Programs

  • Afterschool Advocacy and Support

    In 2022, Ignite Afterschool led advocacy and issue education work focused on highlighting geography, race, and income-based access gaps to high quality afterschool and summer learning programs across the state and shared how funding through the Afterschool Community Learning Grant program can close access gaps. Ignite convened and facilitated a Policy Coordinating Council that meets monthly with over 15 organizations. In addition, Ignite Afterschool partnered with two other organizations to launch the Equitable Summer Learning research project which documented how school districts and community organizations used Covid relief funds during the summer of 2021. The final report was released through a webinar and documented innovations, what worked, what didn't and what can be improved to strengthen community-school partnerships to improve summer learning. The organization also supported 7 organizations to hold Lights on Afterschool celebrations and program site visits that were attended by 11 legislators and many other stakeholders in their community. Ignite Afterschool also supported professional development and continuous program improvement resources for Minnesota's afterschool community. Aligned with the national Million Girls Moonshot Initiative, Ignite facilitated a STEM Community of Practice for approximately 11 organizations that met monthly for training and peer sharing focused on topics like fostering an engineering mindset; role models, mentors and families; equity; and STEM Pathways and Transition. Ignite Afterschool facilitates a continuous program improvement coordinating council of 11 partner organizations that worked to rebuild participation in our annual M3 Continuous Program Improvement process after the Covid-19 pandemic. We grew from 25 organizations participating in 2021 to 40 organizations and 254 people engaged in continuous improvement in 2022. Ignite supported five organizations through a Community of Practice to pilot a new Summer Continuous Improvement process and gathered lessons learned. We also led training associated with Believe It. Build It., Minnesota's Guide to Effective Afterschool practices for AmeriCorps members. In partnership and systems building work, Ignite Afterschool sat on a planning and launch work group with six other organizations to envision a MN STEM Ecosystem initiative. Ignite received a $400,000 congressionally directed earmark to support launch of this new initiative and, working with partners, leveraged an additional $100,000 from corporate partners for a 2023 launch. The organization entered into a new agreement with the Minnesota Department of Human Services to design a new school-age care accreditation and continuous improvement process and began planning for an interim school-age care program. Lastly, in 2021 Ignite was tapped by the Minnesota Department of Education to administer $13.2M in federal Covid relief funds targeted to nonprofit organizations for afterschool programs. In 2022, Ignite supported a cohort of 21 nonprofit grantees by providing all grant administration, performance monitoring, professional development and capacity building functions. This included virtual performance monitoring visits, quarterly virtual peer-sharing and professional development offerings and a two-day capacity building retreat for grantees.
    Geographies
    Not indicated
    Dates
    Jan 1, 2022 – Dec 31, 2022
    Source
    990
    No causes provided
    No populations provided
    –
    $4M