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The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation is combining large grants, strategic business planning, rigorous evaluation and capital aggregation to increase the scale and impact of 9 youth development organizations in communities of need across the United States. Their subgrantees are focusing on improving the educational skills and workforce readiness of economically disadvantaged young people as well as helping them to avoid high-risk behavior.
Grantee Information
Federal Awards:
$10 million in 2010 $10 million in 2011 $10 million in 2012
Geographic Focus:
National, with an initial emphasis on urban and rural areas in California, Illinois, New York, North Carolina and South Carolina, and Oklahoma, with other geographies to be determined
Collaborating Partners:
Bridgespan Group; MDRC
Collaborating Funders:
The Duke Endowment; Tipping Point Community; George Kaiser Family Foundation; Kresge Foundation; Open Society Foundations; JPB Foundation; Hewlett Foundation; Penzance Foundation; Samberg Family Foundation; Starr Foundation; Wallace Foundation; Weingart Foundation; Annie E. Casey Foundation
The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation (EMCF), in collaboration with the Bridgespan Group and MDRC, provide financial, strategic planning and evaluation support to a current portfolio of nine youth development and school support nonprofit organizations working in both urban and rural communities throughout the nation. These subgrantees help youth ages 9-24: 1) improve their educational skills and academic achievement; 2) prepare for the world of work and make the transition to employment and economic independence; and, 3) avoid high-risk behaviors such as criminal activity and teen pregnancy.
Over the last decade, EMCF has implemented a grant making approach that identifies highly-promising nonprofits serving disadvantaged youth from low-income communities and makes large, long-term investments to strengthen their evidence base and replicate and expand them so they can serve more young people. At the heart of this approach is a multi-year business plan that guides an organization’s development. EMCF will donate the cost of formulating such business plans. To help facilitate expansion into new target geographies, co-investors will assist with the identification and selection of nonprofit organizations.
Track Record before Social Innovation Fund Grant:
Over the last 10 years, EMCF has invested over $220 million in 33 nonprofits that directly serve youth in all 50 states and Washington D.C. The average grant has increased from $90,000 in 2000 to $2 million today.
EMCF has worked with 19 other investors to create a $120 million Growth Capital Aggregation Pilot designed to help three effective nonprofit organizations – Citizen Schools, Nurse-Family Partnerships and Youth Villages – grow to serve 55,000 youth.
Other signature investments include the Harlem Children’s Zone, which provides a comprehensive network of programs in New York’s Harlem community that extends from birth through college. One of EMCF’s first partners in youth development, HCZ has expanded from 24 blocks to 100 blocks in Central Harlem and serves over 10,000 youth and individuals annually. An independent evaluation by Harvard University economists found that HCZ’s Promise Academy charter schools significantly reduced the black-white achievement gap in mathematics and English/Language Arts.
Progress:
EMCF received 225 applicants for SIF funding and collaboration (of these, 169 had never had relationships with EMCF before becoming aware of its SIF partnership);
EMCF visited and investigated 21 organizations to find the most innovative models of youth development to include in their portfolio and selected nine Social Innovation Fund subgrantees to scale and strengthen to reach more disadvantaged youth throughout the country; and
Created the True North Fund to combine federal and philanthropic resources and demonstrate how public and private dollars can be aggregated to help evidence-based programs achieve greater scale and impact.
EMCF’s subgrantees have:
Served over 100,000 youth across the country,
Expanded/replicated operations in Washington, DC and 240 states, and
Begun completing evaluations with Reading Partners showing strong results.
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