Communities In Schools, Inc.

The United States' education crisis can be summed up in one statistic: Every twenty-six seconds, a child drops out of school and into an uncertain future. Students whose academic, social service and basic life needs are not met often succumb to despair and frustration, even though they may be bright and fully capable of achieving in school.

Communities In Schools' (CIS) mission is to surround students with a community of support, empowering them to stay in school and achieve in life. CIS works in the most economically challenged communities – 90+% of CIS students are eligible to receive free and reduced priced lunch; 80+% are racial minorities. By turning around schools where dropout rates are high due to poverty, and going to schools with high minority populations, CIS addresses the dropout crisis where it is most acute.

CIS employs a proven model of Integrated Student Services (ISS). Our vision is to expand quality implementation of ISS to every state through a network of providers benefitting from CIS leadership and services and leveraging resources in their own communities.

In 2012-2015, CIS will make a transformative investment to position the organization and ISS model to attract national, state, and local resources; produce an ROI of sustainable, measureable dropout prevention; and change the lives of children, families, and communities nationwide. We will:

(1) Deepen delivery of services to at-risk youth: CIS will focus on the quality delivery and scope of services within 180+ existing CIS sites and on judicious and strategic expansion to new markets where there is great need and available resources; and where CIS can leverage involvement to engage policy makers and funders.

(2) Continually improve quality: CIS will maintain the strongest evidence-based services for young people through sustainable, accredited, and effective non-profit affiliates, fielding certified site coordinators at the local level. We will continue to measure results through rigorous data collection and evaluation, and ensure quality through standards-setting, ongoing training, and our accreditation and certification programs.

(3) Establish ISS as an education reform priority and build the field of ISS practice: CIS will create a funding and practice infrastructure to spread effective implementation of ISS to every state by embedding ISS as the preferred model of dropout prevention in Federal/state/local policy and funding, and positioning CIS nationwide as the recognized source of service provider training, information, standards, research, and accreditation.

(4) Increase the visibility of CIS as a solution: Scaling up will be strongly supported by a nationwide communications effort to (a) position CIS as effectively addressing a major societal issue and transforming children's lives through ISS; and (b) provide resources and materials to local affiliates to increase the visibility of their work and engage local stakeholders.

CIS works inside school systems with superintendents, principals, educators, and other personnel, and forges community partnerships that bring resources into schools and remove barriers to learning. CIS addresses the total student—because students with unmet physical, psychological, and social needs cannot learn effectively—and the whole school environment. Our research has shown that attention to needs of both the entire school and the individual student is critical to reducing dropout rates and increasing graduation rates. A 5-year independent evaluation by ICF International found that CIS has the strongest reduction in dropout of any existing fully scaled dropout prevention program; is unique in having an impact on both reducing dropout rates and increasing graduation rates; and is effective across states, school settings (urban, rural and suburban), grade levels, and student ethnicities. CIS network data attest to this effectiveness on an annual basis. In the 2011-2012 school year, for example, 99% of CIS students served remained in school, 94% were promoted to the next grade, and 93% of seniors graduated on time.
The core of program and service delivery is the school-based coordinator. Site coordinators tailor services to the needs of individual students, encompassing academic help, direct provision of health care, counseling, transportation, donated goods, mentoring, afterschool programs, and more. With leadership from the CIS national office and a network of state offices, CIS affiliates gather resources within their own communities to implement the school-based ISS program. The cash cost of implementation of the program averages less than $200 per child, because the affiliates are so successful at leveraging goods, services, and volunteer time.
Our objectives over the next three years are: (1) Deliver the highest quality services by completing standards-based accreditation of all CIS affiliates and making all affiliates “comprehensive" sites that deliver both school-wide and individual case management services. (2) Expand the affiliate network strategically to high dropout communities where resources are available and which provide significant political and communications leverage toward the larger goal of nationwide high-quality implementation of ISS. (3) Enhance all affiliates' capacity and sustainability through training, technical assistance, vigorous promotion of the CIS brand and message, network development, and technology resources. (4) Build a grassroots movement that will influence education policy, legislation, and budgeting at national, state, and local levels to direct significant public resources toward widespread implementation of the ISS model. (5) Increase the organizational capacity of CIS National to carry out these objectives and position the organization as the source of national leadership, quality control, technical assistance, information, and networking that will take the CIS model to scale nationwide.

CIS comes to the dropout crisis with a proven model, a strong national network, committed staff and volunteers, diverse philanthropic support, and a strong management record. The CIS network is comprised of more than 4,000 passionate professionals in 26 states and the District of Columbia, as well as 70,000 community volunteers who serve 1.3 million young people in more than 2,000 schools. The network is the backbone of CIS success. The successful delivery of the ISS model depends on the skill, initiative, and effectiveness of dedicated staff and volunteer leadership in 187 CIS local affiliates and 12 state offices, and on their strong relationships with community and educational leaders. It also depends on the strong support of the CIS national office staff of approximately 50 who aggregate financial resources that are re-granted to affiliates; and provide information, training, network coordination, data collection and analysis, technical assistance, an influential voice in the national discussion of education reform, and state and local advocacy support.
The CIS model and its organizational capacity were strongly endorsed in March 2011 by our selection to participate in an extraordinary philanthropic effort led by the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation (EMCF). The Foundation created the True North Fund, which leverages federal Social Innovation Fund (SIF) public funds with EMCF funds and private money from other resources. To select True North grantees, EMCF conducted intensive due diligence and identified nine organizations from an applicant pool of 225; EMCF recognized CIS's potential to lead a vast expansion of effective services that will reach the millions of additional students in “dropout factories" throughout the nation. The selection process for the True North Fund blended a deep qualitative and quantitative review of CIS's program strength, our ability to use performance management data to improve performance, the strength of our current evidence base, and our overall commitment and capacity to build on that evidence base to expand to scale.
Having been selected as a grantee in the True North portfolio, CIS becomes a partner with EMCF: (1) EMCF's due diligence process and continued oversight sends a clear message that CIS's model is effective, its business operations are sound, its growth plans are realistic, and it demonstrates a clear potential for significant return on philanthropic investment; (2) EMCF is working closely with CIS to leverage EMCF and SIF funds and aggregate additional capital over the next three years from institutional and individual philanthropic sources; and (3) EMCF provides ongoing guidance and counsel in structuring its investment to best serve the grantee's needs and state of organizational readiness, including access to expert consultant assistance from the Bridgespan Group.

Objective: High quality delivery of comprehensive ISS (both whole school programs and individual student case management services) in all CIS affiliates.
Progress: 100 affiliates accredited and providing comprehensive services; 26 currently in the accreditation process; 58 preparing to enter the process.

Objective: Strategic expansion of CIS network to new communities.
Progress: CIS has received funding to develop affiliates in a number of areas with heavy concentrations of "dropout factories" including Nashville, TN; Southeastern Pennsylvania; Santa Fe, NM; Tulsa, OK;