As you craft your letter, keep these points in mind:

• Personalize it as if writing to one donor
• Add visual appeal
• Ensure consistency of branding throughout the form letter, reply card, and envelopes

In the letter, you’ll want to tell your supporters how they’ve made a difference throughout the year. Share a compelling story or two about how lives were changed as a result of their support. These stories should demonstrate the kind of impact your organization is capable of making to improve your community. Also give donors a glimpse of the current landscape – what are the major challenges and problems facing the communities you serve and how is your organization poised to address them? Help your supporters understand that they are potential solutions to these challenges.

As we all know, social media is an important tool to use in your campaign. Messaging around your overall campaign theme needs to be engaging, compelling, visual, and brief — especially on Facebook and Twitter! Make sure your organization’s webpage is updated, including end-of-year campaign content. Work with your communications team to design follow-up campaign messages once your appeal letter is out the door. These could be stories from the field, testimonials from clients, quotes from afterschool program leaders, and other allies.

Here’s a suggested timeline of key activities to help prepare for a successful end of year campaign:

• September: Set a financial goal and decide on a theme for your end-of-year campaign. Compile your donor list and ensure all names, addresses, and emails are complete and updated. Make sure you have an ample supply of paper, reply cards, envelopes, etc. for the appeal letter.
• October: Craft your appeal letter and reply card, including images and graphics. Plan and draft follow-up appeal communications, including weekly e-blasts and social media posts. Ensure consistent branding across all communications.
• November: Mail out appeal letter by mid-November or before Thanksgiving. Do follow-up communications through weekly e-blasts, starting week after Thanksgiving. Use Giving Tuesday, a day of global giving on November 28, to launch follow-up messaging.
• December: Weekly e-blasts and social media posts are ongoing with urgency of messaging increasing (for instance, a message on December 30 that reads, “Only 24 hours before the year closes to show your support”...) Prepare donor thank you letters.
• January: Continue sending donor thank-you letters, including the donation amount as proof for tax deductions. Once your campaign is over, send donors an update on whether your financial goal was met or not. Inform your donors on how their support will be put to work in the coming year.

Finally, devote time to debrief with your team on campaign results. Assess total campaign contributions and compare with previous year totals and review average gift amounts.

Check to see if donor base expanded from previous years. Analyze your campaign expenses – were they higher this year? Did those expenses net a significant increase in donations? Examine social media analytics (i.e., open, click-through, and unsubscribe rates) to assess what if any modifications should be made in future campaigns.

And most importantly, keep nurturing relationships with your supporters through regular communications updates so they remain connected and committed to your cause and ready to engage on your next campaign!

Founded in 2010, the Michigan Engineering Zone empowers children in Center City Detroit to follow careers in science, technology, engineeering, and math (STEM) and to pursue a college education. Serving a 95 percent African American student community, the program meets five days a week as they prepare to compete in the FIRST Robotics Competition. The University of Michigan provides students with the space, tools, and software. Students are led by engineering students from the University of Michigan, who are provided with transportation from the Ann Arbor campus to center city Detroit, courtesy of the university, during days of instruction.

United Detroit's youth through robotics

The purpose of the program is to inspire students from the 18 participating schools to pursue a career in STEM. To draw all underrepresented students to the field of STEM, the university works with the highest- and lowest-performing schools in Detroit Public Schools. 

The director of the program, Julian Pate, says that the labels of school prestige are left at the door. “A major goal here is to show students that people come from different backgrounds."

Instead, students are encouraged to work together in a collaborative environment that prepares them for the real world. In fostering cooperation and team work, the program works to teach its students that “winning is just an activity, and not to spend their time chasing trophies. “

The MEZ provide more than just the tools needed to engineer a robot. Students and their parents are also introduced to what it means to be a college student. Many of these students are the first in their family to attend college, and having guidance and support from college graduates helps answer their questions and give them insight into the next step of their educational careers.

“We hold periodic sessions to solve the mystery of what college readiness looks like,” Mr. Pate says. These information sessions aim at involving parents in the college readiness process. The equation appears to be working: 62 of the last 65 graduating seniors who attended MEZ were accepted into the University of Michigan, while the other three enlisted in the military.

Achieving success through cooperation

Community efforts and partnerships are the lifeline inthis program. Monday through Thursday, Detroit Public Schools provide transportation to the MEZ center to ensure students can stay committed to the program. In addition, the Ford Foundation helps fund lunches provided during Saturday’s day long instruction. Other local organizations and corporate partners like Google have made contributions to the program, as well. Still, some obstacles keep the MEZ from reaching a wider range of students in need.

“The biggest obstacle is space,” says Mr. Pate. The University of Michigan has provided many resources to the program, but a wider space for work could allow more students to participate in the program. Already, others within the University have begun to find more space in the future. “The goal here is to find all the hidden gems in the city.”

According to Mr. Pate, the key for success of the program comes from a culture that is fostered from the top to the bottom. Program directors allow children to lead themselves, as opposed to having program leaders dictate what and how the children learn. This hands-off approach encourages students to take risks and experiment in an academic setting. By learning through trial by error, the participants of this program are empowered to try new ways to solve problems inside and outside of the classroom.

“This allows students to learn from their mistakes and feel engaged with a purpose,” says Mr. Pate.

To learn more about the Michigan Engineering Zone and how you can help the organization, click here.

I was giving one such presentation a few weeks ago, speaking about the children we serve, when an audience member took issue with the fact that in addition to serving refugees, we also serve "possible illegal aliens."

“We don’t ask for the legal status of the children we enroll,” I explained, and moved on.

On the next slide of my presentation there are two pictures, one of a refugee boy from Syria and another of a girl from Guatemala. I typically tell both stories and share how well they are doing now, improving their English language skills, learning about science and math, but in a reactive effort to win back the woman’s approval, I omitted the girl’s story.

I immediately regretted it.

The current political climate is changing the way many people approach ourBRIDGE, but that's okay. While some may react like the audience member at the presentation did, many, many more have come forward to stand up and show their support for children like the girl from Guatemala. In fact, ourBRIDGE alone has seen a 900 percent increase in volunteer sign-ups since November 2016.

I wish that I had told the group that what really matters is that our student is safe with her family and getting her education; that she is learning English and will excel at anything she puts her mind into, because she already does. Her journey, her challenges, and her success should be shared. Her voice, just like that of millions of kids like her, should be heard, and we should stay 100 percent true to our conviction that these children and their education matter, regardless of whom we have in front of us. While the newly-arrived children can prove it themselves, we need to be the ones standing up for them, everywhere, every time — no matter who our audience is.

Is your afterschool program looking for resources to help support immigrant kids and families? Check out our webinar and the attached list of resources, including factsheets and guides to the rights of children, students, and families. For more on this subject and ways afterschool providers can take action, read Guest blog: Fear and deportation.

For most programs, sharing stories about their kids and the activities they offer is the number-one way to show the impact of their program. Talking about how a sixth grader learned leadership skills through participating in an afterschool activity, highlighting a young child’s growing artistic ability, or sharing good news about a student’s academic improvements are engaging and exciting ways to tell your story.

 Once you’ve got your cornerstone established, head to social media to tell your story. Here’s a quick checklist of strategies to employ as you share your message.

• Encourage parents to follow and retweet or share your updates, and to post about afterschool themselves. Parents can be powerful allies in getting the word out about your program and reaching out to policymakers!
• Follow other afterschool programs and national afterschool organizations to stay in touch with other practitioners in the field and share information and resources.
• Use our social media handle lookup tool to connect with your policymakers and keep your conversations with them going through Lights On Afterschool and beyond!
• Tag your posts with #AfterschoolWorks and #LightsOnAfterschool so you can connect with people who follow those tags.
• Not sure what to say? Check out our social media page and read through the social media guide to find sample posts and tweets that you can use to spread the word about your event.

Most social media platforms are visual mediums, so photos and videos are essential to good conversations and chances of being retweeted. Make the most of your event and your program’s every day work by taking good pictures! 

• First things first: be sure to ask parents to give permission to have their children photographed and videotaped! You can use our photo release document if needed.
• People are much more likely to share and retweet a post that has images — be strategic about getting good pictures so you have plenty of images to choose from.
• For social media, bigger is better: the higher the resolution on your images, the better the quality of the picture and the more likely it is that people will share, retweet, and respond to it!

Of course, storytelling doesn’t happen online alone. Here are some offline tips to get your message out to the community.

• You get ten free posters when you register for Lights On: use them! Reserve some posters to use in your event venue and post the others on public bulletin boards and community gathering places.
• Reach out to local media, including newspapers, radio stations, and TV stations and invite them to cover your event or a typical day in your program.
• Invite your representatives to a site visit to show them what afterschool is all about (and of course, post on social media thanking them afterwards!).
• Get in touch with local businesses and organizations. Community partners like libraries and law enforcement often have shared goals with afterschool programs.

Finally, join us on September 27 for a special day of action dedicated to sharing the stories of afterschool programs from across the country. Tweet and post your images, videos, and messages about afterschool to your policymakers show them firsthand how afterschool works in your community!

The House passed H.R. 3354 today after completing debate on amendments. Because a continuing resolution was signed into law earlier this month, the federal government is funded temporarily until December 8, giving the House and Senate several months to reconcile the differences between their very different versions of FY2018 spending bills.

While Amendment sponsors originally sought to restore the full $192 million cut that was made in the House education spending bill, the House Rules Committee would not allow an amendment that funded the program above the ESSA authorized amount of $1.1 billion. As a result the amendment restores $100 million of the cut but is still below the current funded level of $1.192 billion. 

For Community Learning Centers, the Senate will enter those negotiations with $1.192 billion for afterschool, while the House will now start with $1.1 billion. Leadership in both chambers will have to come up with a larger spending agreement, as well as figure out final program funding levels for initiatives like Community Learning Centers before the December 8 deadline.

Advocates should thank House members who voted in support of afterschool funding this week and should continue reaching out to representatives and senators to make the case for Community Learning Centers funding as negotiations continue throughout the fall. Lights On Afterschool next month is a great opportunity to showcase the value and importance of local afterschool programs.

Finally, a tremendous thank-you to all of the parents, advocates, friends of afterschool, national afterschool and summer learning providers, and supporters that joined together to reach out directly and through stakeholders to provide research and examples of the effectiveness of Community Learning Centers-funded programs. Your outreach will help 100,000 kids keep their afterschool and summer programs!

From the office of the mayor

Karen Best, currently serving her second term as mayor of Branson, Missouri, explained to the audience that Branson is a town of seasonal work. Many families are in the entertainment industry often needing to work three shifts in the busy season to make ends meet. And it’s not only parents and the economy who benefit. Referencing author and academic Ruby Payne, Mayor Best reminded the audience that children require both education and relationships — two components strongly present in afterschool programs.

Mayor Best shared a story of a student who she’d watched transition from an anxious wallflower to a leader in a local Boys and Girls Club, concluding, “If you’re cutting funding for these programs, you are cutting the future for these kids.”

A salute to afterschool

Brigadier General (Ret.) Dave McGinnis, spoke next. B.G. McGinnis is a member of Mission Readiness, a project bringing together retired generals and admirals in an effort to keep American children academically and physically ready to serve the nation in any capacity they may choose. Yet today, many students are not ready.

The three barriers to qualification are ability to pass military readiness tests, obesity, and/or a history of police involvement or drug abuse — issues afterschool is prepared to tackle. Additionally, the military needs strategic thinkers.

“We are entering the age of the strategic corporal,” McGinnis related. “We’ve got to enlist people who can learn on their own, who can collaborate and create. They learn all those traits outside of the classroom.”

McGinnis appealed to the audience, “If there is ever a question about how important afterschool programs are, just look across the street at the Pentagon.”

Business is booming

Heather Nesle, President of the New York Life Foundation, explained New York Life’s investment in afterschool and summer program. After a survey of partners in the field to identify how best to support education, they heard afterschool and out-of-school time programs were “pivotal” in helping youth reach long term-success.

As part of the foundation’s work, the New York Life Foundation began a grant program, AIM High, to help successful local afterschool programs expand. Nesle reported that the 18 available grants received more than 470 applicants. “The demand is out there,” she said. “These are programs that work and they have long waiting lists to join.”

In addition to fostering academic achievement and community-building, Nesle highlighted afterschool programs as good for business, giving employees peace of mind about their children after the school day. Additionally, afterschool and summer programs help develop the next generation of a qualified and diverse workforce, by teaching kids to work in teams, get along with others, and tackle challenges.

Rx: afterschool

Randy Neve, manager at the Marshfield Clinic Center for Community Outreach in Wisconsin, gave three reasons why his organization invests in afterschool: programs reduce the incidence of teenage pregnancy, provide venues for coordinating delivery of services to youth and establishing preventative services, and improve students’ educational outcomes (which are directly correlated with health outcomes).

Marshfield Clinic’s initial program began through a grant to reduce teenage pregnancy. The clinic created Youth Net, an afterschool program which quickly became popular and filled to serving 300 youth a day. Today, the clinic works with AmeriCorp Volunteers and YMCAs to implement evidence-based practices and with pediatricians so youth at risk of obesity can be referred to a local afterschool program as part of a prescription for a healthy lifestyle. The clinic is also working to bring in mental health professionals who can help with well-child checks and work with youth who have experienced incidents of trauma.

Neve also mentioned his clinic provides leadership for one of 50 national Statewide Afterschool Networks, which focus on training and technical assistance to ensure all afterschool programs in the state are high-quality.

Stability for students

Anne Tanner, K-2 Principal at Arlee Elementary School on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Arlee Montana, shared moving stories about the struggles her district faces. Ninety-five percent of the youth in Arlee’s school district are eligible for Free and Reduced Meals (FARMS), while 30 percent of her elementary students are considered homeless and one in five of her second graders live in a foster home. The area has recently seen a surge of suicides, including the tragic death of a seventh grade student the night before Anne came to D.C.

School can often be the only constant for these children, Tanner explained. “We are in triage, we can’t do it without afterschool funding.” She continued mentioning her 21^st Century Community Learning Center grant, calling it “the cornerstone for providing the help we know we need to give to our students.”

Tanner has been working creatively to extend the grant, which can only reach 50 percent of her student population. She has revamped her programs to include certified health professionals, a three-to-one ratio for students with a certified teacher, a focus on parent involvement, and engaging activities like science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), Discover Camp, and Leadership Camps.

Final thoughts: Why federal investment?

The panel concluded with a question from the audience asking if, in light of the inconsistency of federal funding, it would be better for programs to focus on private investment?

Panelists agreed that it was essential to involve the community and communicate about these program and what they do, but that local funding alone would not be enough to meet demand.

“It’s got to be a true partnership,” B.G. McGinnis explained. “This benefits everybody; it is not a charity program.”

The briefing involved the support of many partners including After-School All-Stars, American Camp Association, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, Communities in Schools, Council for a Strong America, Every Hour Counts, National Afterschool Association, National League of Cities, National Park and Recreation Association, National Summer Learning Association, Save the Children, and YMCA of the USA.