Newark City of Learning Collaborative Receives $1.5 Million Grant from Foundation for Newark’s Future

On Wednesday, June 10, the Foundation for Newark’s Future (FNF) announced its award of a $1.5 million grant to the Newark City of Learning Collaborative (NCLC).

NCLC is a citywide, multi-sector network of more than 60 institutions charged with increasing by 2025 the number of Newark residents with postsecondary degrees. Specifically, the goal is to progress from 17percent of the city’s current population (29,000 individuals) to 25 percent (50,000 individuals, accounting for projected growth of Newark’s population).

Speaking on behalf of NCLC’s higher education partners, Essex County College President Gale Gibson said, “Achieving the ’25 percent by 2025’ goal requires a collective approach. That means agreeing on a common agenda, bridging vital partnerships from all sectors, understanding success metrics and tracking data, and developing targeted and effective strategies. Through the work of the NCLC and support from philanthropic partners like the Foundation for Newark’s Future, this work can and will get done—and I predict these resources will help us achieve 25 percent before 2025. ”

Nancy Cantor, chancellor of Rutgers University–Newark (RU-N) points to cross-sector collaboration as the key to leveraging the FNF gift to increase educational attainment in Newark. “Increasing college going is a critical aspect of community capacity-building in Newark and doing that is up to all of us—the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, as well as community members across our neighborhoods. With this investment in the cross-sector collaborative infrastructure being built by NCLC, the Foundation for Newark’s Future is making a powerful statement about the fundamental importance of city-wide partnerships to building and broadening the pathways to degree completion.”

FNF is an education foundation working to improve educational outcomes for Newark students. It is part of a $200 million campaign established in 2010 with a $100 million matching grant from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, which was quickly met with a $25 million investment by the Pershing Square Foundation. The additional $75 million in matching funds came from a variety of individual and organizational donors.

FNF invests in programs, initiatives, and community partnerships across Newark that create positive outcomes for students and families from the earliest years, to their K-12 experience at district and charter schools, and upon graduation. FNF’s goal is to achieve large-scale change through short-term philanthropy.

Kimberly Baxter McLain, president and chief executive officer of FNF said, “The Foundation for Newark’s Future is investing in NCLC because we believe in the importance of its mission to improve college graduation rates and its approach of collaboration with a broad cross-section of educators, stakeholders, advocates, and community members.  NCLC has galvanized the Newark education sector in an unprecedented manner, with everyone wrapping their collective arms around Newark’s kids to ensure they get to and through college. We are proud to be a partner in this collaborative effort and we applaud all of our partners for joining together on behalf of Newark’s kids in a way that is sure to have lasting impact for years to come.”

NCLC’s composition includes higher education institutions, the City of Newark, the Newark Workforce Investment Board, the Newark Housing Authority, the private sector, philanthropic organizations, college attainment programs, and community-based organizations. Through the Joseph C. Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies (Cornwall Center), RU-N serves as NCLC’s coordinating hub and facilitates its activities. One-third of the FNF grant will help finance the operational needs of the Cornwall Center. The remaining $1 million will be allocated to NCLC’s various programming endeavors.

Roland V. Anglin, director of the Cornwall Center, noted, “The NCLC works well because the partners spent a lot of time figuring out optimal roles and responsibilities. We developed strategies that recognize the important role of the higher educational institutions in promoting postsecondary alignment and achievement. But we also recognize that postsecondary achievement does not come about without a great deal of effort and support by families, the community and the dedicated college access groups, many of whom are a central part of the NCLC.”

Among the increasingly important roles that NCLC is playing in efforts to increase educational attainment in Newark is as convener of programs designed to strengthen crucial intersections among the pathways to a college degree. For example, over the past academic year, NCLC convened the GradNation Summit and the Student Recognition Day and Resource Fair. GradNation Summit is an initiative of America’s Promise to raise national awareness and intervene directly with local partners to reduce the number of high school dropouts. More than 150 stakeholders attended the summit to help devise a sustainable plan to stop students from leaving school prior to graduation and to reclaim those ages 16-24 who left school without obtaining a diploma or its equivalent.

The Student Recognition Day and Resource Fair was a two-day event designed to introduce more than 150 students to the college experience. Participants attended workshops on the college application process, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (commonly known as FAFSA), time management, financial literacy, student life, mentorship, and internships. The event concluded with the establishment of an NCLC student advisory council. Moreover, through its college-readiness and success programs, a forum for more than 25 college-readiness/pre-college initiatives, NCLC will continue to cultivate support services for its target population and develop college-readiness and success metrics.

In addition to FNF and RU–N’s Office of the Chancellor, other supporters of NCLC include the Lumina Foundation and the Victoria Foundation. Lumina Foundation’s $170,000 grant provides NCLC with capacity-building support; the grant was among 35 awarded nationwide by Lumina, one of the nation’s leading foundations working on raising educational attainment. The Victoria Foundation’s $75,000 gift provides project-management support for NCLC.

To learn more about NCLC, please visit www.nclc2025.org. Go to www.foundationfornewarksfuture.org for more information about FNF.