Communityworks

Since 2003, the Foundation has been involved in a statewide initiative launched by the Chicago-based Grand Victoria Foundation. Eighteen community foundations agreed to examine local quality of life through the lens of three issues: early childhood education, workforce training and development, and land use and protection. (Click here for more background on the Communityworks fund.)

The Evanston Community Foundation developed an impact plan to address the connections between the first three years of life and outcomes for young people as they leave high school.  The name of the plan, Every Child Ready for Kindergarten, Every Youth Ready for Work, addresses key community concerns identified in thirty months of listening, research, and consulting.

Strategy

Our goal is that all Evanston children will enter kindergarten ready to learn. We are targeting the achievement gap where it begins: in the earliest months and years of life. Our principal strategy is high-quality home visiting by trained professionals who offer support to young parents whose economic status places their children at high risk of entering kindergarten with lower vocabularies, undiagnosed developmental delays, and behavioral issues.

Hearing from community residents and reading copious research led us to adopt this focus on home visits in vulnerable families with children ages birth to 3 as the starting point in developing a path to kindergarten readiness. Regular home visiting helps young parents manage stress, connect to resources, learn about child development, and understand their role as their baby’s first teacher. Communityworks grants enable Evanston agencies to provide home visiting and other family support services to 40 families with children birth to 3.

The Foundation and its community partners are working together to build and maintain an early childhood education system that will support kindergarten readiness. This includes:

•    High-quality preschool for all 3- and 4-year-old children, especially those who have been in home-visiting programs
•    Strong institutions to ensure that every child has the opportunity to grow up healthy, nurtured and well-educated. A small investment in capacity-building for struggling community-based agencies can reap big returns, as they develop expertise in fundraising, marketing and evaluation.
•    Strong community where all adults support families during the crucial birth-to-5 years. We are investigating the steps necessary to build a coordinated community infrastructure for “positive parenting,” so that every parent, physician, teacher, and social service provider can quickly access local services for young children.  
•    Excellent teachers, with top-notch qualifications. We provide occasional professional development workshops and attempt to connect teachers with other opportunities, leveraging our ability to bring teachers together to form cohorts that can apply for state funding.
•    Research and evaluation. Working with Northern Illinois University, we are measuring our progress using normed tools and collecting data over several years, so we will be able to evaluate effects of home visiting on parental stress, beliefs, and behaviors. We use evaluation to both track our progress and learn lessons that can be applied in Evanston and elsewhere.

A critical point in our plan is the connection between kindergarten readiness and later success in school and the workplace. While investing in early childhood is a long-term strategy, we also know that many young parents who engage in home visiting are also looking to develop job skills. In fact, 90% of the young adults that Evanston’s Youth Job Center seeks to place in full-time jobs are single, custodial parents.

To be successful in making an impact on the multi-faceted challenges embedded in the term “ready for kindergarten” is a big challenge—even in a community as small as Evanston. Whenever possible, the foundation engages the resources of others to reach this goal. We see ourselves at the Evanston Community Foundation as the hub for the pre-K community, similar to the roles of District 65 and 202 for older students.

Results, 2007-2010

Since the project began in 2007, the foundation has awarded $490,000 in Communityworks grants, primarily to support home visiting. The Communityworks grantee network includes six agencies:

•    Infant Welfare Society of Evanston
•    Childcare Network of Evanston
•    District 65 Family Center
•    Child Care Center of Evanston
•    Evanston Public Library
•    The Family Room


The home visiting agencies use evidence-based models (either Parents as Teachers or Baby TALK) and follow best practices as identified by the home visiting research. Other grantees provide developmental services in family childcare homes and family literacy activities in community settings.

Each year approximately 40 families with infants and toddlers participate in regular weekly or biweekly home visiting and family support activities offered by grantee partners. Over 200 children are screened for developmental delays and referred for special services if necessary. Over 300 families take part in outreach activities in community settings.

In addition to our grantee partners, many other providers of services for young children participate in network meetings, where we work toward the common goal of having every child ready for kindergarten.

Funding

The Evanston Community Foundation was the first of 17 foundations in the Grand Victoria project to complete its 5-year commitment to raise $225,000 for endowment, execute a public meetings and community research process, develop an impact plan aimed at systemic change, and begin Communityworks grantmaking.

At the beginning of 2008, in recognition of the progress made by the Evanston Community
Foundation, Grand Victoria awarded the foundation $2 million, to be divided between the Communityworks endowment and the foundation’s operating endowment. In addition, Grand Victoria promised $2 million in matching funds if the Foundation raises an equal amount by August 2011. In fall 2008, a gift of $1 million enabled the foundation to garner $1 million in matching funds.

The Communityworks endowment is now nearly $4.3 million, after receiving a $250,000 matching gift from Grand Victoria Foundation in January 2010.  By August 2011, the Foundation must raise $750,000 in new gifts to the Communityworks Fund, in order to take full advantage of the remaining matching dollars from Grand Victoria.  Our ultimate goal is to attain a fund balance of $7 million by 2015, in order to sustain the project well into the future.

Communityworks Initiative Leadership

Communityworks Advisory Committee, Evanston Community Foundation

Paul Finnegan, chair

John Balkcom

Diana Cohen

Joe Flanagan

Carol Henes

Judy Kemp, Foundation chair

Ken Lehman

Diane Lupke

Jay Lytle

Mark McCarville

Peter Morris

Robert Reece

Ingrid Stafford

Susan Munro, Project Consultant

Sara Schastok, President and CEO

Marybeth Schroeder, Senior Program Officer