John and Janice Wyatt Foundation
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Standards of Learning (SOLs) taken in the 3rd grade are key indicators of the future success of a child in the public school system. Generally, upon entering 4th grade, the success – or lack thereof – can be identified as children are either A or B tracked at that point. Once on a B track, it is very difficult to move out of that pathway and find success. The latest Virginia Biennial School Readiness Report Card states 45% economically disadvantaged elementary school students failed the 3rd grade reading SOL (almost half) and 36% failed the math (1 in 3). Therefore, it is critical to invest in early childhood education to offer better opportunities for reading and math preparation – and thus successful SOL testing – at the completion of elementary school.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Educational supports for economically disadvantaged youth
The John & Janice Wyatt Foundation provides grants to create, enhance, or scale specific programming needs aligned with the mission and vision of the organization. Grants will be committed to public educational institutions and high-impact non-profits working within the targeted geographic service areas.
Where we work
External reviews

Photos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Evaluation documents
Download evaluation reportsNumber of students per classroom during the reporting period
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth, Social and economic status
Related Program
Educational supports for economically disadvantaged youth
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
We are beginning to see slight increases in OST numbers. These numbers increased more significantly as a result of the Boys and Girls Club coming to Dorchester County, MD
Number of students who perform at average or above on standardized testing
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth, Social and economic status
Related Program
Educational supports for economically disadvantaged youth
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Decreasing
Context Notes
These are percentages
Rate of student attendance during the reporting period
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth, Social and economic status
Related Program
Educational supports for economically disadvantaged youth
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Decreasing
Context Notes
These are percentages and are displayed as a decrease in chronic absenteeism numbers. Thus a reduction in numbers are a positive indicator.
Number of students who exhibit kindergarten readiness
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth, Social and economic status
Related Program
Educational supports for economically disadvantaged youth
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
These are percentages of K readiness improvement
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Reports and documents
Download strategic planLearn 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?
We are a newly founded family foundation that is just getting started in working with partners to level the playing field for disadvantaged you in the education space. The John & Janice Wyatt Foundation is a 501c(3) non-profit, grantmaking family foundation established in July 2018. We are intensely focused on creating equity and leveling the playing field for socially and economically disadvantaged children and youth in our geographic service area. Our focus is on early childhood education through high school – the cradle to career pathway – and our goal is to help these children stay engaged and become successful, active citizens in today’s rapidly evolving world.
If J2W Foundation wants to improve the readiness and preparation of economically disadvantaged elementary school students with the goal of achieving academic parity with their peers, as well as be more successful with the 3rd grade SOLs, a number of early interventions could be explored. These early interventions would raise the level of academic performance of targeted children during elementary school, which would increase readiness for SOL benchmarking in the 4th grade, thus improving the likelihood of academic achievement later in middle and high school, and therefore creating higher opportunities for success with high school graduations and post-high school citizenship.
To help close the achievement gap for the economically disadvantaged children within the community, one approach must be to focus resources and capacity on increasing access and improving quality early childhood education, while supplementing the school districts with high-attending, high-quality out-of-school time programming.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
We will focus our resources on increasing access to, and improving the quality of, early childhood education; then wrap around high-quality, high attending out-of-school time programs to supplement the public schools and reinforce these early childhood gains.
Our four strategic buckets include:
• Developing a Collective Impact model that works in synchronicity with the entire community to facilitate a holistic, unified approach, targeted to improve educational outcomes for all children, with a focus on 3rd grade literacy.
• Increasing access to quality education for low-income children to reduce the opportunity gap.
• Improving the quality of existing public and private programs to deliver better results and reduce the achievement gap.
• Continually exploring other innovative approaches that have the potential to improve equity in education, and to be nimble and responsive to new ideas.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
While we recognize our approach is not necessarily unique to the overall non-profit sector, we do believe we distinguish ourselves from many other similar organizations in several ways:
• We intend to develop deep relationships with our partners. We do not plan to write checks and hope the work on the ground gets done. We are intentional about understanding the key community challenges, we identify and research the existing organizations already doing the work and choose those we believe are (or can be) successful, we collaborate to develop the program design and implementation plan, and we share and analyze data to determine effectiveness and performance.
• We believe we already possess adequate financial resources to develop or enhance strong programs. Thus, we do not fundraise to bring revenue to our foundation. What we do is strive to bring along additional co-investors who believe the programs and partners we are working with have potential and are willing to consider layering their funding with ours to scale successful programs and to ultimately do more together.
• We act as objective brokers within communities. We work to facilitate community conversations, bring multi-sector partners together, and act as the catalyst for new ideas and opportunities.
• We believe we have a leadership team that complements one another and will help ensure we achieve the results we seek. We have expertise in building and running successful private industry; we have strong leadership in the non-profit sector; and we have extensive experience in K-12 education. Combined, we have the internal capacity to help propel communities forward with a new vision for the future but, ultimately, it will take much more than our investments to move the needle in a significant and sustainable way.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
In 2020, we shifted our long-term strategies to a shorter-term COVID-19 response effort. To that end:
- Facilitated and organized all-day Learning Labs for students to have a safe space to do homework during the virtual learning year
- Support out-of-school time non-profits with bridge funding and summer camp resourcing
- Supported public school pre-k programs with take-home materials
- Assisted non-profits with acquiring CARES Act grant funding
- Funded virtual tutoring programs during the virtual school year
Also, we're now transitioning back to long-term programming:
- Bringing the Campaign for Grade Level Reading (collective impact program) to both Winchester, VA and Dorchester County, MD
- Funding a Virginia Pre-K Initiative classroom for Winchester, VA, adding 18 slots for new students
- Exploring a pilot Pre-K3 program for 3-year olds in Dorchester County, MD
- Piloting a CDA mentoring credentialing program in Fairfax County, VA
- Expanding ASQ developmental screening program in Fairfax County, VA
- Redesigning the in-school mentoring program for Fairfax County Public Schools
- Building capacity of an OST non-profit in Dorchester County, MD by funding their first-ever executive director
- Piloting a YMCA early learning readiness program in Dorchester County, MD
- Funding an Internet-for-All (reduce digital divide) program in Winchester, VA
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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Who are the people you serve with your mission?
Economically-disadvantaged students and families within our geographic service area
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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 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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What significant change resulted from feedback?
As a new foundation, at this point, we have used feedback to landscape community strengths and needs to better inform and shape program designs. Our programs are just beginning and we have survey instruments and other tools to measure effectiveness over time, but those tools won't be used until later milestones are reached.
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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 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
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.
John and Janice Wyatt Foundation
Board of directorsas of 01/19/2023
John Wyatt
Janice Wyatt
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? Not applicable -
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? Not applicable -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Not applicable
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
No data
Disability
No data