800 Boulder County donors revive program from brink of closure
Printer-friendly versionI wrote a couple months ago about The Community Foundation's bold decision to make its largest-ever Community Trust grant to an innovative program aimed at closing the achievement gap by training Latino informal daycare providers.
Giving a $90,000 bridge grant to an organization at risk of closing was a somewhat risky move that not a lot of foundations would have taken. But I'm thrilled to report that it paid off.
Thanks in large part to our catalyzing display of local support for this program, Providers Advancing School Outcomes (PASO) learned this month that it will receive $630,000 from the state of Colorado. This will allow the program to not only survive for the next two years, but expand, both in Boulder County and into one additional Colorado county.
This is a huge win for Boulder County in general, and for the 800-plus donors who have contributed to the four-year, $4 million campaign we launched last fall to build The Community Trust, our unrestricted grantmaking endowment. Those donations made this bridge funding possible.
We're not stopping at PASO, either. Over the past several months, a committee of Community Foundation trustees, donors, and business and community leaders have met regularly to talk about how to close the achievement gap in Boulder County, between our all-star students and the growing number of kids who fall behind.
We've settled on some specific goals:
Long-term, we seek a sustainable source of funding for early childhood education in Boulder County, so that all kids will show up to Kindergarten and first grade ready to learn.
Short-term, we plan to raise awareness for this issue among families with young children specifically, and the broader community - especially the business community - in general.
Stay tuned for updates on our quest to help close the achievement gap through school readiness. And please email me at chris@commfound.org if you'd like to get involved.
I'll close with this note of thanks from PASO, for what all the donors to the Community Trust have enabled them to do:
“The educational achievement gap in Colorado between Latino students and White students has been, and continues to be seriously out of line. The Community Foundation of Boulder County, not only has demonstrated the courage to face this issue head on, but moreover, has clearly understood the positive impact that early childhood educational interventions have on young Latino children from birth to 5 years of age. It is this combined organizational commitment and wisdom that has greatly resuscitated the viability of the FFN PASO vision to open new and expanded doors. The Community Foundation of Boulder County is, indeed, a catalyst.”
-- PASO Co-Directors, Denys Vigil and Tikki Heublein, Ph.D.
Giving a $90,000 bridge grant to an organization at risk of closing was a somewhat risky move that not a lot of foundations would have taken. But I'm thrilled to report that it paid off.
Thanks in large part to our catalyzing display of local support for this program, Providers Advancing School Outcomes (PASO) learned this month that it will receive $630,000 from the state of Colorado. This will allow the program to not only survive for the next two years, but expand, both in Boulder County and into one additional Colorado county.
This is a huge win for Boulder County in general, and for the 800-plus donors who have contributed to the four-year, $4 million campaign we launched last fall to build The Community Trust, our unrestricted grantmaking endowment. Those donations made this bridge funding possible.
We're not stopping at PASO, either. Over the past several months, a committee of Community Foundation trustees, donors, and business and community leaders have met regularly to talk about how to close the achievement gap in Boulder County, between our all-star students and the growing number of kids who fall behind.
We've settled on some specific goals:
Long-term, we seek a sustainable source of funding for early childhood education in Boulder County, so that all kids will show up to Kindergarten and first grade ready to learn.
Short-term, we plan to raise awareness for this issue among families with young children specifically, and the broader community - especially the business community - in general.
Stay tuned for updates on our quest to help close the achievement gap through school readiness. And please email me at chris@commfound.org if you'd like to get involved.
I'll close with this note of thanks from PASO, for what all the donors to the Community Trust have enabled them to do:
“The educational achievement gap in Colorado between Latino students and White students has been, and continues to be seriously out of line. The Community Foundation of Boulder County, not only has demonstrated the courage to face this issue head on, but moreover, has clearly understood the positive impact that early childhood educational interventions have on young Latino children from birth to 5 years of age. It is this combined organizational commitment and wisdom that has greatly resuscitated the viability of the FFN PASO vision to open new and expanded doors. The Community Foundation of Boulder County is, indeed, a catalyst.”
-- PASO Co-Directors, Denys Vigil and Tikki Heublein, Ph.D.
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