Success Story: Communities In Schools
The mission of Communities in Schools (CIS) of the Nation’s Capital is to surround District of Columbia students with a community of support, empowering them to stay in school and achieve in life. The organization places dedicated staff members inside partner schools to identify students at risk of dropping out.
CIS was seeking to diversify its funding sources and needed more resources to cope with cutbacks by the District of Columbia Public School (DCPS) system and recover from pandemic challenges. CIS worked with CP Consultant Kristen Engebretsen to pursue a Healthy Equity grant opportunity from the Greater Washington Community Foundation’s historic Health Equity Fund. This high-visibility $95 million fund was created to improve the health outcomes and health equity of DC residents. The award will help the organization realign and transform service delivery.
While CIS’ work may not seem particularly centered on health, it made sense to pursue the grant because there was clear alignment in objectives and impact of the nonprofit’s work with young people, especially factoring in equity issues.
“CIS’ goals are aligned around the idea of improving social determinants of health (SDOH) – meaning education, health care access, food access, and the social and community context that surrounds our students, schools, and families,” Engebretsen said.
“By improving health outcomes, students can increase their attendance at school, and by improving education outcomes, students can increase their socio-economic status,” she noted. It is about knocking down barriers to success, improving access to health care, food, and affordable housing.
The Health Equity grant will enable CIS to establish partnerships with new schools and rebuild programs after the pandemic. The grant also supports CIS’ strategy to broaden sources of funding after being highly reliant on government funding.
“This large foundation grant is a concrete step towards adding in fresh resources,” Engebretsen said.
