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In 1999, to help strategize for our vision for future growth, the Harlem Children's Zone worked in collaboration with the Bridgespan Group, management consultants in Cambridge, MA, to design a business plan. The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation funded the collaboration which enabled the Harlem Children's Zone to map out a programmatic and fiscal strategy to reach our goal of serving over 23,000 children and adults by 2009.
In the March 2002 edition of Edna McConnell Clark Foundation's newsletter, Grants and News, they have published an interview with Geoffrey Canada about the business plan process.
The business plan begins:
"At the start of its fourth decade, the Harlem Children's Zone (formerly Rheedlen Centers for Children & Families) has become a national standard-bearer for this simple but far-reaching idea: It is difficult, often impossible, to raise healthy children in a disintegrated community. Without local institutions that draw families and young people together around common interests and activities — religious, social, and recreational organizations, effective schools, safe and well-used public spaces — even the most heroic child-rearing is likely to fail.
Conversely, by gathering and organizing members of the community around activities of common interest — particularly the healthy development of children — even the most devastating conditions can be reversed. The Harlem Children's Zone's mission is to concentrate that kind of activity on well-being of children in Central Harlem, where poverty and unemployment are many times higher than national averages, education and student achievement fall well below U.S. and New York City levels, and the rate of foster care placement is the highest in the state.
Behind this mission lie two main tenets: First, children from troubled communities are far more likely to grow to healthy, satisfying adulthood (and to help build a better community) if a critical mass of the adults around them are well versed in the techniques of effective parenting, and are engaged in local educational, social, and religious activities with their children.
Second, the earlier a child is touched by sound health care, intellectual and social stimulation, and consistent guidance from loving, attentive adults, the more likely that child will be to grow into a responsible and fulfilled member of the community. Intervention at later stages is still important - and must be adjusted as the person progresses through the various stages of youth. But later intervention is more costly and less sure of success. Families will need these later efforts to a lesser degree and in declining amounts if the earliest intervention is effective.
These twin principles — a critical mass of engaged, effective families, and early and progressive intervention in children's development — have led the Harlem Children's Zone in recent years to concentrate more of its activities on the families in a 24-block region of Central Harlem called the Harlem Children's Zone Project. Taking this concentration of effort to its logical fulfillment - reaching a greater percentage of residents in the Zone with a wider, more effective mix of services, particularly at earlier ages - is the first and most far-reaching of the imperatives of this Business Plan. In fact, most of the other imperatives flow from that one, and all of them rest on the same governing principles."
Please note, the business plan outlines the Harlem Children's Zone's goals and strategy from FY 00- FY 09. The dynamic nature of the Harlem Children's Zone means that many of our new programs and strategies, as well as revised goals, are not part of the business plan that was written in Fiscal Year 00. However, for updates, please review parts of our website such as the Harlem Children's Zone Project's Executive Summary and the Preventive and Beacon Strategies.
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