Youthprise
Report date
November 2020
What has been most instrumental to your progress?
The most significant decision that altered the trajectory of our work was pivoting to use the K-12 Education Tax Credit to help families get Chromebooks to assist with distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The program was experiencing solid growth prior to that decision, but in the first 48 hours that we offered Chromebooks in March 2020, we received more applications than we did in all of 2019 combined. Now, with applications in 2020 up over 2300% compared to 2019, Minnesota Afterschool Advance (MAA) is on a completely new growth trajectory. The pivot to Chromebooks helped in several key ways: (1) it generated tremendous word of mouth and viral marketing for us which significantly raised awareness of the program among eligible families and program providers; (2) it attracted a huge program user base to which we can now easily promote our core, original offering of reduced cost out-of-school time programming; and (3) it gave us the volume to demonstrate proof of concept of the funding model we built.
Intentionally being physically present in the communities in which we are operating was critical to building trust and laying the groundwork for success. We chose to focus on communities in Greater Minnesota early on in the program’s development, beginning with a small pilot in Northfield in 2018. Then, in 2019, we expanded to communities like Faribault and Grand Rapids along with some exurban communities like Stillwater. Each time we moved into a new community, MAA staff was intentional about visiting in-person multiple times to get to know program providers, meet key community leaders, and promote the program directly to families at local events. These in-person visits were essential to building the trust of the local community. Since MAA’s model is admittedly complex, we would not have been successful if we hadn’t laid the groundwork for that trust by being present in the community.
A willingness to experiment, accompanied by a process of learning and rapid iteration, were also instrumental in identifying an approach to MAA that meets the needs of families. Our initial 2018 pilot in Northfield did not produce the volume of applications we were hoping for. As a result, we started experimenting with various aspects of the program while studying the data, both quantitative and qualitative, to identify what was working and what wasn’t. Examples of our experimentation include changes to the application process, expanding to different types of communities, offering different types of activities, trying different marketing approaches, and expanding our offerings to Chromebooks. If we had simply stuck with the approach we originally conceived of at the start of the grant period, MAA would not have experienced the rapid growth and success we’ve seen over the last two years. By being willing to experiment, learn, and adapt based on what’s working, we made the program more responsive to our intended audience.
Key lessons learned
One challenge we identified is that many of the existing marketing approaches for fee-for-service out-of-school time programming does not effectively reach families that are eligible for the K-12 Education Tax Credit. We’ve worked with many program providers who are enthusiastic about using MAA to help low-income families access their programming. However, they were disappointed when they did not see high numbers of low-income families registering for their offerings via MAA. We believe a significant reason for this is that their marketing is not reaching these families. For instance, many of our community ed partners promoted MAA heavily in their seasonal programming catalogs that get sent to every family in the district. However, since low-income families have not historically been able to afford those activities, they often are not reviewing the catalog when it arrives. Looking ahead, MAA can bring value to both the program providers and low-income families by leveraging Youthprise’s expertise in working with culturally-specific organizations to help these program providers reimagine their marketing strategies to reach the low-income families they are hoping to serve.
Another challenge was determining a compelling value proposition that would incentivize families to complete the application process. Early on, many of the activities we offered via our program providers were $20 - $50 classes that lasted a few weeks. While we have tried to streamline the application as much as possible, it still takes most families at least 15 – 20 minutes and is more complicated than a traditional scholarship application. As a result, many families concluded the time and complexity of navigating the application process was not worth it for a relatively inexpensive and short duration class. However, families did find the MAA value proposition compelling for more expensive or longer duration activities such as tutoring, driver’s ed, semester-long dance classes, etc. Chromebooks for distance learning presented perhaps the strongest value proposition of all. As a result, we have focused more of our resources on making Chromebooks and these higher priced or longer duration activities available.
While we are very pleased with the results of the program so far, MAA won't reach its full potential without legislative and administrative changes to the K-12 Education Tax Credit. One barrier we faced, especially early on, was the income limit of $33,500. It hasn’t increased since 1997, and there are many families in need that our partners assumed would qualify that ended up being above this income limit. We also documented that it takes 26 steps to complete the tax credit assignment process. Completing a process that complex is not realistic for many of the families that qualify for the tax credit. We have identified and presented to the Department of Revenue recommended changes that would cut the number of steps in half. The current definition of “qualified instructor” in state statute is also problematic. The definition’s over reliance on formal credentials is discriminatory both to communities of color and Greater Minnesota where bachelor’s degrees are far less prevalent, and it also ignores youth development best practices. It should be noted that we have not used any of the Bush Foundation grant dollars for lobbying purposes.
Reflections on the community innovation process
The most important element of the diagram to completing our work was being “resourceful.” This began even with the impetus for MAA—only 4% of the total potential funding for the K-12 Education Tax Credit is utilized each year. With the serious deficit in funding for out-of-school time programming in Minnesota, the youth development field can’t afford to leave hundreds of millions of existing dollars on the table. Next, we developed a program partnership model that leveraged existing strengths that Youthprise and Venn Foundation brought to the table rather than creating a new standalone organization. Rather than establishing our own out-of-school time programming, we focused on providing access to out-of-school time programming that was already being offered by organizations in the community. Lastly, in promoting the program to families, we relied on the expertise and deep relationships of organizations like CAP agencies that have been operating in the community for years. The depth and breadth of these organizations’ connections were vital to building trust and would have been prohibitively expensive in terms of both time and financial resources for us to build on our own.
Progress toward an innovation
The number of students served is the strongest evidence of MAA achieving an innovation. In our small pilot in Northfield in 2018, we served five students. That grew to 44 students in 2019, and this year, we are on track to serve over 1,000 students! Applications have come from over 300 cities across Minnesota. Similarly, we leveraged approximately $1,500 in K-12 Education Tax Credit dollars in 2018 and over $15,000 in 2019. In 2020, we’re at $140,000 and counting. On this trajectory, the amount of K-12 Education Tax Credit dollars leveraged will soon exceed Bush Foundation’s initial investment in the program! We have also seen a shift from the early days when our program had to work hard actively recruiting families and program providers to now having families and program providers reach out to us with very little marketing or promotion on our part. The momentum is clearly building, and we have established the proof of concept that we hoped to with this grant. We are demonstrating that this model can successfully help more families use more of the K-12 Education Tax Credit dollars that have been sitting untapped for too long.
What it will take to reach an innovation?
We believe we were successful in achieving an innovation, but we are not resting on our laurels. For more on how we plan to keep building on the innovation, see Question 8.
What's next?
There are three primary areas of focus for building on our innovation. First, we want to continue growing the number of families and program providers we work with while also continuing to expand our geographic reach throughout all of Minnesota. Second, we want to increase the repayment percentage of the loans made through MAA. Right now, approximately two-thirds of the money is repaid through the credit assignment process with the Department of Revenue. We would ultimately like to see that number in the 80-90% range. To do so, we are examining ways we can improve our communication about the tax filing component to families and better support them through tax season. Finally, we plan to pursue aggressively our desired changes in the law regarding the Tax Credit. Reaching MAA’s full potential will require increasing the income limit, streamlining the assignment process, and expanding the definition of “qualified instructor.”
If you could do it all over again...
The one piece of advice we would give ourselves at the beginning of the grant period is “patience is key.” The numbers we produced early on, especially in 2018, were lower than we had hoped. At the time, it would have been easy to get down or question the long-term viability of the program. However, we continued to push ahead all while continually refining our model based on what we were learning to better adapt to the needs of families and program providers. Importantly, Youthprise and others were willing to invest additional capital in the program to give us a longer runway to demonstrate success. Eventually, the right environmental conditions for success came along, and we experienced exponential growth because of the work we had put in during the early days of the grant period where we weren’t seeing the success we had hoped. Without patience and persistence, the program would not have made it to the inflection point of the COVID-19 pandemic where we were able to demonstrate the true power of this innovation.
One last thought
Additional resources from the community will be critical to building on this innovation. We are actively looking for three types of capital to fuel our growth—each with a unique value proposition to donors. Contributing to the loan pool allows your dollars, unlike a scholarship, to reused year after year using the innovative K-12 Education Tax Credit repayment model developed by MAA. Providing operating capital to fund staff to assist families and service providers with the process will allow us to leverage several times that investment in K-12 Education Tax Credit dollars. There are also many families that cannot afford even the 25% family contribution. Providing scholarship dollars to cover that 25% allows us to help the family secure the other 75% through the K-12 Education Tax Credit, essentially creating a 3:1 match of those scholarship dollars.