Programs and results
What we aim to solve
"The Omaha Public Schools Strategic Plan of Action deliberately and creatively addresses the trends Omaha Public Schools faces and reimagines a 21st century education ecosystem that prepares all students for a successful life after high school." has a focus of ensuring graduating seniors have had a complete education, focusing on the experience toward the whole child. One particular aspect is ensuring that all third graders are literate and enjoy reading when they enter fourth grade. The Omaha Public Schools Foundation is directing dollars strategically to support these objectives as well as our other priorities of universal early childhood programs, quality before/after school parent-pay childcare programs, supporting emergency needs for students in poverty and post-secondary scholarships for graduating Omaha Public Schools seniors.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Kids Club
Kids Club is a before and after school program administered by the Omaha Schools Foundation for children attending Omaha Public Elementary Schools. The mission of Kids Club is to provide high quality care for children in a safe nurturing environment. Students are greeted each day by qualified child care specialists who facilitate activities that include arts and crafts, outdoor games, storytelling, music and drama.
Early Childhood Education
Omaha Schools Foundation currently provides early childhood programs at four Omaha Public Schools. The classroom instruction is overseen by early childhood certificated teachers and paraprofessionals using “Creative Curriculum.” Creative Curriculum is used to provide the children with academic, social and emotional opportunities as they begin their learning journey.
Omaha Public Schools Foundation Scholarships
The Foundation strives to raise new scholarship dollars each year to provide optimal funding for Omaha Public Schools graduating seniors the opportunity to pursue post-secondary education, while growing established endowments.
Omaha Public Schools Foundation Teacher Classroom Grants
The Foundation strives to provide more dollars annually to 6,000 Omaha Public School teachers as tax dollars for education continue to decline.
Where we work
Affiliations & memberships
Partners for Livable Communities Sustainability Award 2018
External reviews

Photos
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of Facebook followers
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth, Families
Related Program
Omaha Public Schools Foundation Scholarships
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
The Omaha Public Schools Foundation started utilizing FB insights at the beginning at 2017.
Number of websites and organizations (outside of our organization) that share our resources and information
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Young adults, Children and youth
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
The number of organizations sharing resources/information increased with the broad implementation of the Foundation's marketing plan. The Foundation's new marketing committee will again revise in 2023
Number of return website visitors
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Related Program
Kids Club
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
The KidsClub website is used as a parent resource for our childcare program/billing portal. Metric reflects returns for KidsClub site for these resources.
Number of website pageviews
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Related Program
Kids Club
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
There is a direct correlation between the implementation of the marketing plan & the increase in pageviews. The Foundation also made the site more user friendly with easier ways to pay for services.
Number of unique website visitors
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Related Program
Kids Club
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of new website visitors
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Related Program
Kids Club
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
Of the 21,377 visits, 20,944 were first time users.
Average number of impressions on Twitter
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Related Program
Omaha Public Schools Foundation Scholarships
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
We have revised the way we interpret this data point and consider it to be average number of page views per year. This is for Kids Club and there's not as much traffic as there is for the Foundation.
Number of students per teacher during the reporting period
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children
Related Program
Early Childhood Education
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
19-21 school year: Covid closed our early childhood classrooms. Post Covid our numbers are gradually increasing in the parent pay program of 4-5 year olds in six schools.
Number of children who have emerging literacy skills such as beginning letter recognition and phonological awareness, story comprehension, and use of writing materials.
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children
Related Program
Early Childhood Education
Type of Metric
Context - describing the issue we work on
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
These numbers represent the number of children who have successfully left our program in a calendar school year, ages 4-5, and entered kindergarten.
Number of students at or above a 90% attendance rate
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children
Related Program
Early Childhood Education
Type of Metric
Context - describing the issue we work on
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
This represents the number of students at 90% or above attending our early childhood program.
Number of children who received childcare services.
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Related Program
Kids Club
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
This data represents average daily attendance at 39 elementary schools, before and after school. When Covid shut down our schools, we couldn't operate the childcare program in the buildings.
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?
Goals:
1) The Foundation is strategically focusing teacher classroom grant dollars on District-aligned initiatives. However, based on a recent survey of teachers, it is now understood that the pressure on teachers to perform remote AND in person learning is the first priority. 60% said that they would not have the time or inclination to focus on a teacher classroom grant this school year.
The Foundation works to ensure that graduating seniors have scholarship opportunities to pursue post-secondary education. There is an ongoing effort to provide scholarships for students who are going on to trade schools, as well. The increase in interest in Career Education Academies in the District has grown exponentially over the last few years and the Foundation is supporting dual-enrollment, certifications, tools/equipment needs. The 21-22 school year will show an increase in wall to wall academies.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Strategies include:
1) Quarterly meetings between Foundation leadership and the Superintendent to ensure that there is a clear understanding of how we are supporting her efforts and that they are targeted;
2) Continued quality communication with parents to ensure their childcare needs are met when their children are in the school buildings. Covid has taken a toll on working families and childcare remains a necessary service. Our challenge is providing the program under health guidelines to keep all participants and staff healthy;
3) Continued review of our business model (including grant writing and seeking increased donations) to ensure we are able to continue operations during Covid;
4) Continued pursuit of scholarship dollars to ensure our student membership which is currently 53,000 and 76% FRL, have the best funding available to pursue a post-secondary education.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Our capabilities include an engaged board of directors, a strong partnership with the Superintendent and her leadership, a strong partnership with community leaders and a solid social media/community presence that is overseen by qualified media professionals.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
The OPS Foundation Executive Director is also the president of the board of directors of the National Schools Foundation Association which is a membership organization to K-12 education foundations across the U.S. Through this opportunity, one of the most interesting notes is that our ed foundations struggle with operational dollars nationwide. The OPS Foundation continues to mentor other colleagues to develop a business model, such as the one that exists around parent-pay childcare and early childhood classrooms. Unfortunately, Covid has hit non-profits as hard as businesses. The important piece to remember is that K-12 education foundations serve a very specific role for their Districts and as tax dollars continue to be diluted, the mission of these foundations does not change. The OPS Foundation is proud to serve the student membership of the largest urban school district in the State of Nebraska.
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 and remedy poor client service experiences, 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 identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve
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What significant change resulted from feedback?
A recent example of how we changed a program was a class size reduction in our early childhood program. We surveyed parents and found that they thought 24 children per classroom was too many and there wasn't enough personal attention. The classroom size will be reduced for the 21-22 school year.
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
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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
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.
OMAHA PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION
Board of directorsas of 01/13/2023
Steve Kinkead
Rehab Visions
Cheryl Logan
David Van Metre
Barbara Velazquez
Gema Simmons
Sara Howard
Tracy Casady
Robert Miller
Adam Steffen
Sharon Kirshenbaum
Sarah Gilbert
Antonio Espejo
Alberto Varas
Herman Colvin
Tiffanie McCowin
Theresa Barron-McKeagney
Nancy Oberst
Steve Kinkead
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
Sexual orientation
Disability
Equity strategies
Last updated: 11/03/2020GuideStar 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 have long-term strategic plans and measurable goals for creating a culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
- 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.