EMCF and Blue Meridian Partners measure the progress of grantees toward their growth and evaluation goals to ensure they are making an impact on the lives of vulnerable youth.
Although our grants are generally unrestricted, we and the recipient set annual and end-of-investment milestones on the basis of the grantee's business and evaluation planning to which the grantee agrees to hold itself accountable. Growth capital investments, which are usually multi-year, are structured so that payout is contingent on a grantee’s meeting these milestones. Examples include:
- Increasing the number of youth served,
- Ensuring that sites implement a program with fidelity,
- Increasing the high school graduation rate or successful job placement of program participants by a specific percentage or number,
- Completing a rigorous external evaluation,
- Diversifying funding sources, or
- Formulating a leadership succession plan.
Milestones provide us and our grantees with an impetus to continually improve our performance and serve more youth more effectively. We report grantees' progress quarterly to EMCF trustees and co-investors in Blue Meridian Partners, and we make it public on this website under Current Grantees.