VPPNews

May 2013

Fall-Out: The Great Recession may be over officially, but the impacts will be felt by this generation of young people for years to come

VPP President and CEO Carol Thompson Cole writes about how the coming retirement crisis and the changing expectations of the middle class are putting new pressures on youth seeking to escape poverty.

In the two years since VPP launched youthCONNECT, the network is already serving 10,000 additional youth on their path to successful adulthood while hitting some important milestones, including the development of a Common Outcomes Framework, which some have described as “historic.” But the road to this success has not always been simple or easy.

We sat down with VPP's lead partner on the initiative, Marc Schindler, to learn more about the process of developing the network, as well as the potential of other similar collaborations.

Why did VPP create youthCONNECT?
Looking back on our first fund, which ended in 2009, we recognized that while there had been terrific work done in creating stronger and more effective and more sustainable organizations, there had not been an impact on the systems and the environment that those organizations, young people and families live and work in.

Marc Schindler

Every day young people and their families are climbing up a very steep hill with lots of obstacles and barriers. In VPP’s first fund we equipped organizations to become better able to help young people climb up that very steep hill. But nothing happened to make the hill any less hard to climb or less steep.

What has been the success of youthCONNECT thus far?
Our five year target is to serve 20,000 young people and here we are at the end of year two, and we've already served 10,000, which is just fantastic. The network partners are achieving very impressive results. For example, College Summit has launched 2,900 students on a path towards college. Meanwhile, over 80% of the KIPP through College alumni who completed their first year of college have now enrolled for a second year. These organizations all had solid growth plans, but youthCONNECT was able to put that growth on steroids.

Additionally, we have put a lot of time and capital into rigorously evaluating the programs in youthCONNECT. We expect the organizations will learn a great deal from these evaluations and use them to make their programs even stronger. The evaluations will also allow the organizations to demonstrate the positive impact they are having which will support their efforts to further grow.

Those represent some pretty significant achievements, but we see them as the starting point. Our ultimate goal is to achieve real systems change and so we invited the organizations to come to the table and challenged them to explore how they could be more impactful collectively than they could be individually.

Why is collaboration so important?
Increasingly the research is telling us that if you really want to get to these system level changes, you need to have organizations with a shared agenda, that are communicating with each other, tracking outcomes with the same indicators, and have leadership committed and willing to come to the table on a regular basis to align their efforts.

No single funder or organization or sector is going to solve these intractable problems. If you get nonprofits, philanthropy, government and the business community working together, now you've got a shot. If we are all pushing in the same direction, taking the best from each sector, challenging ourselves, coordinating our efforts and have an effective “backbone” organization like VPP supporting the work, then I think we have a chance at getting at these challenges.

How do you deal with the challenges that go along with forming a network like youthCONNECT?
This work has high potential, but also very high risk. It's messy, and the more people you bring to the table the more complex it gets. At its core, this work is all about relationships. And in any relationship, there are going to be bumps in the road. We worked hard at the beginning to build a level of trust among the partners that would enable us to get through the rough patches because otherwise we knew that people might give up and go their own way.

To achieve results, you also need solid financial support, logistical support, and high performing organizations. You can't do this type of collaboration effectively if the individual organizations don't have the vision and capacity to think beyond their respective missions to a bigger vision of what can be achieved.

One of the lessons we learned in forming the network is that the work needs to be distributed at all levels of the organization—not just among top leadership. Team members at all levels need to buy in to the strategy. We also learned the value of open communication. The opportunities we provided for one-on-one conversations among the executive directors and the VPP team allowed for more candid feedback.

How do you get organizations to commit to a collaborative approach?
Organizations will only continue to be at the table if they see that the work also meets their individual interests and is aligned with what they are trying to accomplish. You get real potential for positive collective activity when individual organizational self-interest intersects with collective network goals. Those intersections amplify and strengthen the work and produces larger impact.

It’s important for funders and others not to view the organizations' self-interest as a negative. You want to create a space where organizations are free to say this is in my self-interest, or this is what I think we should do, and there's something I'm going to get out of it. That also means they are more likely to take ownership of the project and drive it.

What's one example of a system-level problem the network is considering tackling?
One of the biggest barriers we've identified is that hundreds of thousands of youth in this region have a problem of getting around because of the way our transportation system operates and is funded. If we want young people to achieve good outcomes—like going to school or getting good jobs—then we’ll need to tackle some of these fundamental issues that are impacting their success.

How did you decide on the outcomes?
We went through a rigorous process to determine which indicators to measure in terms of what it takes for young people to be successful. Outcomes like obtaining a postsecondary education, gaining meaningful employment, and observing healthy behaviors. I would challenge you to find any parent who doesn't want those things for their kids. What sets youthCONNECT apart is that we are saying that if we are really going to make a difference in the lives of young people who are in challenging circumstances and in communities without many supports or opportunities, then we have to do business differently. Fragmented funding or funding organizations isn't going to work. There has to be a more focused strategy. All sectors must be at the table, funding must be aligned toward clear, measurable outcomes, and you need to hold yourself and others accountable to these outcomes.

That's the kind of work we all need to do to better support our young people.

Urban Alliance Expanding to Northern Virginia, Calls for Corporate Partners

Urban Alliance's expansion was featured in the latest issue of Washington Business Journal.

Social Innovation Fund Releases First Investment Report: $138 million in grants to 197 nonprofits yields $350 million in matching funds benefiting 174,000 people

Last month, the Social Innovation Fund (SIF) released its first investment report, which covered the start of the Fund in 2010 up until 2012.

Among the results from the first two years include:

• The SIF gave out $130 million in grants, which were leveraged to produce an additional $350 million from private and nonfederal commitments.
• Intermediaries in the SIF are serving almost 200 nonprofits in 34 states and the District of Columbia.
• Because of the SIF, more than 174,000 people were served by the nonprofit partners.

Through our youthCONNECT initiative, VPP is an inaugural member of the SIF, and network partner the Latin American Youth Center, is featured in the report.

Read the full report. [pdf]

DC Bilingual Public Charter School Named 2013 Quality Schools Initiative Winner

Fight For Children has named the DC Bilingual Public Charter school, founded by VPP investment partner CentroNía, a winner of the 2013 Quality Schools Initiative.

Chaired by VPP co-founder and investor Raul Fernandez, and founded by another VPP investor, the late Joe Robert, Fight For Children awarded DC Bilingual the prize because of its work to improve student achievement for low-income kids. The school, along with fellow winner, Columbia Heights Education Campus, will receive $100,000 to implement a three-year strategy to expand programs to continue improving student proficiency with the goal of being two of the highest performing public schools within three years.

For more information, read Fight For Children's latest newsletter.

KIPP DC To Open First Campuses in Northeast DC This Summer: Schools to provide pre-K and Kindergarten in Ward 5

An artist rendering of the Webb Campus

KIPP DC’s growth continues with the opening of two new schools this summer in Northeast DC serving pre-K and Kindergarten students.

Connect Academy and Spring Academy will both be located at KIPP's new Webb Campus in Ward 5, formerly the site of DC’s Webb Elementary School. The campus will open with 300 students, but eventually grow to serve 1,100 children from PreK through 8th grade. The founding principals of the Webb Campus, Donny Tiengtum and Lindsey Hoy, are both former KIPP DC LEAP Academy teachers who were selected for KIPP's prestigious Fisher Fellows program where they were trained to open new KIPP schools.

“With thousands of students on our waiting lists, we are thrilled to open the doors to our new Webb Campus so that we can serve an additional 1,100 students,” said KIPP DC Founder and CEO Susan Schaeffler. “We are eager to build relationships with the Ward 5 community and to provide students with access to the high-quality seats that they deserve.”

The Latin American Youth Center Celebrates 45 Years

LAYC Executive Director Lori Kaplan at the event.

On May 2nd, LAYC celebrated 45 years of service in the community with over 400 supporters, staff, distinguished alumni, and elected officials, at the Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill. The event raised over $450,000 and featured a VIP reception hosted by Capital One Bank, silent and live auctions, an exciting program featuring LAYC alumni, and an after-party that included dancing, salsa lessons, and a festive 45th anniversary cake. NBC4 reporter and anchor Erika Gonzalez emceed the program.

Special guests included: CareFirst President and CEO Chet Burrell, Capital One Financial Treasurer Steve Linehan, Maryland Senator Victor Ramirez, DC Mayor Vincent Gray, Councilman David Grosso, Congressman Chris Van Hollen, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, Prince George's County Executive Rushern Baker, and Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett.

Investment Partner Updates in May…

Child and Family Network Center's Mothers Group sold jewelry and hosted raffles to raise money to donate to the Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation… College Summit honored two high school seniors for supporting their peers on the path to higher education with its annual Peer Leadership Award ceremony… Urban Alliance raised over $21,000 as a part of Spring2Action: a one-day, online fundraising competition. The funds will support an Alexandria youth, who will receive a 10-month paid internship, and one-on-one mentoring.

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