City Year Seattle/King County (City Year) deploys young adult AmeriCorps members into systemically under-resourced urban public schools in Seattle to serve as tutors, mentors, and role models and help students develop the skills to graduate from high school on-time and on-track toward promising colleges and careers.
In 2015, City Year made plans to expand the organization’s impact into Seattle Public Schools. Anticipating this growth, City Year sought grants support from Ostara to help identify new potential prospects, draft foundation grants and grant reports, and help manage relationships with funders.
Through this work, Ostara helped City Year grow their grants portfolio by 70% from 2015 to 2019. Additionally, City Year attracted over a dozen new funders during this time by implementing strategic relationship-building tactics with key funders.
As a result of the strong financial base and deep partnerships with funders, City Year is taking the unprecedented step of expanding their program from serving only 3rd – 8th graders to also serving high schools by 2021. Ostara is incredibly proud of the impact that City Year has achieved.