We're For Real!

For the last two weeks, I've worked past 9pm every night. It's the nature of new endeavors that a staff is needed long before the organization can afford to hire anyone. This is great news for Reach, Inc. - it's a good kind of busy!

Given my exhausted state, I'll let you all know just one piece of important news. This week, we received official word confirming our pilot site at Hyde Leadership Public Charter School. While previous conversations left me with a high level of confidence, we now know that Reach, Inc. will launch in the fall. It's really going to happen!

And the countdown to launch begins...

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark

Founder and President - Reach, Inc.

Counting The Money

While the stress of raising money is certainly present on a day-to-day basis, it is equally frustrating to deal with processing that money. Payroll, budgeting, and taxes are all a regular part of my day, and I do not feel totally equipped to handle these issues. Today, things got much better. Through a wonderful connection, I was introduced to a talented CPA who is willing to share her skills. This will help Reach, Inc. in three important ways:

• She will ensure that we correctly file our taxes so that we remain in good standing with all relevant authorities.
• She will help me to set up accounting systems, using Quickbooks, that will allow me to handle Reach's finances quickly and efficiently.
• She will help me to set up a chart of accounts and amend our fiscal year - two steps that will help us tremendously moving forward.

All of this may seem extraordinarily boring, but it's very exciting to me. It's a source of regular stress, so I'm thrilled to have established a relationship that will guide me in addressing these intimidating issues. I am extremely grateful to the wonderfully generous individuals that made this happen.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark

Founder and President - Reach, Inc.

The Conveyor Belt

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to visit EL Haynes Public Charter School. In the last twelve months, I have spent time in many urban and suburban schools. I can say, without reservation, that I have not been more impressed than I was yesterday. EL Haynes is astounding in almost every imaginable way: diversity, achievement, sense of community, and response to negative student behavior. I came away very excited about the good work being done in this city, yet more sure than ever that Reach, Inc. needs to exist.

Like many successful models in urban centers, EL Haynes has grown their own student population. This means that they started with a small school of young students, and they've grown a grade each year as their students progress. It was Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Children's Zone that popularized the term "conveyor belt," and it is this mentality that promotes getting children early and supporting them from "cradle to college." It's an effective model for those students that make it on to the conveyor belt early, but what about others?

In reality, the conveyor belt is not the right visual. Perhaps, the conveyor belt works if we imagine it on an incline. Those of us that were born into privilege start on the belt before birth. As the incline carries the conveyor belt skyward, we've figured out how to facilitate the placement of children onto the belt early in life. With additional supports, we can even provide the necessary boost for many of our elementary school students. However, the outcomes grow dim at this point. For those middle school students that did not have a good elementary school experience, we provide a rope hanging down. Sure, it's a path to the conveyor belt, but only strongest kids can make their way up. This is why so many of our most effective programs for middle schoolers - for example, DC's highly successful Higher Achievement Program - work with "promising" or "highly motivated" students. 

Sadly, the conveyor belt continues to climb and it seems farther and farther from the grasp of our most underserved. At the beginning of 9th grade, our students look up and see this belt so far away. It seems distant and inaccessible. I refuse to accept that reality. I see Reach, Inc.'s role as the builder of a staircase to the conveyor belt. We can not begin writing off our students as early as middle school. We must - MUST - provide entry points along the way. The stairs will be steep, and climbing them will most certainly be difficult, but we must build them.

The solutions must be multi-faceted. We need great schools, funders of innovation, and supportive policies. (For example, EL Haynes' Head of School, Jennie Niles, mentioned an idea in which high performing charter schools could be paid a weighted per pupil allotment for accepting middle and high school students more than two years below grade level in reading - an allotment similar to those received for special education or ELL students - since additional resources are needed to achieve success. Brilliant!) Our society has many social problems that prevent kids from getting on that conveyor belt or cause them to fall during the ride; therefore, we must create the supports necessary to provide new entry points along the way. I'm excited to live in a city where programs like EL Haynes and Higher Achievement exist, and I will continue to praise their work at any opportunity, but adding Reach, Inc. to our portfolio of solutions will only make our city stronger.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark

Founder and President - Reach, Inc.

Echoing Green

As I mentioned in the last post, I was recently named a semi-finalist for the Echoing Green Fellowship. In earlier blog posts, I have spoken about the importance of gaining credibility - and fast. While being named a semi-finalist is a long way from being named a fellow, I have already seen the advantage of being associated with a respected program. I feel like people are more willing to listen to me speak about the model when previously I had to first prove myself. Understanding this shift is understandable when you review the organizations that have been incubated under Echoing Green:

• Citizen Schools
• Peace Games
• College Summit 
• National Public Service Academy
• The SEED Foundation
• City Year
• Teach for America
• The BELL Foundation

Moving into the next round, I'm required to complete few tasks that will be extremely helpful, regardless of the eventual outcome of the competition. First, I have to complete an "Innovation Matrix," which involves identifying comparable programs and outlining specific ways in which we are different (and better). Second, we have to complete a "Root Cause Analysis." This interesting step involves going through a series of steps to identify the root cause of the problem Reach, Inc. is trying to address (a systemic inability to promote academic recovery at the high school level) by questioning the cause of symptoms. Finally, we have to complete an organizational budget that covers the first two years of operations, which, for us, is slightly different than the fiscal year budgets that we have completed previously.

In the end, being named a fellow would result in $60,000 of funding, health insurance, and an ongoing professional development program. More exciting, the credibility gained would be infinitely important in our ongoing effort to legitimize our organization.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark

Founder and President - Reach, Inc.

A Foundation for the Future

Friends of Reach, Inc:

As a brand new nonprofit, the arrival of 2010 provides Reach, Inc. with a number of exciting opportunities. In the coming months, we will confirm a pilot partnership, secure necessary funding, and solidify our program model as we prepare for launch in October. We have already made great strides toward this goal as evidenced by our recent selection as a semi-finalist for the Echoing Green fellowship, a huge honor from one of the world’s foremost incubators of social innovation.

We have exciting plans for 2010. While our founding Board has served us well, we know that a growing organization has diverse needs, so we plan a major expansion of our Board of Directors during 2010. Additionally, we will continue to gain credibility through fellowship applications and business plan competitions. Most important, we will make continued improvements to our instructional framework to ensure that we are able to facilitate dramatic improvements in reading ability during our pilot program. In these months before program launch, we will truly be building the foundation on which Reach, Inc. will stand.

To succeed, we need a broad base of support, so it is with great excitement that we announce our first major fundraising campaign: A Foundation for the Future. In two years, we will raise $500,000 to support our pilot program and our first year providing services in multiple schools. Through the generosity of some of Reach, Inc.’s core supporters, we secured $50,000 in cash and pledges in the year’s first ten days. To encourage you to join us on this exciting journey, The Patricia Kind Family Foundation has offered to match up to $5,000 of your donations in the next 30 days.

The current climate is not friendly for innovative, new nonprofits, yet we have and will continue to thrive through your support. At this moment, we have an opportunity to write a new way forward for some of the District of Columbia’s most underserved students. Will you join us in building a foundation for the future?

To discuss opportunities for supporting our work, please contact me directly. To learn more about our improved model, click here. For information about donating, click here.

With Appreciation,

Mark Hecker 

Founder and President - Reach, Inc.

Stay Tuned...

... for a major announcement about Reach, Inc.'s future on Thursday, January 14th. 

Stats and Stories

In discussing Reach, Inc. with potential partners around DC, the way we will evaluate our success has been a recurring topic of conversation. I've found that program success is generally measured in stats and stories. While having legitimate measures of program outcomes is important (stats), many nonprofits focus on marketing anecdotal evidence of program success (stories). 

While I look forward to having stories to share about the students who benefit from our program, I am spending much of my time working to develop an effective evaluation tool for our pilot program. This issue will be explored in three distinct ways during the coming week:

• On Monday, I'll be having a discussion with Tim Payne, the Executive Director of For Love of Children. From what I've heard, FLOC did a fantastic job of developing a system for demonstrating the effectiveness of their educational programs long before it became such such a central focus in the nonprofit world. I look forward to learning the ways that FLOC demonstrates the impact of their work.
• Also, next week I will have the opportunity to have further conversations with our potential pilot site. During this conversation, it will be important that we discuss the level of access that we will have to the school's data. It is my hope that they will be willing to be open with their data around attendance, grades, and standardized test scores. While we will add our own evaluation tools, the data already collected by the school will be important in helping Reach, Inc. show potential partners the program's effectiveness.
• Finally, I should soon find out about an exciting potential partnership with Georgetown's Public Policy Institute. Reach, Inc. has been invited to submit a proposal to Joe Ferrara's graduate class in public management. One of the projects we proposed would involve a group of graduate students working closely with me to develop an evaluation tool to be used for our pilot program. This team of graduate students would provide Reach, Inc. with the capacity to research effective evaluation tools used by educational nonprofits around the country. With this additional information, we could create a tool tailored specifically to our needs so we can immediately demonstrate impact.

We are very confident in our ability to make a significant impact, so we have to ensure that we can demonstrate our effectiveness to potential educational and financial partners.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark

Founder and President - Reach, Inc.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all of you! We hardly have any time to miss a beat as 2010 begins. Not only have we started to make exciting plans for 2010, but we also have to tie up loose ends for 2009. I spent today balancing our financial records and ensuring that they match the bank's records. I can now tell you that we will carry forward $9,120.39 to Fiscal Year 2010. For a brand new nonprofit, in these difficult economic times, this is very exciting news.

In the coming weeks, I'll have the opportunity to meet with some potentially significant supporters, start discussions about Board development strategies, and visit two schools - Sidwell Friends and EL Haynes. 

I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am about the year to come. When I consider the possibilities, it's amazing. It's fun to look back at 2009, but it's even more enjoyable to consider the possibilities for 2010. By the end of this year, Reach, Inc. will have transformed from a concept to a program. We will be able to demonstrate our effectiveness while improving both the attitude and the reading skills of our students. Each day, we get a little bit closer...

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark

Founder and President - Reach, Inc.