Giving Back to Our Communities

Each fall brings with it a chance to give thanks and give back. On this #GivingTuesday, we hope you will join the GreenLight Fund in celebrating the work our portfolio organizations are doing each and every day to transform the lives of thousands of children, youth and families in Boston, Philadelphia and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Following a day for giving thanks and two days of getting deals, #GivingTuesday is a global day dedicated to giving back to your community. We hope you'll join GreenLight in this global day of generosity by considering a donation to one or more of our portfolio organizations. Each organization in our portfolio offers an innovative and effective solution to critical issues facing the most vulnerable people in our communities. Learn more about our organizations below, and check out our 2013 Portfolio Report.

Blueprint Schools Network  (Launched in 2013, Boston)

Blueprint Schools Network uses a research-based framework of comprehensive reform strategies to accelerate achievement in the nation’s highest need schools. Blueprint partners with school districts to plan, implement, and monitor school improvement efforts with the goal of dramatically improving the educational and life opportunities for all students.

College Advising Corps (Launched in 2014, Boston)

College Advising Corps is an innovative program that works to increase the number of low-income, first-generation college and underrepresented students who enter and complete higher education. By hiring and training recent graduates of partner colleges and universities as full-time college advisers and placing them in underserved high schools, the Advising Corps provides the support that high-need students need to navigate the web of college admissions, secure financial aid and enroll in colleges where they can succeed.

Family Independence Initiative (Launched in 2010, Boston)

Family Independence Initiative empowers low-income families to move out of poverty through access to connections, choice and capital. They invest resources based on the strengths and initiative families demonstrate towards improving their lives and other’s lives in their communities, and collect information to learn and share what works.

Friends of the Children (Launched in 2005, Boston)

Friends of the Children – Boston creates generational change by engaging children from high-risk communities in 12 years of transformative mentoring relationships.

Genesys Works (Launched in 2013, Bay Area)

Genesys Works changes the life trajectories of underprivileged high school students by enabling them to work in meaningful, yearlong paid internships at major corporations during their senior year in high school. After an 8-week intensive training program on hard and soft skills, students work at one of Genesys Works’ client companies where they discover that they can indeed succeed as professionals in the corporate world.

Peer Health Exchange (Launched in 2007, Boston)

Peer Health Exchange gives teenagers the knowledge and skills they need to make healthy decisions by training college students to teach a comprehensive health curriculum in public high schools that lack health education.

New Teacher Center (Launched in 2012, Boston)

New Teacher Center is dedicated to improving student learning by accelerating the effectiveness of new teachers and school leaders. NTC works with schools districts, state policymakers, and educators across the country to develop and implement induction programs aligned with district learning goals. NTC induction programs include one-on-one mentoring and professional development, all taking place within school environments that support new teachers.

Raising A Reader (Launched in 2008, Boston)

Raising A Reader-MA is an evidence-based early literacy program that helps families of young children (newborn through age five) develop, practice and maintain habits of reading together at home.

Single Stop USA (Launched in 2012, Boston; Launched in 2013, Philadelphia)

Single Stop helps low-income individuals persist through college and achieve financial self-sufficiency and economic mobility by providing access to benefits and services such as tax credits, health insurance, SNAP/food stamps, financial counseling and legal counseling.

uAspire (Launched in 2013, Bay Area)

uAspire’s mission is to ensure that all young people have the financial information and resources necessary to find an affordable path to – and through – a postsecondary education. To accomplish this mission, uAspire partners with schools and community organizations to provide free financial aid advice and advocacy to young people and families to help them overcome the financial barriers to higher education.

Year Up (Launched in 2013, Philadelphia)

Year Up provides urban young adults with skills, experience, and support that will empower them to reach their potential through professional careers and higher education. They achieve this mission through a high support, high expectation model that combines marketable job skills, stipends, internships and college credit accumulation. Their holistic approach focuses on students’ professional and personal development to place young adults on a viable path to economic self-sufficiency.

Youth Villages Transitional Living Program (Launched in 2009, Boston)

Youth Villages Transitional Living Program provides support to young people who are aging out of foster care or other children’s services, to help them begin life as independent adults, find safe housing, continue education or training, achieve stable employment and build healthy support systems for the future.

Be sure to spread the word about #GivingTuesday and celebrate a new tradition of generosity!

Single Stop USA Launches Two New Massachusetts Sites

Author: Rachel Martinez

Development Intern, GreenLight Fund

In the fall of 2011 the GreenLight Fund supported the launch of Single Stop USA to Boston. Single Stop works with community colleges to help low-income students and families access existing resources proven to increase economic mobility and academic success. Now, we’re excited to announce that Single Stop is expanding in Massachusetts, with two new sites opening this fall.

Given the success of its program at Bunker Hill Community College, Single Stop is set to partner with both Roxbury Community College (RCC) and Springfield Technical and Community College (STCC).

As part of an ongoing effort to revitalize and expand the college, RCC will now feature Single Stop in its admission process. Single Stop received significant support from Roxbury’s new president, Dr. Valerie Roberson, who recognizes that a large portion of the student body is made up of low-income individuals who will greatly benefit from the Single Stop’s services.

The only technical community college in Massachusetts, STCC is already known for its strong workforce development, and with Single Stop’s help there will soon be even more opportunities for students. Springfield Technical Community College, which led the fundraising for the new program, plans to integrate Single Stop into the campus through automatic referrals from financial aid and coordination with enrollment management systems.

For more information visit www.singlestopusa.org.

A Catalyst for Change: A Conversation with Matt Spengler, Executive Director of Blueprint Schools Network

Author: Sarah Lassonde

Director of External Affairs, GreenLight Fund

Matt Spengler doesn't shy away from a challenge. As founder and executive director of the Blueprint Schools Network, he is helping to turn around some of our nation’s lowest performing schools. By forging deep partnerships with school districts and leveraging research-based practices from high-performing charter schools, Blueprint helps plan, implement, and monitor school improvement initiatives. 

And he’s getting results. In Denver, where Blueprint has been operating since 2011 in 10 schools, student growth has “outpaced the district” in just two years. All of Blueprint’s schools were in the top 13 in the state for student growth in mathematics, and at Montbello High School, every 2014 graduate was accepted to a two- or four-year college for the first time in the school’s history. 

With support from GreenLight, Blueprint is working at two “Level 4” schools - a designation reserved for the state’s most struggling schools - the Elihu Greenwood Leadership Academy (K-5) and the English High School. Blueprint will work as a turnaround partner to implement reforms in partnership with the district with the hope of achieving similar results. We have no doubt he’s up to the challenge.

As GreenLight Boston celebrates the launch of Blueprint this week at our Tenth Annual GreenLight Gala, we sat down with Matt to talk about why he founded Blueprint, and why he’s particularly excited about the opportunity to work in Boston. 

Sarah Lassonde: Why did you decide to found Blueprint Schools Network?  

Matt Spengler:  I started my teaching career under emergency credentials. I walked into a large dysfunctional high school in South Central Los Angeles that was turning teachers over, year after year. I had no training and no experience, but with 10 openings to fill mid-year, the principal looked at my resume and said “when can you start?” Over six years at that school, I saw the dedication and quality of people who were trying to make a difference for kids, and it became clear that our efforts were like putting a fist into a bucket of water. You’d make the effort and pull out and see that nothing had changed.

Since then I've been a principal and part of many educational organizations, and I've seen firsthand the power that a high-quality teacher, a remarkable principal and a high-functioning school can have on kids, both in terms of academic performance, but also on the opportunities they have in the future.    

Blueprint was really born out of a desire to create high-quality schools that kids can actually walk to, so that regardless of zip code or where they grow up, they’ll have a high quality system of schools that are in their own neighborhood.

SL: Education – and in particular, the achievement gap – has been at the top of the headlines both in Boston and around the country. Can you talk about how Blueprint is working to address educational equity?

Matt Spengler: I believe schools are the one place where every kid has the opportunity to change and to grow. When you look back across the decades, even though we have individual pockets of success and some schools that are doing well, we’re not seeing this uniformly across the country. We’re not seeing great change across a network of schools. We know that within individual schools it’s possible to change outcomes, it’s possible to achieve equity, but we haven’t seen this at scale.

At Blueprint, our job is to provide a catalyst, so that low-performing schools over short periods of time can sustain promising practices and improve results for kids.

SL: How do you know you’re making a difference?

MS: In Denver, when you walk into Blueprint schools, it’s incredibly powerful and energizing, especially after seeing the schools two years ago (before the turnaround). You see the community that gets formed, because there is a group of caring adults that are invested in students and are using smart strategies to make change.

At Blueprint, we feel the same sense of ownership as the principal, the teachers and the community members feel. So when we see positive change in a school, it’s momentum-building, it’s energizing, and it’s what we want to see in districts across the country.

SL: Why is Boston such an exciting opportunity for Blueprint?

MS: Blueprint Schools is headquartered in Newton, so we’re excited to work in our own backyard.  Boston is the birthplace of public education, and we’re currently working with the oldest public high school in the United States. There is a district full of dedicated adults who are working very hard to make change. Boston also has a strong spirit of community service and public service.  

However, the needs in Boston are similar to those we see in other parts of the country, of kids who are not developing the same skills and the same enthusiasm for learning that we see in high-performing schools. What we hope to do in Boston is to leverage these assets and bring together effective strategies in concert to help make change in these schools.  

To learn more about Blueprint Schools Network, please visit www.blueprintschools.org

GreenLight’s SIF Initiative at 2: Portfolio Update

Author: Kate Barrett
Program Manager, SIF Initiative

As the GreenLight Fund (GreenLight) embarks on the third year of our Social Innovation Fund (SIF) Initiative, we wanted to share an update on how the work has unfolded on the ground in Boston, Philadelphia and the San Francisco Bay Area – and the incredible progress our grantees have made to date. We are inspired and encouraged by the work they are doing each and every day to change and improve the life trajectories of children and youth in each of our three communities.

With its SIF Initiative, GreenLight selected six nonprofit organizations to launch new sites in one of the three GreenLight communities. We selected these organizations based on evidence that their programs were working to close the achievement and opportunity gap for the low-income youth they serve. In Boston, that’s CollegeAdvising Corps and Blueprint Schools Network. In Philadelphia, that’s Year Up and Single Stop USA. In the Bay Area, that’s Genesys Works and uAspire. These grantees are targeting outcomes that include: college enrollment, persistence and completion; school turnaround; occupational skills; and career-track employment.

GreenLight has supported these six organizations with funding, external evaluation expertise as they implement rigorous evaluation, on-the-ground assistance to help them connect with local partners and supporters, technical assistance on federal grant compliance, and access to a learning community of peers.

Since their selection in the spring of 2013, our grantees have made significant progress. In just one year they have launched their programs in these new communities, hired exceptional local leadership, fostered deep and meaningful partnerships with schools, higher education institutions, corporations and other nonprofit service providers, launched rigorous evaluations with external evaluators, and raised significant match funds.

GreenLight SIF Portfolio by the Numbers: (as of 6/30/14)

Number of grantees: 6

Number of People Served, including projections: 

Dollars Invested: 

For GreenLight, the SIF has proven to be an effective way to scale our work to reach more people living in high poverty areas with transformational interventions. As GreenLight’s National Executive Director, Margaret Hall mentioned in her March blog post, “the SIF has been a booster rocket for expanding our reach and impact, improving our evaluation knowledge and skills and introducing us to an incredible community of peers, who collectively are making a powerful difference across the country.” GreenLight is looking forward to the next three years of our SIF Initiative to build on what we’ve learned and continue learning. We are already implementing these learnings to improve our work to identify and support innovative, evidence-based organizations to launch in our communities when they have the potential to make a significant impact.

GreenLight’s SIF Initiative is made possible through a 2012 grant from the Social Innovation Fund (SIF). The SIF is a key White House initiative and program of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) that combines public and private resources to grow the impact of innovative, community-based solutions that have compelling evidence of improving the lives of people in low-income communities throughout the United States. Five years into the program, the SIF now includes 27 intermediaries investing in 217 effective community solutions in 37 states and Washington, DC with more than $700 million invested by non-federal partners.