SparkYouth NYC, Inc.

The Catalog operates much like a fund of funds for emerging NYC youth development nonprofits. Catalog's goal is to identify NYC's most promising and inspiring new youth development programs and to provide them with significant financial, strategic and operational support to help them grow to the sustaining level. Equally important, The Catalog is a vital resource for generous supporters of disadvantaged children in NYC, vetting and selecting the premier youth development programs and assuring that they are meeting their goals of serving at-risk youth and expanding their programs to serve more children and/or deepen the services they provide their participants. By pairing these two goals, The Catalog gives supporters the confidence that they can rely on our expertise when they invest in smaller and newer nonprofits—those that may still fly beneath the radar screen of more traditional funders. At the same time, The Catalog is working with the nonprofits in its cohort to strengthen them, raise their profiles and bolster their ability to serve disadvantaged NYC children. The Catalog's ultimate goal is to invest in NYC;s most precious resource to transform young lives.

Every three years The Catalog for Giving assembles member selection team comprised of Catalog board members and other community leaders committed to supporting at-risk NYC youth. We release an RFP through varied channels, seeking to receive applications from a wide variety of youth serving programs that meet our criteria. At a minimum, groups must be younger than 10-years-old at time of application, and have budgets below a specified amount ($1.5M in the last RFP) and be strictly serving NYC youth, to be considered. Applicant organizations also submit their budgets and audited financials and answer a range of questions regarding their services, short and long-term goals, participant make-up and staff. The member selection committee is divided into teams of 4-5 people, who review a group of applicants and decide which merit visits and further consideration. A series of meetings is scheduled with the entire committee to narrow the selection to finalists and to the ultimate cohort of 12-15 organizations that will be our member partners for a three year cycle. During that cycle, members receive significant financial support (in recent years from$60-75K) depending on how much we raise from supporters. The Catalog staff works closely with the cohort, providing a series of professional development workshops, mentoring staff on strategic development and fostering partnerships between these leaders young NYC nonprofits that are serving underserved children. Finally, each member program is assigned a board liaison who helps mentor the organization. The Catalog's staff and board work hard to raise the funds which we donate in full to these organizations. Approximately 90% of The Catalog's overhead is covered by the support of its generous board members.

The Catalog's staff have broad experience in nonprofits with a particular specialty in NYC youth development programs, as well as in fundraising. The staff are involved with a variety of professional organizations that address the needs of the youth development community and the interests of funders. The Catalog's board consists of prominent members of the business community and nonprofit and community leaders who are highly committed to The Catalog's mission and well-versed in the needs and challenges of NYC. Together, this team and other consultants and advisers manage the member selection, mentoring and strategic development, fundraising and other aspects of running The Catalog's multi-faceted program.

In the recent years, we have encouraged program and participant growth and the development of critical life and education skills. We are very proud that the majority of our programs have expanded to new sites, often in other NYC boroughs, in recent years. Several programs have more than tripled the number of youth served during their three-year cycle with The Catalog. Several of our programs include college readiness as part of their programs and report 100% of their seniors are graduating and attending college. Others have identified additional ways to serve their participants, such as one college access program, which came to realize that it needed to support its students once they were at college, rather than just getting them to the college gate. Many of our programs partner to share resources and special capabilities. Some are bringing their programs to serve children in other programs, such as an athletic or arts-based program that engages students in an after-school program for children with an incarcerated parent. This strengthens the youth-serving community and increases services for the children who need it most.