Literacy, Inc.
When a child reads, a community succeeds!
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
New York City has an invisible crisis. Nearly two out of three children affected by systemic poverty cannot read at grade level. Children who can’t transition from “learning to read” to “reading to learn” by third grade are 13 times more likely not to graduate on time from high school. Illiteracy impacts their ability to access better opportunities in health, education, and the economy. By increasing the occasions children read and are read to, by training parents to build relationships with their child around reading, and by raising the profile of reading in the community, LINC has created a model that is efficient, effective and economical. LINC accomplishes this by working with existing resources and building networks between them. Children in a LINC neighborhood experience reading modeled by their peers, their parents and adults in the community. LINC programs reinforce positive attitudes and behaviors that ensure children have the opportunity to be successful.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Parent Workshops, Family Programs
Parent Workshops - focus on how to make reading a fun part of a family’s daily routine. These early childhood workshops introduce parents and caregivers to the foundations of early literacy, and LINC staff share strategies on how to incorporate these practices and make them fun and engaging for their child(ren). Parents learn to recognize age-appropriate reading material and get connected
to community resources and public libraries. Our workshops cover a variety of
topics related to early literacy and education. For example: Foundations of early literacy, social & emotional learning topics, school expectations, and strengthening the parent/child bond.
Reading Everywhere Celebrations, Community Programs
Reading Everywhere Celebrations organize the community around enrichment activities that emphasize the message that "Reading success is a community-held value.” Whether a simple blanket spread under a shady tree at the park, literacy street fairs, or a costumed animal-themed literacy celebration at a local library, these events engage community members and help cultivate a culture of reading.
Very Involved Parent Academy, Community Programs
Our Very Involved Parent (VIP) Academy trains parents to become literacy advocates in their community. Parents who have previously attended LINC programs are invited to participate in the VIP Academy. Graduates are equipped to deliver community reading programs, recruit new families, spread the word about LINC, and promote positive reading habits with other families. VIP Academies foster the growth of parents who, after realizing the significant influence they have on their child’s academic achievement, are eager to do the same for other children in their neighborhood. This parent engagement strategy extends LINC’s reach and amplifies the message: “Children need family support to become strong readers.”
Family Academies, Family Programs
Family Academies engage caregivers and young children at the same time, helping families to create reading routines and literacy-rich environments. Parents celebrate reading and practice new literacy strategies with their children, while children enjoy engaging read alouds, movement activities, songs and crafts. The Read to Me Little Bee (Virtual Bees during COVID) program is one example of our Family Academies. This is a six-part Family Academy designed specifically for parents with children aged 0-3. During each session, parents focus on one of the foundations of early literacy and learn how to adapt and use these practices with their children at home.
Literacy Zones, Community Programs
LINC makes children’s books available in pharmacies, stores, restaurants, and in other community spaces where families can pick up free books to start a home library. These dedicated Literacy Zones also feature additional educational materials to connect families with literacy programming and resources.
Where we work
Affiliations & memberships
Non Profit Excellence Award for Financial Management 2018
Non Profit Excellence Award Finalist for Overall Excellence 2019
Non Profit Excellence Award for Fundraising and Resource Development 2019
External reviews
Photos
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Evaluation documents
Download evaluation reportsRate of student attendance during the reporting period
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
88% of teachers reported RBP improved their student's reading comprehension. 87% of teachers reported RBP improved their students' vocabulary development.
"Number of parents engaged"
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Caregivers, Parents
Related Program
Parent Workshops, Family Programs
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
90% of parents with children 5 years and younger reported that LINC taught them the importance of reading to their child from birth.
Percentage and/or caregivers who have established a routine of reading with their children 5+ days / week
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Family relationships, Children and youth
Related Program
Parent Workshops, Family Programs
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
75% of parents who have attended LINC programs read with their children five or more days a week , compared to 42% of parents who have not attended LINC programs and read five or more days a week
Total number of volunteer hours contributed to the organization
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Family relationships
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
LINC's Very Involved Parents (VIPs) lead/ support numerous programs - one hour per program - across seven communities. This metric only applies to our VIPs, does not include other volunteer hours.
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Literacy Inc. builds neighborhood networks that support young readers by working with schools, libraries, and existing community partners. Our community-based strategy targets families in high-need, high-potential neighborhoods across New York City in order to:
Increase in and out-of-school time opportunities for students and families to practice essential literacy skills and model positive reading behaviors that result in grade-level reading achievement;
Demonstrate to parents how to create a literacy-rich home environment and engage with the school around their child's literacy development, increasing the likelihood of long-term school success;
Partner with teachers and administration to provide training and tools that build the capacity of schools to work with parents as allies, increasing the likelihood of school success;
Organize the community, through parent leadership training and collaborations with neighborhood-based organizations, to grow and sustain a culture that supports reading achievement and school success for all children through coordinated enrichment opportunities.
Children in high poverty areas experience a language and literacy gap which, when unaddressed, results in a lack of reading proficiency that impacts their lives. Children in low-income families lack essential one-on-one reading time. A report by the Packard and MacArthur Foundations found that the average child growing up in a middle class family has been exposed to 1,000 to 1,700 hours of one-on-one picture book reading by the time he or she starts school. The average child growing up in a low-income family, in contrast, has only been exposed to 25 hours of one-on-one reading. Jeff McQuillan, The Literacy Crisis: False Claims, Real Solutions, 1998. Since oral language and vocabulary are closely connected to reading comprehension, disadvantaged children face increased challenges learning to read. The achievement gap begins here, with an opportunity gap.
Young children in New York City spend their days in a variety of places—homes, child care centers, preschools, and elementary schools. Each of these places needs to be literacy-rich, with parents, child care providers, teachers, librarians, and community members all providing such environments for children . The combination of positive social interactions with caring adults along with exposure to high quality materials (e.g., storybooks) has been shown to nourish literacy development. Literacy Inc. (LINC) employs a systemic approach to literacy development across the ecosystem of a childhood, increasing opportunities for children to experience reading and closing the achievement gap.
Paul Reville, the Education Redesign Lab's director and a former education secretary in Massachusetts. Quoted in Education Week Ed. Groups Urge 'Whole-Child' Approach to Counteract Poverty Aim is to address barriers to success By Denisa R. Superville (Feb 2016)
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
LINC's Comprehensive Literacy Model consists of multiple program components that support an aspect of building a strong foundation for literacy for emerging readers.
Our Parent Engagement Program provides support for families of emerging readers to become active partners in their children's educational success. Low-income/immigrant families face many barriers to engaging with their child's school. LINC provides workshops, proven tools, and resources, including appropriate books. LINC assists parents in developing their own strong out-of-school literacy support plan, along with a literacy-rich home environment - even if they do not speak English or read fluently themselves.
The Very Involved Parent (VIP) Academy trains parents to serve as peer advocates and deliver community reading events to their neighbors. This extends LINC's reach and raises the profile of reading across the neighborhood. Delivered parent to parent, the message is amplified, “Children need family support to become strong readers."
LINC’s early childhood program uses the Five Practices of early literacy - talk, sing, play, draw, read - to support parents of children under five. LINC emphasizes the importance of early literacy with parents and caregivers and shares strategies about incorporating these practices in their daily routines. LINC is now implementing an eight-week positive parenting workshop series, “Read to Me Little Bee” that supports language development and parent/child bonding through facilitated literacy interactions in a developmentally appropriate space.
LINC's Reading Everywhere Program organizes the community around enrichment activities that drive the message that, “Reading well is a community-held value." Whether a read-a-loud under a shady tree at the park, a bi-lingual library story hour, a building lobby reading corner, or a family literacy night at a school, these events engage community members and help cultivate a culture of reading.
In schools, LINC works to build strong parent/teacher collaborations. With organizations and early childhood centers, LINC provides professional development in how to conduct engaging read alouds, facilitate child-facing programs and deepen parent involvement at home. These trainings ensure the continuum of learning and strengthen the bond between parents, teachers and facilitators.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
LINC was founded in 1996 by New York State Regent Emerita, Mimi Levin Lieber. Her vision was to engage the entire community as a resource to support childhood literacy success. LINC's grassroots model creates systemic change in the high poverty communities we serve by building parent, school and community capacity.
We are proud that NonProfit New York awarded LINC an award for Excellence in Financial Management in 2018, Excellence in Fundraising and Advocacy in 2019 and was a top three finalist for Overall Excellence in 2019.
LINC has a diverse and collaborative 24 member Board that believes in the mission and is integral to LINC's financial & programmatic success. We expect to increase Board membership in both number and diversity through recruiting members from the communities we serve. The Board is currently developing a strategic plan, in collaboration with LINC's senior management, to guide growth through 2023.
LINC provides its Comprehensive Literacy Model in 7 neighborhoods across all five boroughs in New York City. In each neighborhood, we provide programming in a cluster of 3-5 Title I elementary schools that share access to a branch library & other community resources, including local businesses, banks & cultural institutions.
LINC's Community Managers, Coordinators & Assistants are the backbone of LINC's successes and effectiveness. They connect with existing literacy resources, address gaps in service with supplemental programs, and organize and support members of the community to build sustainable literacy networks. Staff have deep ties to the neighborhoods where they work; they are familiar with neighborhood resources and may have attended or have children in neighborhood schools. This establishes credibility with participants and leads to trusting relationships between LINC's staff and those we serve.
Our Early Childhood Programming has expanded by 76% In 2019, LINC reached 53% more children under the age of five and 27% more more parents with children under five than the prior year. We distributed more than 18,700 books and ran hundreds of workshops, programs and literacy events throughout the city. LINC trained 78 new parent volunteers though our VIP Academy. These parent volunteers are a critical part of LINC's commitment to helping community members model positive family literacy practices for their neighbors. LINC has expanded programming to NYCHA public housing in an effort to reach the most marginalized families.
In addition to direct program services, LINC spearheads three coalitions of peer literacy organizations and educations program providers in New York City. LINC serves as the facilitator for two place-based collaborative impact projects funded by The Pinkerton Foundation – South Jamaica Reads and East New York Reads. LINC also leads City's First Readers, a city-wide New York City Council initiative that allies ten literacy and education organizations, including all three public library systems.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Building on her training as a sociologist, plus forty years of experience as a consumer attitude consultant, and fifteen years of service as a member of the New York State Board of Regents, Mimi Levin Lieber understood 20 years ago the power of reading to change lives. She also knew that every neighborhood, no matter how impoverished, has resources that can and must be mobilized to help children read well and love to read.
LINC draws upon the work of Professor Joyce Epstein of Johns Hopkins University and her findings of positive impact when schools, family and communities work in partnership and share responsibility for student learning and development. Additionally, our programs are informed by the research of Karen Mapp of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. For children living in poverty, high-quality early childhood programs, family involvement and community support each make critical contributions to developing literacy skills. Evidence-based research and a consistent vision intersect to shape LINC's Comprehensive Literacy Model. Consequently, LINC's has created a unique and effective model, serves many families and communities every year, and has strong partnerships across the city that help us achieve our mission.
A remaining challenge is to fully capture our lasting impact on individual families and their larger community context. Because LINC changes attitudes and behaviors, those changes are portable for program participants and are potentially self-sustaining. When a mother learns the value of reading as part of a LINC workshop, is assisted in procuring a library card, and then talks about a book or story hour or homework tip on a park bench with her friends, she has learned to model literacy. When she takes the further step of training as a LINC Very Involved Parent (VIP), she acquires the skills to become a literacy ambassador within her neighborhood. This positive experience in modeling literacy and providing community service also leaves sustainable changes in behavior. Because we are looking for individual and community impact, these results are difficult to track. LINC continues to develop its evaluation strategy to capture and communicate the impacts that we know, anecdotally, are happening for those we serve.
LINC's role as initiative facilitator (described previously) is a logical extension of our ecosystem approach. LINC also seeks to expand our leadership role within New York City in the field of early childhood literacy and take on more opportunities to collaborate with strong partners.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
It is difficult to get the people we serve to respond to requests for feedback, The people we serve tell us they find data collection burdensome, Staff find it hard to prioritize feedback collection and review due to lack of time
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Literacy, Inc.
Board of directorsas of 01/18/2024
Carlos Rodriguez
Sidley Austin LLP
Susan Orchant
Ansonia Partners
Helene Jaffe
Dan Lee
PJT Partners
Andrew Spring
MidOcean Partners
Ron Rentel
Consumer Eyes
Carlos Rodriguez
Sidley Austin LLP
Kosha Udani
PricewaterhouseCoopers
Robert Spierer
Perelson Weiner LLP
Ann Short
Green City Force
John Halley
Viacom Media Networks
Mary Fratto Rowe
Salesforce
John Pantalena
Guggenheim Partners
Stephanie Young
Carl Folta
Abernathy MacGregor Group Inc
Tracy Dockray
Children's author & illustrator
Jordan Halpern Leistner
Silver Lake
Clare Premo Perez
Unilever
Nahid Lakhani
Avenue: The World School
John Galiski
Alix Partners
William Estilo
Deloitte
James Lieber
Lieber Strategies
Pat Mitchell
Former Principal of PS 48Q
Andrea Newborn
ABM Industries
Victor Pichardo
Saint Barnabas Health System
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Transgender Identity
Sexual orientation
Disability
Equity strategies
Last updated: 03/11/2022GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We review compensation data across the organization (and by staff levels) to identify disparities by race.
- We disaggregate data to adjust programming goals to keep pace with changing needs of the communities we support.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
- We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
- We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.
- We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.