American Idea Foundation

Measuring Results, Expanding Opportunity, Improving Lives.

Community Organizations Making a Difference

Brigid’s Path: Saving our most vulnerable at their most vulnerable time

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By: AIF Staff

As the number of Americans dying from drug overdoses increases almost every year, organizations around the country are actively developing solutions to help those families and communities plagued by substance abuse disorders. These organizations know that addiction does not just impact the individual user, but has a ripple effect that can change the trajectory of entire families.

This is particularly true when thinking about substance users who are pregnant and preparing to give birth. Newborns who suffer from Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, which occurs when babies withdraw from substances they were exposed to in the womb, are the most vulnerable of the most vulnerable. They enter the world and, through no fault of their own, immediately face a series of health challenges which can reverberate throughout their entire life.

These newborn babies deserve the best care that the American health care system can provide. Their parents deserve care and treatment so families can stay intact and so children can be raised in an environment free from the scourge of addiction.

Every child should be given the opportunity to live a healthy, productive life and that is why the American Idea Foundation is actively supporting the work of Brigid’s Path in Kettering, Ohio.

Brigid’s Path is the first, in-patient, newborn recovery center in Ohio. Founded in 2014, its mission is to care for newborns who have been exposed to an addictive substance like opioids or other drugs during pregnancy. From almost the moment of birth, Brigid’s Path and its team of trained health care professionals employ the latest therapeutic and medical techniques to help babies be as comfortable and as healthy as possible while they experience withdrawal.

At a critical stage in a newborn’s development, the medical staff of Brigid’s Path shower them with love and attention 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. As they care for the newborns, they also care for the parent, working with community partners to provide resources that help moms raise their children in healthy and safe environments. They do this on a one-to-one basis, offering wrap-around services so families can stay together, bond, and develop healthy relationships. As Brigid’s Path cares for the medical needs of newborns, they also help mothers meet goals and develop connections within the community that last long after their baby leaves Brigid’s Path.

To date, Brigid’s Path has helped 214 babies and will care for around 70 babies and families in 2023. Because of Brigid’s Path, in 2022, 90% of the babies treated went home last year with a parent or family member. Without the organization, 77% of those babies would’ve been sent directly to the foster care system.

Brigid’s Path is making a difference every single day by fighting for those babies who cannot fight for themselves. They are giving newborns a chance to grow and thrive and, at the same time, they are giving parents an opportunity to remain in their child’s life.

The support provided from the American Idea Foundation to Brigid’s Path in 2023 will help raise awareness about the organization’s transformative efforts. The American Idea Foundation will help Brigid’s Path tell amazing stories of individual transformation and will work to buttress the evidence and data associated with their program in the hopes of scaling and replicating it in other communities suffering from the scourge of drug abuse.

Addiction is a complex problem, but Brigid’s Path is making a difference one baby at a time and is playing a critical role in helping our most vulnerable have a chance at a healthy and productive life.

Bernie’s Book Bank: Youth Book Ownership provides Pathways out of Poverty

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By: AIF Staff

This year, as part of its work supporting front-line organizations who are developing evidence-based approaches to fighting poverty, the American Idea Foundation has provided grants to 7 groups across the country. 

These organizations were selected because they are policy entrepreneurs, innovative problem-solvers, and leaders in their respective communities. The policy problems that these organizations are tackling vary greatly, but these groups share the belief that the American Dream should be accessible to everyone and they have created programs to achieve this noble goal. Like Speaker Ryan, these groups believe evidence and data should drive decision-making and have designed their programs accordingly.

One organization receiving funding and institutional support from Speaker Ryan and the American Idea Foundation in 2023 is Bernie’s Book Bank in Chicago, Illinois.

Bernie’s Book Bank was founded in 2009 on a simple premise: Reading is a vital skill for every child and children, particularly those in under-served communities, need access to books, to properly develop this skill. If a child has access to books and develops an early love of reading, the positive effects will reverberate throughout their life.

Bernie’s Book Bank knows how critical reading is for young children’s development and understands how education can offer a pathway out of poverty. It is why, fifteen years ago, Bernie’s Book Bank started distributing books to under-served children from a garage in Chicago.

Bernie’s Book Bank sources new and gently used books from individual donors around the country, group them by age-appropriateness, and then select a group of 8 new and used books to be packaged for distribution. The Book Bank delivers books directly to the children they serve via school districts and early childhood programs in the Chicagoland area. In one year, each child served will receive a total of 8 quality children’s books to take home and call their own.

In the organization’s first 12 months, Bernie’s Book Bank sourced, processed, and distributed 140,000 children’s books. In its second year, Bernie’s Book Bank expanded and distributed 350,000 books to more than 35,000 children. By the end of 2012, it had distributed 1 million books. In 2019, it reached 15 million. By 2023, Bernie’s Book Bank had distributed over 25 million books since its founding.

Bernie’s Book Bank knows that where a student resides will often affect their ability to get a quality education. It can affect their ability to access reading materials, particularly at a young age, and impact their desire to pursue an education as they mature. Bernie’s Book Bank knows that reading can transform children’s worlds. Books can offer children new perspectives, teach new lessons, or inspire passion about a particular subject. It is fundamental to a child’s development but all too often, children are falling behind.  

In Illinois, according to a 2019 survey by the Casey Foundation, 66% of fourth-graders in the state were not proficient in reading. The strains on our educational system only worsened during the pandemic, with lower-income areas being hardest hit. Illinois and other communities need organizations like Bernie’s Book Bank now more than ever.

Because of their success in Illinois and because of the demand for books in other cities, Bernie’s Book Bank is scaling their efforts in Southern Wisconsin and building out programming through Milwaukee’s public school system.

The American Idea Foundation is going to spend the next year working with Bernie’s Book Bank to ensure that more children in Illinois and Wisconsin have access to reading materials of their own. The Foundation and Speaker Ryan will help Bernie’s Book Bank as they assess and measure the impact book ownership has on the short-term and long-term development of the children it serves. Anecdotes and personal stories about how Bernie’s Book Bank has changed children’s life are plentiful.

By pairing these stories of transformation with tangible, empirically sound evidence, other communities can see the effect Bernie’s Book Bank is having in Chicago and hopefully develop similar programs to help children in under-served communities experience the joy, and the benefits, of reading. 

Ryan announces 2023 grants to poverty-fighting groups around the United States

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By: AIF Staff

JANESVILLE, WI – Today, AIF President and former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan announced 7 non-profit organizations across the United States will be receiving financial support and strategic assistance from the American Idea Foundation in 2023 as they continue expanding economic opportunities and reducing poverty in their communities.

In 2022, the American Idea Foundation issued a handful of grants to front-line organizations developing evidence-based solutions to address issues like recidivism, financial literacy and entrepreneurship in underserved communities, early childhood health, and family well-being. Throughout the year, Ryan and his Foundation visited these organizations, offered strategic advice, shared policy expertise, and elevated the groups’ efforts in a variety of ways. It will expand on those efforts in 2023 with a new round of grant recipients.

Each of the 2023 grant recipients are making enormous differences in people’s lives. The funds and support provided by the American Foundation will be used primarily to develop additional data and evidence around specific poverty-fighting strategies around the country.

In announcing the American Idea Foundation’s 2023 grant recipients, Paul Ryan said:  

“Working with these amazing organizations and supporting their evidence-based approaches to fighting poverty is one of the most rewarding parts of my post-Congressional career. These groups are simply amazing. Their work is inspiring.

Last year, I spent time with two of our grant recipients, Gatekeepers in Hagerstown and Corner to Corner in Nashville, and saw first-hand the profound impact these organizations have. Our grant recipients are transforming communities, building ecosystems of support, and lifting people up daily. These groups and their leaders are committed to developing evidence that validate their approaches and I truly believe this is how America moves the needle on poverty.

This isn’t about partisanship or politics. It is about solving problems, helping people, and making the American Dream more accessible. These groups are doing precisely that and it’s why I am so excited to partner with these organizations in the year ahead.”

Started by Ryan in October 2019, the American Idea Foundation believes by taking the politics out of poverty-fighting and focusing on outcomes and results, successful programs can be scaled, elevated, and replicated. The Foundation believes this approach – prioritizing what works and validating these interventions with evidence — will provide policymakers with a better blueprint to address the challenges facing individuals and communities across the United States.

The 2023 American Idea Foundation grant recipients are….

Bernie’s Book Bank

Located in Chicago, Illinois, Bernie’s Book Bank creates pathways to success through book ownership by providing children and families access to books and giving children books of their own. Founded in 2009, Bernie’s Book Bank has long believed reading is one of the most important skills a child can possess, which is why it gives free, quality books to children to build personal libraries.

Since its founding, Bernie’s Book bank has sourced, processed, and distributed over 25 million books and delivered them directly to the children they serve via the school districts and early childhood programs in the Chicagoland area. The story and growth of Bernie’s Book Bank is astonishing. They have helped countless children learn how to read and develop comprehension skills which lay the foundation for more educational opportunities and a pathway out of poverty.

Bottom Line

Originally located in Boston, MA before expanding nationally, Bottom Line partners with degree-aspiring students of color from under-resourced communities to help them get into college, through college, and out into the workforce.

Founded in 1997, Bottom Line does this by pairing mentors with first-generation college students from low-income backgrounds, shepherding students through the college application process, and sticking with them throughout college by offering one-on-one support through graduation. Bottom Line’s goal is to create a far-reaching ripple effect by using the transformative power of a college degree to mobilize careers that lift up individuals, families, and communities. The organization currently serves over 7,000 students and the early impact of their program, as evidenced in a 2021 randomized controlled trial, are promising.

Brigid’s Path

Operating in Kettering, Ohio,Brigid’s Path was founded in 2014 to care for babies and mothers in crisis with grace, love and hope. It was the first in-patient, newborn recovery center in Ohio.

The organization’ primary purpose is to care for infants who were born exposed to an addictive substance like opioids or other drugs. Brigid’s Path employs the latest therapeutic techniques to help babies be as comfortable as possible while they experience withdrawal. At a critical stage in a newborn’s development, the medical staff and volunteers of Brigid’s Path shower them with love and attention 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The organization believes in the strength of families and that families can – and do – contribute to the successful treatment of these babies. As they help newborns, Brigid’s Path also works with community partners to provide resources for their moms to achieve the stability that will ultimately help them care for their children for both the near and long-term.

Friends of the Children

Friends of the Children is a national non-profit organization that selects and invites youth – all of whom have unique talents, interests and dreams, and face multiple systemic obstacles – to be paired with a paid, professional mentor called a Friend. The organization hires and trains Friends to support youth from as early as age 4 through high school graduation. Friends spend a minimum of 14 to 16 intentional hours per month with each child and the Friends’ full-time job is to empower and support youths and their caregivers.

Friends of the Children revolutionized the youth mentoring field by creating the first and only long-term professional mentoring program in the country. They focus on youth who are facing the greatest obstacles, such as those who facing trauma or dealing with adverse early-childhood experiences, and help them develop skills like trust, empathy, and healthy communication. Friends of the Children has long been a leader in the evidence-based policy space, participating in the longest-running youth mentoring randomized control trial in the country.

Per Scholas

A nationally recognized non-profit with campuses in 20 cities, Per Scholas believes a thriving workforce starts with equitable access to education. To accomplish this goal, they have created an evidence-based, professional development program that provides individuals with tuition-free technology training and skills for high-growth careers.

Aiming to educate 4,500 students in 2023, Per Scholas provides customized training and job placement services for low-income workers focusing primarily on the information technology sector. Its core mission is to advance economic equity through rigorous training for tech careers and to connect skilled talent to leading businesses. As their 2022 Annual Report showed, their approach is working as the program has an 8:1 economic return generated for every dollar invested in Per Scholas.

Wisconsin Inmate Education Association

The Wisconsin Inmate Education Association is focusing on helping men and women incarcerated in the Wisconsin prison system transform their lives through the completion of an in-prison college curriculum which provides them with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biblical Studies.

By encouraging inmates to embrace an alternative identity centered around faith and education, WIEA believes their intervention will lower levels of misconduct, stimulate spiritual transformations, and improve families and communities by changing behaviors for the better. The Wisconsin Inmate Education Association’s approach is evidence-based and they measure success by looking at factors like personal transformation, violence reduction, the community and family impact, and recidivism.

Women’s Bean Project

Located in Denver, Colorado,the Women’s Bean Project is a transitional employment program serving those women who have struggled to obtain and maintain employment. The organization’s goal is to change women’s lives by providing them stepping stones to self-sufficiency through work.

Participants complete a 6-9 month vocational and educational program and upon graduation, receive a full-time job as a production assistant in the Women’s Bean Project’s food manufacturing business. The Women’s Bean Project helps women achieve independence by giving them the readiness skills, talents, and opportunities to break the cycle of poverty. Since its founding, the Women’s Bean Project has blossomed into a successful commercial enterprise and their products are now sold in 1,000 stores nationwide. They generated over $2 million in revenue last year and helped hundreds of women get back on track.