Out-of-School-Time Learning
Every child in Allegheny County deserves access to high quality out-of-school time learning experiences.
By reducing the opportunity gap, OST learning experiences can help all children - but especially those living in poverty - to lead a healthy and successful life. We fund hands-on learning experiences where youth can connect to positive adults, feel safe to try new things, and have the opportunity to hone new skills.
Through our funding, we work to strengthen and expand OST learning in Allegheny County to ensure equitable access to opportunity for all children.
* This research is summarized in McCombs et al. (2017), Neild et al. (2019), and Vandell et al. (2015)
Research shows that quality out-of-school time (OST) learning experiences can be key to helping children and youth thrive, unlocking important 21st century learning skills which are indicators of future success in life.* This is especially true for learning experiences in which young people can follow and deepen their own interests.
What We Fund
Initiatives that ensure and expand access to high-quality out-of-school-time learning, including grants to enable providers to maintain operations, grow service capacity, and expand service to meet geographic needs.
Initiatives that ensure and expand quality out-of-school-time learning, including grants to ensure providers are qualified and prepared, that the physical learning environment is high quality, and that programs intentionally implement quality learning experiences.
Initiatives that support and strengthen the out-of-school-time learning field, including grants to coordinate resources to support providers, grow the knowledge base to ensure continuous improvement, and to increase public support for out-of-school-time learning.
We provide flexible, general operating support to help grantees meet their goals. We will also consider project and capacity building requests.
We are particularly interested in funding leaders who exhibit a commitment to program quality and are working towards continual improvement. If you are interested in learning more about positive youth development and the markers of high quality OST programs, we encourage you to familiarize yourself with the following resources:
Our Priorities
Programs that primarily serve children living in poverty and/or children of color.
Programs that are community-based, rather than operated by schools.
Programs that primarily serve children in grades K-8 and operate inside of Allegheny County.
Programs that operate with dependable consistency and high frequency.
Organizations with an annual operating budget of $3 million or less.
Enrichment providers that provide regularly occurring, content specific programming at other organization’s OST sites.
We Are Unlikely to Fund
OST programs that are operated by a school or school district.
Programs operating outside of Allegheny County.
Organizations with annual operating budgets of more than $3 million.
Programs that focus primarily on sports, academic recovery or learning loss, workforce development, mentoring, or college/job readiness.
Scholarships.
Singular events such as assemblies, performances, or workshops.
How to Apply
Please answer the following questions to determine the next steps for your application: