A Matter of Money: The Cost and Financing of Youth Development

Abstract

During the final days of putting together this chapter, two images kept running through our minds at the Center for Youth Development and Policy Research (the Center). The first was of a meeting two years ago with a group of foundations in one city interested in after-school programming and, in particular, the Center staff’s role in the development of Beacon Schools. As the meeting progressed, it became clear that these funders were primarily interested in expanding funding support to after-school programs. They were very interested in tying their additional funding support to demonstrable youth and program outcomes. This discussion was positive and productive until the funders announced the amount of money they envisioned granting to each program … $25,000–$25,000 to expand the number of young people served by each program, to expand program hours to all current and newly enrolled youth, and to show such outcomes as improved school attendance and reading scores. That meeting was the first time the Center used the following three questions to add a dose of reality to situations in which serious groups of people state their interest in doing “something” for children and youth after school:

• 1. At what age would you leave a young person home alone after school from 3 P.M. to 7 P.M.?

• 2. How much would you spend to take care of one young person for one day for four hours from 3 P.M. to 7 P.M.?

• 3. How many hours of structured activities would you want for a young person for one week during the school year (not counting time in school)?

Slowly, (General Colin) Powell is coming around to the view that government, too, must do more, not in—God forbid—running programs but in helping to fund the nonprofits we already know work. While avoiding the usual Washington scramble for money, he admits that the pending $200 billion-plus transportation bill got him thinking. Youth development programs are “as good a place to invest as highways in Kansas,” he says. So why not more public investment? (“Long after the Trumpets,” Newsweek, May 11, 1998)