2002 Year-End Summary
To all Springboard Foundation Members, Contributors and Friends:
2002 will mark another record year for the Springboard Foundation. We are most gratified to be distributing a record $240,000 in grants to 19 well deserving educational and after-school programs in Chicago. During these extremely difficult economic times, our grants will have an even greater impact on the programs that they support as funding from both private and public sources has become scarce. The Springboard Foundation is proud to be a growing influence in the Chicago not-for-profit community and more importantly on the thousands of inner-city children that our educational programs serve.
To recap our mission, the Springboard Foundation supports grass roots educational and after-school programs that have difficulty raising funds from traditional sources. We invest in high quality programs run by community leaders that serve thousands of inner-city children in Chicago. The common thread that runs though all of our programs is the vision and dedication of the program directors. Over the past five years, we have visited numerous educational and after-school programs that are founded and operated out of church basements, youth centers, community centers or Chicago public schools. Through these high quality programs, children can go to a safe and familiar place after school to learn and participate in activities instead of facing the dangers of the streets or going home where adult supervision is often inadequate. There are literally hundreds of after-school programs in Chicago and Springboard looks to support the most promising that will grow to benefit an even larger group of disadvantaged children.
Examples of programs that we have funded over the past five years include Blessed Sacrament Youth Center in the North Lawndale community, South Side Educational Center in the West Pullman Neighborhood, South Shore Montessori School on the South Side and Epworth United Methodist Church on the Near North side. In each of these cases, the after school programs are a bright light in an otherwise difficult section of the city. The average budget size for these four programs is approximately $200,000, which is representative of all the programs we support. In all, we funded 19 programs (13 from previous years and 6 initial grants) with an average grant size of $13,000.
Our 36 Springboard members are active. We participated in 16 return site visits to previously funded programs and made 9 site visits to new programs. These site visits are a vital part of the process whereby we meet program directors, see the facilities, visit with the children and get a good understanding of the overall environment. In addition, Springboard members are the largest contributors to the fund and will collectively contribute over $200,000 in 2002. Outside contributions have also been vital to our growth with more than 20 contributors giving over $50,000 in each of the past 2 years.
On the organizational front, Springboard is pleased to announce its official certification as a supporting organization of The Chicago Community Trust. This designation allows Springboard to operate as an independent unit yet utilizes the substantial charitable resources of the Trust. As a supporting organization, Springboard established its own Board of Directors, which includes three outstanding community leaders: Jim Glasser, Chairman of The Chicago Community Trust and Retired Chairman of GATX, David Coolidge, CEO of William Blair & Company and Prudence Biedler, community leader and also a member of The Chicago Community Trust Executive Committee. These directors will provide Springboard with invaluable advice and counsel as we to grow to make a greater contribution in Chicago.
In 2002 we established partnerships with the Executive Service Corps and IT Resource Center, two not-for-profit service providers that assist organizations with board development, strategy, fundraising and IT development. At a roundtable we hosted last fall, all of our programs gathered, shared ideas and heard from representatives of these service providers. Over the past 10 months, 7 of our programs have enrolled with either the Executive Service Corps or IT Resource Center and the feedback to date has been extremely positive. To make these services affordable for our programs, Springboard underwrites a significant percentage of the cost.
Last spring Springboard held its annual dinner for members and outside contributors and we were honored to have Arne Duncan, CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, as our guest speaker. Mr. Duncan highlighted the many issues facing the public school system and how it affects children. We were pleased to hear of his commitment to after-school care and his strong belief in small, community-based programs (his mother has worked at a small after-school program on the south side for many years).
If you would like a complete listing of the programs we support and the people involved, please visit our website at www.springboardfoundation.org. We are very excited with the advancement of Springboard and its role in aiding quality after-school programs in Chicago. On behalf of all of our members, we thank you for your support.
Sincerely,
Doug Mabie and Keith Olson
Program Spotlight
Urban Students Empowered (US Empowered) identifies and trains highly effective teachers to lead underperforming students in low-income high schools to successfully enroll in and graduate from four-year colleges. We envision a day when every student in low-income America has the opportunity to graduate from a four-year college or university, unencumbered by educational inequity. The three-year US Empowered program has two primary goals for students (Fellows): acceptance into and graduation from a four-year college. To fulfill these goals, we implement a five-part model comprised of teacher recruitment, student selection, courses, conferences, and online support. Ultimately, our model equips alumni with a system of best-practices and collaborative networks of support so that they become college graduates, generational leaders, and change-makers in their communities.
Website: www.usempowered.org
Parents miss an average of eight days of work per year due to a lack of afterschool care. Decreased worker productivity related to parental concerns about after school care costs businesses up to $300 billion per year. (Community¸ Families and Work Program at Brandeis University¸ 2004; Catalyst & Brandeis University¸ December 2006)