JC Penney Afterschool Fund Pilot Communities

In the Fall of 2007, the Forum for Youth Investment and the United Way of America (UWA) agreed to work together to provide local United Ways with research-based frameworks, metrics, strategies and tools to ensure that children enter kindergarten ready to succeed and enter the second decade of life ready for success. As a first step, the Forum and UWA sought funding from the JC Penney Afterschool Fund to develop the vision for a national youth development initiative; convene national stakeholders and experts to identify the most innovative and powerful outcomes, strategies and niches for a national youth development effort; pilot community-wide youth development data collection, program mapping and visioning in two communities to build capacity and innovative promising practices around out-of-school time (OST); and pursue additional funding for launching a major national youth development initiative.

The partners received the grant last spring and awarded two local United Ways with $20,000 grants to create data-driven plans for improving OST supports to boost youth outcomes. The two local United Ways selected for the pilot are the United Way of Greater Richmond & Petersburg (Richmond, VA) and the United Way of Greater Kansas City (Kansas City, MO). The pilot sites are helping the Forum and UWA develop the vision and supports for a national youth development initiative that will provide the Ready by 21 framework, tools and resources to the nearly 1,300 local United Ways across the country. Each site was selected based on a series of requirements including: providing a dedicated staff person for 25% of the time who has experience with youth, data and group facilitation; a successful history with partnerships, alliances and other UW strengths; a history of funding youth programs/youth issues and commitment to raising more; the willingness to develop and maintain technical capacity around data collection via staff or consultants; the commitment to making improved youth outcomes/supports a top communications priority; and demonstrating that the timing is right for UW and community. In addition to the $20,000 (to be used for staff, convenings, data collection and outreach; to be matched in-kind), each grantee also receives a 2-day training with Forum/UWA staff for four local United Way staff; 12 hours of coaching, technical assistance and document review; 1-2 on-site support visits, briefings, facilitation and technical assistance; and relevant templates and tools.

Both grantees have convened the community change makers required to develop the data-driven plans and are currently in the data collection phase of the grant. Teams from each local United Way convened at the Cady-Lee, November 6-7, for the on-site training with the Forum and UWA to learn more about Ready by 21 and the next steps required for building the plan. Pilot site staff left after the two-day training ready for the next phase and both are starting their OST program landscape mapping this month. For further information about this grant or the pilot sites, please contact Melissa Hough at Melissa@forumfyi.org.