Summer Program: Proven Effectiveness
After-School Program: High-Level Apparent Effectiveness

An Urban Institute random assignment evaluation conducted in 2006 found that participants in BELL’s summer program showed greater reading skills gains compared to the control group. Full details of the evaluation, Impacts of a Summer Learning Program, can be found at the Urban Institute’s website.

BELL plans to further build its evidence base by engaging MDRC to conduct a second evaluation of the summer program, to be completed in 2012. The evaluation will explore the program's impact on students’ academic engagement and performance throughout the school year across multiple, geographically diverse sites.

Since 2001, the Foundation has invested $11.5 million in BELL. It originally invested $1.25 million over two years in 2001. Based on BELL’s stellar performance stabilizing operations in New York and Baltimore and its continued strong presence in Boston, the Foundation decided to reinvest in BELL in 2007 ($5 million over four years).

In 2011, BELL received an EMCF Social Innovation Fund investment, with a first-year award of $2 million, to help expand its summer learning program, launch a second evaluation of the effectiveness of this program, and strengthen its business development capacity to support and sustain future growth.  Awards in years two and three, which are contingent on grantee performance and renewal of federal SIF funding, will provide up to $3 million, for an overall investment of up to $5 million over three years. This investment is distinct from EMCF’s previous investment, which focused largely on BELL’s afterschool model. 

For information on what this grant will support, see Details of 2012-2014 Investment.

For more information, visit BELL’s website at www.experienceBELL.org.