and community.
At our June All Alliance gathering, adrienne maree brown offered a reflection that now guides our own: “You don’t have to know what’s next to be in right relationship with what is.” These words capture what so many of you modeled this year; showing up for your communities, responding to the needs in front of you, and making space for collective learning and change, even in uncertain terrain.
Here are some of what we, the Alliance, have accomplished:
• Statewide Alcohol Policy Needs Assessment
Alliance members helped lead the creation of Alaska’s first-ever alcohol policy needs assessment—shaping its design, contributing data, and grounding it in lived experience. Your insight ensured the findings reflect what matters most to communities, and the results are already guiding our Advocacy Agenda and future strategy.
“Frameworks are awesome… but it needs to be a culture that works for our people.”
– adrienne maree brown
• Advocacy in Action: Building Our Collective Voice
This year, members brought their voices, values, and visions into the policy arena. Through the Policy Workgroup and in partnership with our policy contractor, you helped finalize a statewide Advocacy Agenda, responded to legislation, and showed up for one another. Testimony was shared, relationships with lawmakers grew, and collective influence expanded, laying the groundwork for The Alliance to be a respected voice for prevention and health equity.
“There’s no such thing as neutral structures. All structure either supports liberation or maintains dominance.” – adrienne maree brown
• Data with Purpose: CounterTools Alcohol Retail Report
Seven communities participated in the CounterTools project—collecting alcohol retail data that is now shaping public health conversations and informing policy recommendations. Your work in the field brought forward essential on-the-ground insights, helping to illuminate patterns of marketing and access that impact our youth and families.
• Choose Connection: Changing Social Norms
From statewide events to local fairs, members brought the Choose Connection campaign to life, sharing materials, leading interactive map activities, and making prevention real and relational. With your creativity and commitment, the campaign continues to grow its reach and meaning. The new digital activation adds another layer inviting Alaskan youth to name and share how they choose connection every day.
• Training Sponsorships: Investing in Our Members
Thanks to Co-Chair guidance, members received sponsorships to attend trainings focused on prevention, recovery, and coalition building. These opportunities not only strengthened individual skills but contributed to our collective capacity as a network. Awardees are already bringing their learning back to the group—fostering peer learning and leadership.
“Our orientation needs to be students rather than experts… experimenting and figuring something new out together.” – adrienne maree brown
• Regional Co-Chairs: Guiding With Heart and Strategy
Throughout FY25, Regional Co-Chairs helped steer our work with care and clarity—shaping outreach priorities, strengthening our focus on training, and helping finalize the FY26 budget. Their leadership continues to ensure our strategies remain rooted in the real needs and strengths of local communities.
• In-Person Gathering & Prevention Summit
Our in-person gathering in Juneau brought together 31 Alliance members, Co-Chairs, and workgroup leads to reconnect, reflect, and share what fuels this work. Your presence, energy, and stories turned this evening into a celebration of who we are as a coalition. The following days at the Prevention Summit built on that momentum, with strong member participation in sessions focused on housing, education, and community well-being.
“It is important to have ceremony and ritual to mark time together, to mark releases, to mark grief… the land underneath it all has never forgotten its relationship to people.”
– adrienne maree brown
Small Patterns, Big Change
“What we practice at the small scale sets the pattern for the whole system.”
This year, we saw our workgroups—Data & Learning, Evaluation, Policy, Communications, and Strategic Design—reflect deeply on purpose, roles, and impact. From revisiting charters to refining how we communicate, members leaned into small but powerful shifts. You made space to ask hard questions, to adapt, and to celebrate what’s working. This work is the work. You’re building the patterns that will shape our future.
Looking Ahead: Entering FY26 with Trust and Momentum
As adrienne reminded us, “Fractals are patterns that repeat at scale… If we can’t practice trust and adaptability with each other at the smallest scale, we can’t expect it at larger ones.” That’s what we’ve been doing, and will continue to do, in this next chapter.
In FY26, we will:
• Activate the Needs Assessment findings and Advocacy Agenda for statewide impact.
• Strengthen cross-workgroup alignment to support structural clarity.
• Expand Choose Connection to deepen its relevance and reach.
• Continue investing in member training, participation, and visibility.
• Grow our policy presence while centering equity and compassion in every approach.
Together, we are creating a culture that works for our people, one grounded in relationship, curiosity, and collective care.
“Let yourself live in the beauty of that 5-year-old energy—‘I just made you the best picture, I made you the best gift. It is the best. And there’s so much more to go.’”
With gratitude for all you’ve given and with excitement for what’s to come,
Tesia Bobrycki
Alliance Coordinator
tbobrycki@recoveralaska.org
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