The True North Fund portfolio was a blend of 12 local, state and national nonprofits spanning the 9-to-24 age range and three of EMCF's outcome areas: education, employment, and reduction of risky behaviors.
These investments delivered effective programming to significantly greater numbers of the most at-risk youth in up to 23 states throughout the United States, plus Washington, DC.
The grantees were:
- BELL (Building Educated Leaders for Life), whose summer learning program is shown to help raise the academic achievement of low-income, academically behind youth during the summer months.
- Center for Employment Opportunities, which runs a program proven to reduce recidivism among youth recently released from prison.
- Children’s Aid Society–Carrera Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program, a teenage pregnancy prevention program with top tier evidence of its effectiveness.
- Children’s Home Society of North Carolina, whose child welfare services include innovative programs to help youth in foster care and educate young men about responsible sexual behavior.
- Children’s Institute, Inc., which provides comprehensive, evidence-based services to vulnerable youth and their families in poor neighborhoods in Los Angeles, CA.
- Communities In Schools, which helps economically disadvantaged students in grades K-12 who are at greatest risk of dropping out stay in and succeed in school.
- Gateway to College National Network, which reconnects youth who have dropped out of high school or are in danger of doing so with educational opportunities, helping them earn diplomas and college credits.
- PACE Center for Girls, a network of nonresidential centers in Florida that help troubled young women gain the skills and knowledge to stay out of the juvenile justice system and lead successful lives.
- Reading Partners, whose one-on-one tutoring program helps elementary school students lagging six to 30 months behind catch up to their peers and become proficient in reading.
- The SEED Foundation, which opens and supports public boarding schools for seriously disadvantaged students who are highly unlikely to succeed in a traditional public school setting and can benefit greatly from a 24-hour-a-day learning environment.
- WINGS for kids, which provides an intensive, innovative social and emotional learning curriculum to K-6 students in impoverished communities in South Carolina and Georgia.
- Youth Guidance, whose Becoming a Man program reduces criminal behavior and increases academic engagement among young males in grades 7-12 at Chicago’s most distressed public schools.