One of the keys to this particular AmeriCorps program’s success is its juggling of different monetary sponsors.  By national law, no more than fifty percent of its budget can come federal funding.  However, City Year Chicago has made a concerted effort to limit its reliance upon federal funding, keeping its percentage down to thirty percent.  The rest of its budget comes from private corporate sponsors.  CY as an organization believes in developing relationships with corporate sponsors within the private sector for two key reasons.  The first is as an act of survival to ensure growth and sustainability, a lesson learned from past experience of unreliable federal support.  In 2003, when huge cuts were made in the federal budget to AmeriCorps spending, many AmeriCorps programs around the country took a heavy hit and had to make severe cutbacks in their staffing and activities; programs which almost entirely relied on federal funding had to close their doors altogether.  CY Chicago managed to scale down only minimally, thanks to their budget being supplemented to such a degree by other private sources.  The second reason CY focuses on forming these relationships is for the goal of molding corporate responsibility.  CY Chicago hopes that their corporate sponsors will choose to engage with and invest in their communities in more ways than just financial.

Another important partnership for City Year Chicago is the relationship they have with the schools in which the teams work.  It takes around $200,000 to maintain a single team at a school, and CY asks the schools to cover 15-20% of this charge.  CY views this as a sign of the school’s interest and commitment to invest in the program.  The CY teams work to mentor and tutor the children in partnership with the school districts, so they need the schools’ full support and cooperation.  CY Chicago has an entire staff position dedicated to building strong, friendly relations with the local school districts.  The program hopes that these bonds can become as deep as the ones built by its peer organization in New York.  CY New York is currently expanding to 500 corps members, largely due to the huge support and financial investment of the local school district.  CY Chicago has its own growth-expansion plan of reaching 200,000 corps members over the next several years.

City Year Chicago remains committed to their method of serving the community through tutoring programs and weekend programming because they have seen visible results from their efforts.  Currently, they track student improvement by monitoring changes in participating students’ classroom behavior, attendance in class and in the programs, tri-annual literacy assessments, and qualitative surveys completed by administrators, teachers and students.  Their data shows that 80% of students tutored display visible improvement in their reading skills, and 50% improve by two-thirds of a grade level.  CY is still working on ways to track any long-term impact the program may have on the students, the main problem being schools’ hesitation to provide tracking data on the involved students along with control group data.  

City Year, federal funding, corporate sponsors, community (all tags)

In order to post a comment, you must be logged in. If you have a member account, please log in to comment.

If not, you can make an account by clicking right here. It's quick and free.

Youth, Education & National Service

Road Trip With a Mission: Expanding National Service. AmeriCorps alumni and ServeNext.org members, are traveling the country by bus for the National Service Express Tour, hitting 30 cities in 60 days.

Find a ServeNext event near you:

No upcoming events