These organizations have previously received support from the Foundation to develop comprehensive business plans, as well as long-term investments to carry out their growth plans:

• Asian American Lead
• Big Sister Association of Greater Boston
• Cool Girls, Inc.
• Friends of the Children
• Girls Incorporated
• MY TURN
• Our Piece of the Pie
• Roca, Inc.
• See Forever Foundation
• Vocational Foundation, Inc.
• Washington Tennis and Education Foundation

Asian American Lead is a Washington, D.C.-based organization that helps Vietnamese and Asian American youth, who primarily come from low-income, immigrant families, successfully complete high school and go on to college. The organization uses a five-pronged approach to youth development, offering each child after school intervention in a safe space, mentoring, family support, and educational advocacy.  
www.aalead.org

Big Sister Association of Greater Boston helps girls ages 7 to 15 "realize their full potential by providing them with positive mentoring relationships with women." In addition to matching each "little sister" with a personal "big sister" mentor, the programs Life Choices and TEAM offer group opportunities for girls to build self-esteem and self-confidence and help them navigate the challenges and choices they face as they grow older.  The organization is affiliated with the national Big Brothers Big Sisters of America parent.
www.bigsister.org

Cool Girls Inc. works to improve the academic skills and overall well-being of low-income girls (aged 9-13) who have limited access to community resources. Through a four-pronged service approach, Cool Girls Inc. provides instruction in life skills and healthy living, offers academic enrichment programs, teaches technology skills, and mentors girls one-on-one.
www.thecoolgirls.org     

Friends of the Children, a national organization with eight chapters in 11 cities, works with children most at-risk of academic failure to make it to productive adulthood by pairing them with a paid mentor (for up to 12 years) in an intensive, sustained relationship to help them succeed in school and avoiding criminal behavior. www.friendsofthechildren.com

Girls Incorporated develops education programs to guide girls to become "strong, smart, and bold." Programs based on its work and research are offered in 1,000 sites across the nation, and focus on various areas such as math and science education, pregnancy and drug abuse prevention, economic literacy and self-sufficiency, adolescent health, violence prevention, and sports participation.
www.girlsinc.org

MY TURN is a dropout prevention and intervention solution for small, high-poverty cities in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The organization works with in-school and out-of-school youth, ranging in age from 14 to 21, as they make gateway decisions in their lives. Its goal is to equip youth with the life plans and tools they will need to succeed, and to guide young people through critical life decisions, helping them advance to college and to jobs with a future.

Between 2003-2010, EMCF invested $7.8 million in MY TURN. During the course of this investment, MY TURN expanded operations into New Hampshire, established sites in new cities across Massachusetts, and made programmatic improvements to its out-of-school and in-school program models.
www.my-turn.org.

Our Piece of the Pie, based in Hartford, CT, provides intensive, long-term case management services to urban youth, ages 14 –24. In the agency’s cornerstone program, Pathways to Success, youth development specialists help each young person develop an individualized service plan for making a successful transition to adulthood. The ultimate goals set for each young person are a vocational school certification or a degree from a two- or four-year college or university and/or full-time unsubsidized employment. Through Pathways, youth gain access to several educational and job readiness programs that help them reach these goals.

Between 2004-2010, EMCF invested $3.75 million in Our Piece of the Pie. During the course of this investment, the organization successfully realigned its array of services around the goals of education and long-term employment for youth, divested several programs that did not fit this core mission, and implemented an agency-wide performance tracking system. In 2009, Our Piece of the Pie, in partnership with Hartford Public Schools, opened Opportunity High School, which combines a public school curriculum with the organization’s youth development strategy to enable over-age and under-credited youth to earn their diplomas.
www.opp.org.

Roca, Inc., serving low-income youth in the Greater Boston communities of Chelsea, Revere and East Boston, uses a comprehensive intervention model it developed to support long-term behavior changes that ultimately lead to economic self-sufficiency and the ability to live out of harm’s way. This model, in which a Roca youth worker engages with 25 young people for anywhere from two to five years, is based on proven medical and mental health programs and includes:

• Transformational Relationships (Roca’s intensive case management model);
• relentless outreach and follow-up;
• life skills, educational and pre-vocational, and employment programming; and
• work with institutional partners.

Roca was one of EMCF’s first Youth Development Fund grantees. The Foundation invested $4.75 million between 2000-2010. During this period, Roca made tremendous progress, advancing the organization’s capacity and ability to track the impact it makes on youth. Accomplishments include codifying and expanding Transformational Relationships, now widely seen as a promising intervention for youth involved or at risk of becoming involved in gang activity. It also created an innovative and nationally recognized performance management system that comprehensively tracks how program staff engages each youth, as well as the outcomes each participant achieves over the course the Transformational Relationship.
www.rocainc.org

The See Forever Foundation (SFF) supports the Maya Angelou Public Charter School (MAPCS), which operates two successful alternative high schools and an alternative middle school in Washington, DC. SFF also operates Maya Angelou Academy (formerly Oak Hill Academy), a school located in Washington's long-term secure facility for youth who have been adjudicated delinquent, as well as a transition center to support students released from Oak Hill return to the community.

SFF/MAPCS integrates all of the support services a traditionally challenged student needs into one seamless, intensive school program. It provides students with small classes, individualized instruction, and a wide range of wrap-around services, including tutoring, mentoring, career preparatory training, internships, enrichment classes, mental health services, residential opportunities, transition support, and “real-world” learning experiences.

Between 2004-2010, EMCF invested $3 million in See Forever Foundation/Maya Angelou Public Charter School. During this period, the organization increased the number of youth it serves six-fold, opened two new campuses and began operations at Oak Hill Academy. The organization has been recognized as a leader in the charter school movement, working with some of the most troubled, disconnected youth in the Washington area.
www.seeforever.org

Vocational Foundation Inc.  provides vocational and literacy training to youth (aged 17-21) who have dropped out of school and lack a high school diploma, GED, or another equivalent educational degree.  The organization offers a five month literacy and job-training program, and then follows up with "Moving Up," an intensive two-year retention effort to ensure that participants stay in their jobs. www.vfinyc.org

Washington Tennis and Education Foundation combines tennis, education, and life skills instruction to help kids aged 8 to 18 living in low-income areas in Washington, DC develop discipline, build self-esteem, and improve academic performance.
www.wtef.org