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2007 Social Innovator

Boston Urban Youth Foundation

Social Issue Track: Preventing & Reducing Violence:  Making Boston Safer for Youth

Sponsoring Partner: J.E. & Z.B. Butler Foundation

Boston Urban Youth Foundation’s Building Futures Educational Initiative addresses the issue of violence through early prevention strategies for youth most at risk of future violent behavior – those on a trajectory to school dropout. Building Futures targets chronically truant middle school students and equips them with concrete academic and life skills that ensure school engagement, high school graduation, and college access.

Social Problem:

• Each year, about 4,000 (35%) of BPS middle school students are chronically truant, a primary indicator of later dropouts.

• Dropouts are the breeding ground for violence and crime; 85%
  of ninth-grade offenders in the Massachusetts Juvenile Justice System become dropouts.

• The consequences of dropping out are especially sobering for Latino and African American males, half of whom are likely to end up in prison before age 30.

• Boston has a dropout crisis. Each year, while 3,000 students graduate, another 1,600 have already dropped out.

Key Accomplishments & Social Impact:

• At least 500 Building Futures students have graduated from high school.

• 50 Building Futures participants are attending college now, and 27 participants have graduated from college since 2001.

• A Harvard Graduate School of Education study cited Building Futures as an exemplary truancy-reduction program.

Goals – Two Years (July 2007–June 2009):

• 
  • Increase the number of students served from 250 to 900 annually by 2009.

• Train eight new employees to staff three new schools.

• Build a long-term public-private partnership with the Boston Public School System.

Increase in Philanthropic Investment – 18 Months:

Read Boston Urban Youth Foundation Prospectus