GRACE HILL SETTLEMENT HOUSE
Everyday Opportunities
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Community Hubs
At Grace Hill, we know that it takes more than a single program, person or organization to truly make a difference in the lives of St. Louis families. At our place-based community hubs, we bring all available resources together to work in collaboration with the neighborhood for a stronger, healthier future. Our flagship Water Tower Hub in the College Hill neighborhood is a one-stop-shop for early childhood education (Head Start), community building, business development (Women’s Business Center), job training (Connections to Success) and financial services (St. Louis Community Credit Union) — right across the parking lot from a state-of-the-art health center.
Head Start
The cornerstone of Grace Hill’s program offerings is Head Start — serving 315 children at five dedicated community centers and partner sites in North and South City of St. Louis. Not only do we provide an excellent education, but leverage this success into a comprehensive support approach that uplifts the entire family.
Women's Business Center
The Women’s Business Center offers comprehensive services to support entrepreneurship. With a focus on women and minorities in underserved communities, we provide in-depth 16-week business development training, one-on-one business counseling, networking events, and the Entrepreneurial Learning workshop series.
Community School Program
The only way to assure that a child can be the best possible student is to address the needs o f the family too. The Community School Partnership (CSP) is a child-centered, family approach to reach at least two generations of each family enrolled in a partner elementary school. Although multi-generational solutions can be the most challenging to implement, they are the best approach to breaking down the barriers that negatively impact social, economic, and academic outcomes.
Through targeted prevention, Family Mentors are able to identify students with high mobility rates and low attendance. Each mentor works directly with parents to connect them to housing, employment, and mental health resources -- often answering calls during the night hours to ensure that students can arrive at school the next morning.
Where we work
Affiliations & memberships
Alliance for Children and Families - Member 2014
United Neighborhood Centers of America 2014
United Way Member Agency 2014
External reviews

Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of phone calls home within an hour of a student being marked absent or tardy
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Community School Program
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Mentors work directly with school staff, parents, and students to identify issues and create solutions before problems escalate. Mentors make daily calls home when students are marked absent or tardy.
Number of referrals to resources offered
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Community School Program
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Mentors meet with caregivers to identify family needs and refer to service providers (health, mental health, material, food, housing, legal, employment, etc). Referrals are tracked to ensure success.
Number of hours of 1-on-1 business counseling provided
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Women's Business Center
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Grace Hill's business counselors provide 1-on-1 counseling to aspiring entrepreneurs to cover a variety of start-up related topics.
Number of new businesses created
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Women's Business Center
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
The Women's Business Center is dedicated to providing micro-business development for aspiring entrepreneurs, with a primary focus on minority women in the community.
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?
Grace Hill Settlement House is a place-based social service and education organization that aims to impact the children, families and communities it serves in a comprehensive and coordinated fashion. With its base of 315 Head Start families, Grace Hill provides excellent early childhood education, works toward family economic and social stability goals, and engages the surrounding community in long-term neighborhood change efforts. This means that Head Start graduates are ready for kindergarten, families earn, maintain and grow enough income for long-term support, and communities can co-lead efforts to construct housing, public safety and other vital service capacities for sustainable neighborhood health.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
In Head Start, Grace Hill's Kindergarten Readiness Framework works from national and local best practices to ensure that graduates are ready for kindergarten — measured through standardized testing in social, emotional and cognitive development. Grace Hill also ensures that children arrive ready to learn, working with families to stabilize housing, enhance income, and plan for long-term goals. In target low-income communities in North and South St. Louis City, where its Head Start centers/community hubs are located, Grace Hill also engages residents in leadership training — advocating for needed services, housing and built environment improvements, and volunteerism. This comprehensive and coordinated work focuses on the confluence of academic, economic and neighborhood improvement needed for long-term change.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Grace Hill operates two community-based hubs, each with over 100 Head Start and Early Head Start slots. Head Start is staffed by qualified teachers, teaching assistants, and case managers that work with families to accomplish their goals. These community hubs also convene on-site partner organizations like a credit union and job training agency to work with families toward long-term stability — as well as staffing Grace Hill services like emergency assistance and adult education classes that support families on this path. This collection of educators, nonprofit professionals, partner organizations, parents and neighborhood volunteers works together on setting impact benchmarks, leveraging resources into the centers, and responding to family/resident requests. Grace Hill continues to expand their reach in South St. Louis City — creating a model for place-based, wrap-around social service delivery that impacts the lives of children, their families, and their communities.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Over the past five years, Grace Hill has developed its community hub model for comprehensive and coordinated work. It continually strives to refine the ideal outcomes of its own services, leveraging partner organizations to fill needed gaps, and continuing to work as a cross-organizational team to change communities. This work is starting to show results for families in its North St. Louis City location, though much still needs to be done to adapt this model to South St. Louis City — which currently does not host as many partner organizations and shared outcomes. With a captive audience of Head Start children and their families, Grace Hill is now more heavily investing in two generation programming — as the well-being of children cannot be separated from the health of their caregivers. Soon, it will work on bundling its services to provide Head Start and community families with a more consistent, powerful set of programming that enhances financial stability and growth. In addition, Grace Hill is partnering with local elementary schools that are most frequently attended by Head Start children to continue the family support and engagement process — ensuring that children are kindergarten ready, then ready for middle school and beyond, while under-girding the long-term social and economic health of their caregivers.
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
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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.
GRACE HILL SETTLEMENT HOUSE
Board of directorsas of 11/07/2019
Mr. Alex Silversmith
US Bank
Term: 2019 - 2020
Dorothy Martin
John Sant
Carol Walker
Mark Schupp
Tom Kahn
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? No