Social Innovation Fund Extends Commitment to youthCONNECT
for Third Year
Contact: Victoria Vrana for VPP
(202) 263-4789 (office)
(301) 704-0998 (cell)
vvrana@vppartners.org
(Washington, D.C., August 4, 2011) Venture Philanthropy Partners (VPP) announced today it has been awarded $2 million for another year of funding for its youthCONNECT initiative from the Corporation for National and Community Service through its Social Innovation Fund. youthCONNECT, a pioneering network that brings together government, private philanthropy, nonprofit organizations, and evaluators, will dramatically improve opportunities for low-income youth, ages 14-24, in the National Capital Region.
“VPP is proud to continue its relationship with the Social Innovation Fund, a truly innovative initiative from the Obama administration. The continued support for another year extends our commitment to this collaborative effort serving the youth of this region,” said Carol Thompson Cole, VPP President and CEO. “Over a quarter of youth in the National Capital Region are low-income and struggling to transition to well-paying jobs, productive careers, and thriving adulthood. The youthCONNECT network, with its partnership of federal government, regional and national funders, and locally-based nonprofit service organizations, will serve 20,000 low-income youth over five years.”
Last summer, VPP joined the inaugural portfolio of the Social Innovation Fund (SIF), administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). The third year of funding of $2 million for VPP is based on significant progress to date. VPP will match the funds with its own philanthropic capital, and the nonprofit partners will provide an additional match for a total investment of $7.2 million in the third year. Over $20 million will be invested in programs providing education, workforce development, and health services to young people during the first three years of youthCONNECT.
Along with VPP’s funding, CNCS announced its second portfolio of Social Innovation Fund grantees and additional funding for other intermediaries in the first portfolio.
youthCONNECT brings together six high-performing nonprofits: College Summit, National Capital Region; KIPP DC; Latin American Youth Center; Metro TeenAIDS; Urban Alliance; and Year Up, National Capital Region. These organizations provide a continuum of services to the youth of the region, ranging from health education to college preparation to internships and job placement.
The Social Innovation Fund requires match funding not only at the intermediary level, but also at the level of the service providers, creating a three to one leverage of its capital. With VPP’s assistance, the nonprofits in youthCONNECT have secured over $1 million in match funding from twelve funders thus far: Accenture, the Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, Citi, Deloitte, The Freddie Mac Foundation, the Gilead Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation, Marriott, the Meyer Foundation, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, the Open Society Foundations, and the World Bank Foundation.
“We could fund six organizations independently, but I’m interested in bringing them together and seeing how they can interact with each other better than before,” said Sheldon Caplis, Regional Director, Citi Community Development, South Atlantic Region. “I see the intersection among these organizations as tremendously valuable, not just in Washington DC, but in terms of replicating something like this around the country.”
Critical to the success of youthCONNECT is evaluating programs and sharing knowledge gained throughout the process. The six nonprofit partners are developing a common outcomes framework, which will be used to measure progress across the network. VPP has partnered with Child Trends, the nation’s only nonprofit, nonpartisan research and policy center which focuses on children and youth, to evaluate the success of the network.
About Venture Philanthropy Partners
Venture Philanthropy Partners is a nonprofit philanthropic investment organization that helps great leaders grow promising programs to serve more children and youth of low-income families. It concentrates investments of money, expertise, and leverage to improve lives and boost the opportunities for children and youth in the National Capital Region. VPP also cultivates an engaged donor community to generate funding and influence in support of these institutions and of social change. For more information, visit www.vppartners.org.
About the Corporation for National and Community Service
The Corporation for National and Community Service is a federal agency that engages more than five million Americans in service through its Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and Learn and Serve America programs, and leads President Obama's national call to service initiative, United We Serve. For more information, visit NationalService.gov. More information on the Social Innovation Fund can be found at http://www.nationalservice.gov/innovation.
