Community Organizations Making a Difference

By: AIF Staff

In 2016, Katie and Iloba Nzekwu felt determined to make a difference in their community of Cincinnati, Ohio. Both overcame significant obstacles in their early years, and they saw a city where youth from distressed areas were falling through the cracks. They set about leveraging these experiences and this desire to have a community support system for local teenagers by creating Found Village.

Found Village works with children, usually at age 13, who are or have been in the foster care and child welfare systems. They help these youths transform their lives through strong, family-like relationships and a community of support.

A community-based organization, Found Village works with children in the foster care system and helps these youths transform their lives through strong family-like relationships and a community of support. At a fundamental level, Found Village helps teenagers – many of whom have experienced trauma, neglect, or other challenges – regain the ability to trust others.

It is a long-term intervention and a methodical process. Found Village begins with a single mentoring relationship and then extends that trust to a wider network, providing family-like support that acts like a “village” around each youth.

In a 2023 interview, Found Village’s Community Engagement Director Shannon Yung explained: “Every young person who walks through our doors is introduced to our Pathway to Independence program, which consists of programs centered around discovery, stability, growth and independence. Our goal is to meet each individual where they are and propel them forward on a path of introspection, self-improvement and autonomy.”

To accomplish this, Found Village pairs each young person with a trained team of coaches to meet immediate needs (like clothing, safe housing, nutrition) before expanding out to a wider network of relationships to help with more long-term needs (like education and employment).

In this moving video from Stand Together, Iloba discusses the organization’s founding and how he came to understand the power of helping teenagers regain trust in their community.

Found Village measures success in a holistic way, focusing on a child’s development of self and their relationship and communication skills. As the co-founder, Katie Nzekwu, noted: “We look at success four ways. How are we contributing to your self-esteem? Your sense of value and seeing yourself in your fullness, so that you see that you have value and something to offer.”

Found Village’s goal is to create a family-like atmosphere for the teenager as they navigate the foster care system. Building a community of support is a long-term intervention and over half of Found Village’s participants have been enrolled in their program for over 3 years.  

Additionally, Found Village addresses an important age gap in foster care: though the system often leaves youth on their own after they turn 18, Found Village starts with kids who are 13  years-old and stays with them as they transition into their young adult lives, with engagements on-going until age 25.

Because of the nature of Found Village’s approach, the organization is still developing a base of evidence to measure their program’s impact, but the early results are promising.

Found Village is taking a community-driven approach to helping Cincinnati’s youth have brighter futures. They are working with children who, in many cases, have faced tremendous challenges early in life and are showing them that they matter and that there are support systems available to help them reach their full potential. Because of Found Village, hundreds of youths in Ohio have been able to continue their education, experience the benefits of a safe and stable family, and enter the workforce.

The American Idea Foundation cannot wait to see what the future holds for Found Village and are honored to partner with them as they continue making a profound impact in children’s lives.

To learn more about the American Idea Foundation’s 2024 grant recipients, click here. 

By: AIF Staff

Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan started the American Idea Foundation because he wanted to lift up individuals and organizations doing the hard and necessary work of expanding economic opportunities to people in-need. He fervently believes remarkable things are happening in communities across the country, but all too often, these amazing success stories are drowned out by the negativity and divisiveness that dominates our civil discourse.

To support and shine a light on those organizations who are making a difference in people’s lives, Ryan and the American Idea Foundation have issued annual grants to groups focused on evidence-based approaches to fighting poverty and promoting upward mobility. Since 2022, the American Idea Foundation has issued nearly $1 million in grant funds to 20 different deserving non-profits across the country and has supported their work of addressing major social and economic challenges in a data-driven way.

One of the 8 organizations that the American Idea Foundation is honored to support and partner with in 2024 is the Downtown Boxing Gym in Detroit, Michigan.

Since 2007, the Downtown Boxing Gym, led by its founder Khali Sweeney, has been committed to improving educational outcomes for Detroit students, with a particular emphasis on improving reading skills. 

To accomplish this, the Downtown Boxing Gym mixes athletics with academics in a family-like setting and develops long-term relationships with students, primarily between the ages of 8-12 but with continuing support offered to individuals under age 25.

Currently serving nearly 200 boys and girls from 30 different zip codes and from 57 different schools across the Detroit area, the gym provides free after-school programming which consists of academic support, mentorship, athletic activities, ACT/SAT prep, nutritious meals, and more. Accepted students are evaluated by academic coordinators to determine baseline academic and athletic skill-levels and then the Downtown Boxing Gym develops customized plans to help each student. They offer these programs year-round, Monday through Friday, and do so at no cost, making it accessible to every child in the Detroit area who needs support.

In an interview with CBS News Detroit, Sweeney said: “I started the boxing gym because it was a lack there. It was something that was missing. It was something that was actually needed… The kids in our community needed a place to go in the area where we were first located, and it wasn’t a lot of stuff over there to do, so I saw the need.”

A 2018 profile of the organization by ESPN, entitled Hitting the Books, the Boxing Gym saving Detroit’s Youth, summarized the Downtown Boxing Gym’s approach:

“Boxing is the enticement to get kids into the gym, but the real goal is in the white-painted rooms behind the rings. It’s there where the motto [Sweeney] stresses — “Books Before Boxing” — is pulled off. That’s the true mission of the Downtown Boxing Gym: a mantra consistently preached by the students…. Boxing brings the kids in. Education, life lessons and a group of adults preaching positivity and seeing potential in kids surrounded by negativity is why they stay.”

Succinctly summarizing the gym’s growth and deepening impact, Chase for Business said:

“What began over a decade ago, with Sweeney and a handful of volunteers has grown into one of the nation’s leading after-school programs. Its proven track record of success — a 100% high school graduation rate for 16 straight years — affirms that access to education is the key to economic mobility.

The gym boasts a growing roster of accomplished alumni, who have advanced to higher education and successful careers, and a waitlist of more than 1,000. DBG now has more than 40 employees and an operating budget of over $4 million per year.”

The Downtown Boxing Gym is changing lives. It’s more than just a boxing ring. Rather, it provides a safe place for students to learn, grow, feel safe, and build skills that will serve them into adulthood. As their literacy rates improve alongside their athletics, the Downtown Boxing Gym is creating opportunities and pathways for Detroit’s youth to realize their versions of the American dream.

With demand for their programming increasing, the Downtown Boxing Gym has committed to measuring and evaluating their effectiveness in an academically rigorous way as they grow. In 2023, the gym and Purdue University received a $2 million National Science Foundation grant to study the impact of their program, particularly as it relates to helping students develop an interest in STEM-based fields. The NSF grant funds, along with support provided by the American Idea Foundation, will be used to expand the Gym’s programming, help with the construction of a 22,000 square foot building for STEM-related activities, and to perform a five-year study on the program.

Without a doubt, as the city of Detroit continues its economic comeback following the Great Recession, organizations like the Downtown Boxing Gym will play a critical role in the city’s youth improving their educational skills. It will continue to be a beacon for local students, providing them with a place to thrive and exercise while also giving them the skills to realize additional economic opportunities later in life.

The American Idea Foundation believes in the community-driven work of the Downtown Boxing Gym and is proud to help buttress their amazing stories of success with evidence and data.

To learn more about the American Idea Foundation’s 2024 grant recipients, click here. 

By: AIF Staff

Two of the through lines tying all of the organizations that the American Idea Foundation partners with is they have identified a specific need or challenge in their communities, and they have the passion to try and fix it. This identification of a problem and a desire to solve it is generally what launches these amazing non-profits and this is especially true with NPower, one of the American Idea Foundation’s 2024 grant recipients.

NPower is a national non-profit with 15 locations in 9 different states, stretching from California to New York and Maryland to Texas. The organization started by identifying a clear need.

NPower’s founders observed that, all too frequently, veterans and young adults from underserved communities were facing barriers to employment and were lacking support structures to obtain the skills necessary to succeed in emerging 21^st century career fields, namely information technology.

Their goal was to give deserving individuals – whether those be individuals who served our country and defended our freedoms or future leaders from under-resourced communities – an opportunity to learn relevant skills and obtain employment in industries that could lead to life-long careers. With a clear mission in mind, NPower developed a solution.

As Notre Dame’s Lab for Economic Opportunity summarized:  

“NPower’s Tech Fundamentals program is an intensive 23-week crash course that helps participants gain full-time employment in an information technology career.

Over the first 16 weeks, students attend a tuition-free course that helps them earn industry-recognized certifications. Following, they are immersed in the professional scene and receive a 7-week paid internship with one of NPower’s corporate partners. After completing their internship, students graduate from NPower and receive ongoing job-placement assistance.”

NPower saw that veterans and at-risk youths were eager for upwardly mobile careers but needed structured training programs to develop specific skills. They also observed that employers, particularly technology-focused ones, had a growing demand for new workers.

While covering their first training session in North Carolina, Spectrum News highlighted how NPower links the demand for trained, motivated workers with a supply of young Americans and veterans eager to find meaningful vocations.

“How does this sound? A tech training course that doesn’t cost you a dime and could radically change your career.

Earlier this year, the national nonprofit NPower graduated its first class in North Carolina. The group comprises young people looking to break into tech.

“We’ve got some big companies moving into the Triangle, and I would also say the Triad,” said Dr. Christy A. Walker, a career placement manager with NPower. “We need tech for pretty much everything we do. I see it broadening out to different areas more….”

“It exceeded my expectations,” said Fatima Salcedo, a recent NPower program graduate who currently works as a barista. “They put us in positions that gave us an opportunity to grow….”

To date, over 10,000 people have worked their way through NPower’s programs nationwide, and graduates have landed jobs with companies like Tesla, T. Rowe Price and Microsoft. The video below illustrates NPower’s impact on individuals’ lives and careers.

What has made NPower truly unique though is their willingness to measure the effectiveness of their programing to determine if it is really making an impact. They have partnered with Notre Dame’s Lab for Economic Opportunities to study the impact of their programming on educational outcomes, future earnings, and employment.   

The study is currently ongoing and funds from the American Idea Foundation will be used to help complete the research. Enrolling in an academically rigorous study is a risk for any non-profit, but in Speaker Ryan’s mind, it is necessary if these groups are going to scale and if policymakers are going to prioritize demonstrably effective solutions over others.

Discussing NPower at the 2024 Detroit Regional Chamber Policy Conference, Ryan said in part:

“What my foundation does is we go find what we think are really interesting poverty programs, then we seed fund them so that they can [conduct] a randomized control trial [with] Notre Dame economists who track and measure that poverty program over the length of 1-3 years, run a trial on it, and see if it proves to be really successful.

We’re building mechanisms to try and scale and replicate those poverty-fighting successes across the country and NPower is one that we’re working with. It is here in Detroit and there are NPowers all around the country where they are getting disaffected youth… and underprivileged kids into tech jobs and providing them with the curriculum they need to become good tech workers in this tech-centered economy.”

Channeling NPower’s approach of bringing community leaders, corporate sponsors, and program participants together and then adding intellectual heft and academic research to their powerful success stories, Ryan continued:

“There is so much now that we can learn through economics, through data, and through research practices, and we think there’s a real unlocking moment in front of us…. If we apply our resources to practices and procedures that we know work and scale and replicate those, I think we can make a huge difference.

“It involves the public sector and nonprofit sector and private sector so what we’re trying to do with the Lab for Economic Opportunities at Notre Dame and with our foundation is find those bright lights that are out there making a huge difference. We want to find out what their secret sauce, determine is it repeatable and if so, replicate it.”

NPower is a great example of how non-profit organizations can grow from a simple idea of solving a real-world problem – providing veterans and at-risk youth with meaningful career paths and skills – into a movement making a difference nation-wide. And as they have scaled, NPower has doubled down on making sure data and research informs their current programming and future efforts by partnering with Notre Dame and groups like the American Idea Foundation. This approach is exactly how America can truly make a difference in fighting poverty.

As NPower provides America’s youth with the skills of tomorrow and helps honor veterans’ sacrifices by leading them towards meaningful careers, the American Idea Foundation will stand with them as they scale their programs in an evidence-driven way.

To learn more about the American Idea Foundation’s 2024 grant recipients, click here.