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- Heckscher Scholars
2022: College enrollment declined by over 1 million students. Less than 1/3 of 4th and 8th grade students are proficient in math. Reading scores are not much better. Schools are doing little to prepare youth for the workforce.
2022: College enrollment declined by over 1 million students. Less than 1/3 of 4th and 8th grade students are proficient in math. Reading scores are not much better. Schools are doing little to prepare underserved kids for the workforce.
This year, we feature the impact that Heckscher funding is having on selected organizations and the youth they serve. It highlights our venture approach to philanthropy: catalytic giving, strategic partnerships, and targeted problem solving.
Learning Differences
Dyslexia is an equity issue.
Underserved children, particularly those of color, disproportionately are either diagnosed too late and treated too little, or not diagnosed or treated at all. We have sought innovative solutions to this problem.
We underwrote the planning and start-up of the first public school dedicated to support students with learning differences. We provided the first grants to Literacy Academy Collective (LAC), led by our Heckscher Leadership Fellow, Ruth Genn, to create this school—the first New York City K-8 public school providing scientifically proven instruction to support students with dyslexia and learning differences.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
In the 2022-2023 school year, with Heckscher’s support, LAC is delivering model classrooms in the Bronx, providing direct instruction in reading and written expression across all content areas, with the expectation that the entire Department of Education school will open in 2023. Heckscher’s grants have led to full support (including major financial support) from the Mayor and the Department of Education.
Heckscher catalyzed a solution to the problem of how to identify children at risk of having dyslexia or other learning differences early enough to make a meaningful difference in the direction of the student's life. The best time to identify reading issues is early. Interventions made in 4th grade take four times longer than interventions in kindergarten. That’s why we funded the development of EarlyBird. EarlyBird is a breakthrough assessment tool that empowers educators, parents, and clinicians to replace the old “wait to fail” paradigm, with a proactive, preventive tool to identify and support children at risk— in the window when intervention is most effective.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
Heckscher's early grants, in strategic partnership with other funders, led to the creation of EarlyBird, which is now in use in 17 states and 170 schools nationwide. And with Heckscher’s support, EarlyBird was able to expand to New York City where it is now screening over 1,000 students in the 2022-2023 school year, and expects to be screening more than 2,000 students in 20 schools in the 2023-2024 school year.
Learning Acceleration
Providing more opportunities for underserved kids of color to benefit from gifted and talented public-school options is an equally challenging issue which we focused on in 2022. It is difficult for private philanthropy to have a catalytic impact in this area which is fundamentally a matter of public policy decisions. However, we sought to address this in these grants.
We identified Navigate the Maze to Achievement (NTMA) which prepares talented and highly motivated Black and Latino students for the specialized and selective high school admissions process and supports the students academically and socially in the process of applying to and while in high school. The goal of NTMA is to increase the numbers of Black and Latino students enrolled in specialized and selective high schools and support their success from enrollment to high school graduation and beyond.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
This grant seeks to bring NTMA’s services to a larger cohort of students beginning in January 2023, increase the overall percentage of Black and Latino students getting into specialized high schools from 9% to 12.5%, and to guide NTMA to a path of sustainability beyond this Heckscher grant.
We look to support strong public-school leaders who have a proven track record of serving high-achieving kids. Over the years we have identified a number of effective public-school leaders serving high achievers. In 2022 we provided a grant to support a unique school leadership team which operates one of the most successful K-12 public schools for high achieving youth in New York City. At NEST+m, over 50% of high school graduates attend and graduate from selective private or public colleges. Our support this year has two main objectives: 1) to provide greater support for the college office on post-secondary planning, college preparatory programming, and college prep enrichment partner development, and 2) deepen and connect literacy instruction to experiential learning among the highest and lowest achievers so that NEST+m graduates are better prepared for the demands of college humanities professors while also broadening scholars’ career opportunities.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
With Heckscher’s grant, NEST+m expects 80% of its seniors to submit an application to a selective four-year public or private college and 55% of NEST+m seniors to be admitted to a selective college.
Since 2016, we have supported collaborations involving several selective high schools serving high-achieving students and led by some of the most dynamic and effective leaders, and other high schools (Central Park East, Park East, Heritage, and TYWLS—East Harlem Pride—which are collectively referred to as “Harlem Pride Schools”), focused on shared curriculum and best practices for teaching, exposure to arts programming, and developing quality college access supports, all of which aim to improve student academic performance, engagement in school, college readiness, and ultimately college enrollment and persistence. The results have been dramatic with each school’s students benefiting substantially from the shared practices, and in 2022 we shifted our support to focus on targeted problem solving for specific initiatives at these schools such as earning college credits through our Modern States initiative.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
In the 2021-2022 school year, with Heckscher’s support, students across the four schools enrolled in a Modern States CLEP course and 59% passed a corresponding CLEP exam, therefore earning college credit. During the 2022-2023 academic year, a minimum of 200 CLEP exams will have been taken and passed by East Harlem Pride students.
High-Dosage Literacy Tutoring
Since 2020, Heckscher has supported programs to help students accelerate learning and reduce the impact of interrupted learning, particularly on literacy. High-dosage literacy tutoring, based in the science of reading, is one of those solutions. In 2022, New York City finally adopted a phonics-based literacy curriculum, making a potentially seismic shift in how tens of thousands of public-school students are taught to read. The Heckscher Foundation has led the way by both: 1) piloting and supporting phonics-based reading interventions that have proven successful and 2) creating a strategic partnership to scale high-dosage tutoring in New York City.
We funded Helps Education Fund (HEF) to tutor at least 530 elementary school students and 125 educators from the New York City Department of Education with its Helping Early Literacy Practice Strategies (Helps) program—a high-dosage tutoring program. Over the course of the 2022-2023 school year, grades 1-6 students are receiving Helps in a one-on-one context (Helps 1:1) provided virtually via trained tutors or in groups of 2-5 students (Helps-SG) implemented by trained educators in their classrooms.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
We expect that our support for the 2022-2023 school year will lead to 60% of students receiving Helps 1:1 tutoring or Helps-SG to exceed expected rates of improvement (ROI) on a nationally normed reading assessment.
We helped to pioneer the use of CUNY Brooklyn College students enrolled in early childhood literacy courses as Reading Rescue tutors for students in the New York City public school system. The pilot received significant interest from the funder community and has, with our continued support, become a multi-million dollar public/private partnership (titled CUNY Reading Corps) involving students across multiple CUNY colleges who tutor Department of Education students in early reading skills. CUNY Reading Corps. currently trains preservice teachers in two tutoring programs—Reading Rescue and Reading Ready pairing the tutors with striving New York City Department of Education K-2nd grade students. Lesson plans integrate instruction on the five essential components of literacy: phonemic awareness, phonics (decoding and encoding), fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
With Heckscher’s support, Reading Rescue tutoring resulted in literacy growth for students of one year, in just 3-4 months. For the 2022-2023 school year, Heckscher’s partnership with other foundations is expected to lead to the CUNY Reading Corps. The intervention will reach roughly 2,700 New York City public school students (with 800 CUNY tutors) with reading goals consistent with its past success.
The GO Project provides year-round educational and family support programs for New York City public school children who are performing below grade level. During the 2020 global pandemic, we provided funding for a strategic partnership between GO and Reading Rescue to provide weekly 1:1 literacy instruction for K-2 students. All students’ reading levels grew at a faster rate than what was expected of them during the school year. Building on the literacy intervention success and in light of the massive learning losses resulting from pandemic-related school closures, we helped GO continue this literacy elevation with a strategic partnership with another program—the SIPPS curriculum. SIPPS is aimed at students in grades 3-5 who are in need of foundational skill building and reading proficiency assistance.
In 2022, we also continued our support for:
HECKSCHER IMPACT
With Heckscher’s support, 90% of the students receiving the SIPPS instruction demonstrated growth in age-appropriate phonemic awareness, phonological awareness, and sign word recognition, and 85% of students demonstrated growth toward reading proficiency. GO seeks to achieve the same goals in the current school year.
We joined with other funders to create a strategic partnership to devise and implement a plan of action to scale high-dosage, high-impact tutoring in New York City. The partnership, with the guidance and leadership of TNTP and the support of the Department of Education, chose ExpandED to serve as a backbone organization, creating partnerships between tutoring providers and public and private organizations to develop a tutor to certified teacher pipeline of diverse, talented New Yorkers from a variety of entry points. It will moreover provide technical assistance to build the capacity of New York City’s principals to design, implement and continuously improve tutoring programs grounded in research and targeting students at the margins. It will further coordinate across schools and tutoring providers to eliminate barriers to accessing effective tutoring. After accomplishing all of this, ExpandEd will transfer ownership of scaling effective tutoring to a dedicated team at the New York City Department of Education.
School Leadership & Teaching Support
School leaders and teachers often feel unsupported and overwhelmed. We have sought to find creative solutions to this problem.
Inspire Leadership
We launched a leadership program aimed at increasing the number of effective mid-career high school principals and ultimately increasing the number of effective schools. Created by three of the most highly regarded former New York City public school principals, Inspire Leadership is developing a two-tier approach: Initially, they will pilot an executive coaching and training program involving a 10-month training, including a practicum. A second tier is to identify pre-tenured principals for the newly certified coaches to work with to improve their work habits, retention rates, and, ultimately, student achievement. This program’s objectives include increasing the rate of tenure acquisition for coached principals and reducing staff turnover rates.
Instruction Partners works with individual school and district partners to improve teaching practices. We brought Instruction Partners’ model to New York City by supporting a partnership with a developing public charter high school, East Harlem Scholars Academy (EHSA) High School, which currently serves 9th through 11th grade students. Instruction Partners is working with EHSA to provide instructional coaching to new and existing math and ELA teachers so that teachers strengthen their content delivery.
Lavinia Group helps its partner schools and networks revitalize their literacy and math instruction through leader and teacher training. Lavinia’s leadership designed the highly successful literacy curriculum for Success Academies, a large charter network of high schools in New York City.
We funded a partnership between Lavinia and Brooklyn Charter School, Cultural Arts Academy Charter Schools and Bronx Community Charter School to build upon the work that Bloomberg Philanthropies initiated with charter schools this past summer called Summer Boost. We asked Lavinia Group to identify the Summer Boost New York City charter schools which implemented Lavinia’s summer curriculum successfully and with fidelity that wished to adopt Lavinia’s literacy curriculum for the 2022-2023 school year. Notably, we required that the schools be willing to pay for 50% of the cost for the school year.
As part of this grant, for these three schools for grades 3-5, Lavinia is putting its reading instruction in place, auditing current data and systems, developing systems
for effective instructional management, developing an assessment strategy and providing direct school coaching and other professional development.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
Heckscher expects that this grant will lead to 10% growth on interim assessments and 10% growth on the 2023 New York State English language arts exams (when compared to the 2022 New York State English language arts exams) for students at the applicable three charter schools.
We funded a partnership between Lavinia and Ascend Charter Schools, using a catalytic payment model—paying for successful outcomes. Ascend is a network of K-12 public charter schools serving 5,800 students in 15 schools across Brooklyn. As part of this grant, Lavinia is working with the Ascend leadership team to revise Ascend’s mathematics instruction, audit current data systems, plan instructional design, and develop various instructional strategies. It is also implementing professional development and other trainings at Ascend. Heckscher committed funding based on successful implementation of the Lavinia guidance and the students’ underlying success on interim assessments and state exams. Ascend has also committed a substantial percentage of Lavinia’s cost.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
This grant expects to result in 10% growth between interim assessments and 10% growth on the 2023 New York State math exams (when compared to the 2022 New York State math exam scores) for students at three Ascend Charter elementary schools.
Stepmojo provides high-quality, live online courses to high school students from best-in-class partners. Through this model, schools are able to tap into a larger, national pool of highly effective teachers and provide a high-quality, online alternative for in-demand courses if they cannot find qualified staff locally. We brought this model to New York through partnerships with local high schools.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
In its pilot year of working with New York City schools, at least 80% of students will pass and earn credit for their Stepmojo course.
One area that has been particularly ripe for increased teacher support is math, particularly middle school math—the foundation and the gateway to all STEM courses. Yet declines in proficiency in 8th grade math have generated too few innovative solutions. We pioneered an innovative solution—Teaching Matters’ Math Matters intervention—that focuses on accelerating student learning. This intervention is a customizable approach to improving mathematics instruction in schools through intensive on-site coaching of middle school teachers. Teaching Matters’ staff form partnerships with school teachers and leaders to improve curriculum, instruction, and assessment practices.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
We expect that this grant will result in at least 75% of grade 6-8 students meeting growth goals as measured by nationally normed assessments.
COLLEGE ACCESS
& SUCCESS
CUNY College Connect is a partnership between CUNY’s Office of Student Affairs, College Access: Research & Action (CARA), and select CUNY campuses that aims to establish the framework for a university-wide peer advising system that can support students through matriculation and the first year of college. The primary goal of the program is to provide a remedy for college student attrition. The broader goals are to demonstrate that peer-to-peer advisement can be a cost-effective, scalable model to address the guidance gap; and, to develop a set of tools and codified best practices that can be shared with the field to enable other university systems to adopt this model. Preliminary data from the first year of College Connect at City College of New York (CCNY) demonstrates that even in its early stages of implementation, the program has a positive impact on matriculation and retention. CCNY students served by CUNY College Connect enrolled in the Fall 2021 semester at a rate 16.4 percentage points higher than the first-year class as a whole (91.5% compared to 75.1%). The program is operating at three CUNY campuses this year: Borough of Manhattan Community College, City College, and Queens College.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
We expect that in this second year of operation, both matriculation and retention rates will be 5% higher for participating CUNY College Connect students than a propensity matched comparison group.
Student Sponsor Partners (SSP) supports low-income high school students at 23 partnering high schools by pairing students with both financial sponsors and mentors to propel college and career outcomes. We funded a strategic partnership between SSP and iMentor to improve mentor involvement in college advising by leveraging iMentor’s effective mentor onboarding curricula and technology platform to monitor mentor-mentee engagement.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
Through this partnership, 85% of mentor pairs are expected to engage on the platform within the first year and 90% of mentors will persist in the program through the entire timeframe of their mentorships. Additionally, 80% of SSP students will matriculate to college on time.
Student Leadership Network’s (SLN) key program is CollegeBound Initiative (CBI), a high-touch college guidance and access program that places highly-trained, full-time college counselors in partnering Title I New York City high schools. We supported a pilot program, now in its second year, to extend CBI’s high-touch, near-peer coaching into the first year of college to address student attrition. Bridge Through College focuses on four key drivers for college persistence: 1) FAFSA renewal, 2) financial planning and problem solving, 3) strategic academic advisement, and 4) campus connection and commitment.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
With our support, Bridge Through College was piloted with alumni at two colleges—Hunter College and BMCC. Hunter students persisted at a rate 8% higher than non-participating CBI peers. At BMCC, the improvement was even more dramatic, with BMCC students persisting at a rate 14% higher than non-participating CBI peers. Through this grant, CBI alumni are projected to persist to their second semester at a rate 10% greater than alumni from the same class who directly enroll at the same four-year CUNY campus.
OneGoal is a college access and persistence program that focuses on improving college trajectories for high-potential, middle-achieving students. While OneGoal has maintained high college enrollment rates and has had a significant impact on college persistence and graduation, the organization is challenging its original premise which was that one year of postsecondary support is sufficient to getting students through college graduation. We are supporting OneGoal in testing out advising models beyond that initial year, including through a partnership with Beyond 12, a tech-enabled solution that brings academic, financial, and social-emotional advising directly to low-income and first-generation students pursuing higher education.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
Through these new and differentiated supports, OneGoal expects that at least 70% of Y3 Fellows (high school graduates from the class of 2022) who enrolled in a qualifying postsecondary program within six months of high school graduation re-enroll in Fall 2023.
College Transfer Credits
In 2022, our funding made a catalytic impact on the issue of transfer credits by enabling students who transfer between City University of New York (CUNY) colleges, which well over two-thirds of New York City public school students attend, to count their previously earned credits toward degree requirements at their new institution. Since we spotlighted this issue three years ago, five other New York City-based foundations, as well as major national foundations (Michael & Susan Dell, ECMC and Ascendium), have supported major expansions of this work across the US.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
Our support has led to:
The creation of Transfer Explorer, which for the first time makes transparent and accessible to the public the course equivalencies and program requirements involved in transferring between any combination of CUNY colleges. Transfer Explorer has been accessed by hundreds of thousands of unique users since its launch in May 2020.
Programs at Hostos Community College, Bronx Community College, and Lehman College which have resulted in a dramatic improvement in share of transfer students who were able to count all of their transfer credits toward their Lehman degrees and decreased the length of time it takes to evaluate transfer credits.
Creation of a transfer pathway to the best business program in the CUNY system, the Zicklin School at Baruch College from the largest CUNY community college, Borough of Manhattan Community College.
Smoothing the transfer pathway between Kingsborough Community College and Brooklyn College.
In 2022, we invested in a 3-year plan aimed at expanding the work of Dr. Alexandra Logue and Ithaka S+R to extend Transfer Explorer systems beyond CUNY, facilitating a transfer community of practice, and incorporating business intelligence into the site such that users are presented with analysis, options, and guidance tailored to a student’s unique circumstances.
In 2022, Ithaka S+R released a study outlining the impact the project, Archiving Degree Audit Data to Measure and Reduce Lost Transfer Credit, and Grantmakers for Education selected it from among 138 submissions for its national conference.
Enrollment & Stop-Out Crisis
The decline in matriculation at New York public colleges is at crises proportion. A collaboration with the Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation—whose transformative work in devising an RFP challenging New York colleges to develop innovative approaches—enabled us to make these grants.
KIPP New York City in partnership with Achievement First—two of the most successful charter school management organizations—developed a comprehensive, integrated model of support that leverages their collective experience and scale to dramatically improve postsecondary outcomes. Alumni of both networks, along with Coney Island Prep, are assigned a near-peer College Success Fellow who is both a recent college graduate and Postsecondary Success Collaborative alumnus, to serve as their advisor for two years to increase their chances of degree completion. After the two years of near-peer intensive advisement support ends, alumni continue to receive Nudge-Enabled Remote Advising (NERA) through to college completion.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
Through this grant, the Collaborative projects that 75% of BA and 50% of AA enrolled participants are enrolled in college in Fall Year 2, and 65% of Fall Year 1 BA and 35% of Fall Year 1 AA enrolled participants complete their degree within six years.
We supported the College of Staten Island (CSI) to create a dedicated Stated Island Re-Admissions team in partnership with key local community-based organization stakeholders to identify, connect with, re-engage, enroll, provide academic programming and workforce training, and, ultimately, provide a pathway to gainful employment opportunities for youth within Staten Island.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
With our support, CSI will increase its admissions yield of disengaged Staten Island residents. Specifically, by Fall 2023, CSI will enroll a minimum of 100 participants who are Staten Island residents between the ages of 18-24, of whom 50% will attain successful completion of a College of Staten Island academic program or professional certification program.
With our support, Kingsborough Community College (KCC) piloted a re-engagement model—R&R Program—to target specific students who either applied but never enrolled or who stopped out through highly personalized outreach. Kingsborough’s approach is to leverage advisors to conduct outreach to prospective students that includes developing a personalized enrollment plan as well as the carrot of a free, one-credit course to increase likelihood of engagement.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
As a result of this pilot, Kingsborough expects that an additional 1,600 students will complete an application or re-admission application to KCC or another CUNY college, and that of those applicants, 1,280 will enroll at KCC or another CUNY institution.
LaGuardia Community College is offering young people the opportunity to try out a college-level course for free, during the evening or weekends, on campus. The program, College & Career Connect (CCC), serves 2020, 2021, and 2022 high school graduates who are not enrolled in college and offers short-term, two-month commitment, with successful completion leading to the earning of credits that satisfy degree requirements at LaGuardia Community College. The course is supplemented by access to academic support, opportunities to interact with LaGuardia students via peer mentor programs, financial literacy skill workshops, a weekly MetroCard, and stipend to incentivize participation.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
LCC projects that with our funding 70% of CCC completers will enroll in college within six months (LaGuardia or elsewhere) and 70% of students at LaGuardia will persist to the second semester.
CUNY School of Professional Studies (SPS) is offering flexible scheduling and generous credit for prior learning (CPL) opportunities to re-engage previously enrolled CUNY students under 25 years old by expanding their performance-based admissions program, which grants transfer students an opportunity to gain admission by demonstrating their academic proficiencies in an electronic portfolio. Through this second chance program, students also engage with a College Navigator, a dedicated advisor who provides support throughout the application process and helps students leverage transfer credits and CPL, to map out the fastest, most efficient path to graduation.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
This grant seeks to drive up admissions for students who have stopped out of CUNY institutions through an innovative admissions process. Specifically, 87% of those who complete an application will be admitted and 68% of admits will register for first semester courses.
In 2022
we also supported:
We supported a partnership between Opportunity Network (OppNet) and a forward-thinking, high-performing, public charter high school, MESA Charter High School, to provide high school students with support to make more informed postsecondary decisions, to better understand the value of a college degree, and to connect their educational pathways with potential career earnings. OppNet is one of the most effective programs at teaching career-readiness skills through a specialized Career Fluency® curriculum that emphasizes personal and professional networks and social capital. Through this partnership, OppNet is training MESA teachers and college counselors to implement lessons into specific 10th-12th grade courses, as well as develop individualized college and career plans for each student that outlines specific pathways for success.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
As a result of this strategic partnership, 75% of students will have participated in an internship, apprenticeship, college summer program, or other external program outside of MESA, and MESA's college matriculation rate will be 85% or higher.
Comp Sci High, located in the South Bronx, is the City’s first Career and Technical Education (CTE) charter high school. In recognizing that college is not the right path for all students immediately after high school, Comp Sci offers a voluntary 5th-year option for students to spend half their time at the school and half in a vocational program or internship/apprenticeship. We funded Comp Sci High to launch the first iteration of this program in which students choose a training pathway (healthcare, IT, or HVAC). Each pathway is supported by a partnership with an external organization to provide training in each of these fields: 1) Per Scholas (IT training), 2) Hireblue (HVAC apprenticeship model), and 3) Stepful (healthcare certifications).
HECKSCHER IMPACT
As a result of offering these training pathways, Comp Sci High expects that all students will receive job placements related to their certification/training before completing their fifth year in high school, and that all students will persist in their job placement for six months after securing the job.
Jobs
We funded programs which prepare youth for real jobs in collaboration with employers who put skin in the game.
NPower provides foundational IT skills training for mid-level tech careers and has a track record of successfully placing graduates in jobs with potential for upward mobility. Our funding of NPower targeted support for ramping up recruitment efforts and services for recent high school graduates to admit and retain more trainees in the 18-20 age bracket. Last year, 86% of trainees successfully completed the program, 95% received a tech certification, and 85% were placed in a job within one year of graduation.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
With our funding, 85% of graduates will secure jobs at salaries averaging $36,000-45,000 and/or pursue continuing education within one-year post graduation. Of those finding job placement, 70% will be retained in their jobs one year post placement.
In 2022, we funded the second year of a program that enabled The New Jewish Home to partner with RiverSpring Living’s skilled nursing facility to pilot The SkillSpring Young Adult Program to prepare two cohorts of young adults to become Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) and to receive an offer of employment. For the Summer 2022 cohort, 89% passed the CNA course and 83% achieved CNA certification on the first exam; 80% were offered employment. Full-time, entry-level CNAs can earn an annual salary of $37,000, which is $8,000 more per year than full-time minimum wage earners. The increased lifetime earnings per participant for just CNAs is $350,000, and even more for those receiving advanced licenses.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
In 2023 we expect that 100% of SkillSpring Young Adult Program graduates with certification will be offered employment
The Door is an unparalleled model for youth development, offering a comprehensive range of integrated services to up to 11,000 youth annually. This Way ONward (TWON), is a partnership with Old Navy stores (a subsidiary of The GAP) that combines the Door’s extensive experience in youth workforce development with a committed retail employer partner. In 2020, during the height of the pandemic, The Door piloted TWON’s Direct-to-Hire model, where youth with the appropriate skills bypassed the internship phase of the program and became full time associates at Old Navy stores.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
In 2022, all 128 youth who completed the internship were offered permanent employment with Old Navy, and 106 accepted the offer. An additional 35 youth were placed in employment through the Direct-to-Hire model, bringing their total employment placement to 141, with an additional 58 young people in the pipeline to be placed by the end of the grant term.
Marcy Lab’s Software Engineering Fellowship recruits candidates who are 18-24 years old with a high school diploma or equivalent and no prior technical experience. In the first cohort, 90% of admitted Fellows had previously attended but failed to graduate from a two or four-year college. Though an early-stage organization, Marcy Lab is yielding impressive results: 90% of the 2020-2021 cohort (39 fellows) accepted full-time roles, with an average starting salary of $106,875 and 100% retention rate 90 days into employment (96% at 180 days).
HECKSCHER IMPACT
Marcy projects that with our support all program graduates will launch full-time technology careers with an average starting salary greater than $85,000 and will maintain a 90% retention rate at 90 and 180 days post-graduation.
Merit America prepares its unemployed and underemployed participants for in-demand careers at scale, by combining flexible online learning with coaching and peer support. With our support last year, Merit launched its program in New York City with three training tracks: IT Support, Java Development, and Data Analytics; and in 2023 will be launching a fourth track, UX Design. In addition to building philanthropic support, Merit America has developed three earned revenue streams: 1) employer hiring fees from talent acquisition teams, 2) learner payment via a “Success Share Agreement," and 3) upfront tuition paid by companies who want to upskill their workforce. The organization is on track to recoup 50% of program costs over the next year, and expects to recoup 80% of program costs within the next few years (fully covering operating expenses), which our support will make possible.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
Through this grant, 65% (over 88 graduates) of learners are expected to find in-field employment or employment above the income threshold of $40,000, and 50% of program costs will be recovered through earned revenue in 2023.
We supported the launch of a new Workforce Sustainability Fund, a hybrid grantmaking program that is designed to help promising job training organizations increase the share of their income coming from earned revenue. In 2023 and 2024, Arbor Rising will work with a select number of organizations to provide: 1) tailored capacity-strengthening support to identify, experiment with, and optimize income streams outside of philanthropy [e.g. from employers, participants, and universities], and (2) targeted financial support designed to incentivize and accelerate earned income growth through matching funds.
HECKSCHER IMPACT
We expect that for organizations identified for this opportunity, earned income will measurably increase as a percentage of organizational budgets, across 12, 24, and 36-month marks.
A SNEAK PEEK INTO
The 2023 Heckscher Foundation Challenge
Our approach to workforce development programs for underserved and first-generation youth is based on a fundamental belief that employer engagement is key to the success of a program and that employers need to make real job commitments based on objective evidence of skills development and competency.
So we are proposing a bold new initiative.
In 2023, we are launching a Request for Proposal (RFP) to challenge New York colleges and/or community-based organizations to partner with employers to increase employment opportunities and boost earnings outcomes for underserved youth (under 25 years old).
The Heckscher Foundation Challenge is an innovative $3 million challenge to New York colleges, community based organizations, and employers to come together in partnership to devise solutions to the youth employment crises. An essential component of the RFP is a requirement that employers define a clear pathway to employment and make commitments to hire youth based on objective criteria.
