We are pleased to announce that VPP and Heads Up have completed a review of the fourth year of our strategic investment, and we have signed our continuation agreement for the fifth year of our investment partnership based on the progress Heads Up has achieved.
Heads Up, which was VPP’s first investment partner, provides quality after-school and summer education and enrichment programs for children and youth, and a unique service program for local university students. Since our partnership began in 2001, Heads Up has more than tripled the number of children they serve to 1,011 and has nearly doubled their number of sites, expanding to four new locations, for a total of 10 sites. In the past year, Heads Up has made excellent progress in reshaping their management team with the hiring of a qualified COO; adding key members to their board; continuing to reshape their delivery model; significantly strengthening their curriculum, evaluation processes, and program management; and identifying and securing additional funding through No Child Left Behind legislation and the CharityWorks competition. They have also attracted the attention of both Scholastic Books, who donated many of the books used in Heads Up’s programs, as well as Michaels Inc., who entered into an innovative partnership with them in 2004. Both partnerships are the result of strong relationships between Executive Director Darin McKeever and Heads Up board member Jack Davies and Heads Up supporter Richard Hanlon, both VPP founding investors.
The total VPP commitment to Heads Up is $2.074 million plus strategic assistance from the VPP team and network. To date, VPP has provided $1.7 million in capital, as well as supported their business planning initiative in 2001 with $174,000, for a total of $1.874 million for the first four years of the investment partnership.
Heads Up’s original aspiration was to become a leading and influential provider of out-of-school-time programs for children and teenagers in District of Columbia neighborhoods and to become the premier youth-related community service program for local universities and undergraduates. While Heads Up is making solid progress toward achieving this aspiration, it will be difficult for Heads Up to achieve their main goal of serving 2,400 children at 25 sites by 2007 because of funding constraints.
Darin McKeever reflected on the past four years of the Heads Up and VPP partnership saying, “Heads Up’s growth over the last several years can be measured in the number of kids and college students we involve or the schools with which we partner, and Venture Philanthropy Partners’ support has been critical to our achievements in this respect. Yet it may be growth in a second respect where our relationship will have its most lasting impact. I believe there has been a more expansive idea of growth at work within Heads Up that is, at times, even more important—one that embraces not only the numbers of families served but the quality of the services delivered, the maturity of our operations, and the thoughtfulness we bring to our organization’s development and the volatile policy and programming environment in which we live.”
In consideration of their performance to date and projections moving forward, Heads Up and VPP have agreed to revise their goal for the current milestone period to the following: increase the number of children served year-round for school year 2005-06 from 865 in 2004 to 1,200 children (a 40 percent increase); and from 760 children in 2004 to 900 children (an 18 percent increase) in the summer of 2005. A key initiative for the coming year will be the achievement of the revised goal, while ensuring that the quality of the program remains consistent with the current high standard. In the coming year, Heads Up will examine a variety of options to grow their model, including finding new sources of scalable funding.
Heads Up has made significant progress and Darin McKeever has provided strong leadership in a challenging year, and we are grateful for the opportunity to be their investment partner. Please join me in congratulating Heads Up’s leadership team and Board and VPP team members Fred Bollerer and Steve Seleznow for advancing this partnership. Please visit the VPP website to learn more about Heads Up.
VPP Board and Investors can access private documents on the VPP partnership with Heads Up, including the Investment Agreement, in the secure area of the site. If you need assistance accessing the secure area, please contact Suzy Twohig at stwohig@vppartners.org.
My best, Mario
VPP is a nonprofit philanthropic investment organization that provides growth capital and strategic assistance to high potential community-based organizations serving the core developmental, learning, and educational needs of children of low-income families in the National Capital Region. VPP is incorporated as a nonprofit public charity and operates as a support organization to the Community Foundation for the National Capital Region.