Koret Funding Focus: Youth Development
Youth Docent Programs Help Young People Achieve Their Potential
Catalyst
From the President
Koret’s youth development program
is a direct complement to our K–12
Education Initiative. By broadening our
focus to include a range of skills and
competencies important to achievement
beyond the classroom, we hope to offer
Bay Area youth the best opportunity for
self-sufficiency and success in life.
All of the youth docent programs supported by Koret provide challenging and supportive learning experiences during non-school hours for low-income Bay Area middle school and high school youth. More specifically, these programs have been selected for their rigor in evaluation and their fiscal responsibility, as well as for achieving tangible youth development goals. Recent longitudinal studies conducted by outside evaluators for two such programs — the California Academy of Sciences and the Exploratorium — document the long-term positive impact of these docent programs on young people’s lives.
Helping the youth in our community realize their full potential is fundamental to Koret’s mission. Grants awarded through our youth development program area support this enduring goal.
Tad Taube, President
Koret Foundation
Program Officer Gale Mondry manages Koret’s youth development portfolio. Gale began her career at Stanford University in the general counsel’s office. She then became Vice President for Legal Services at California Pacific Medical Center, a position she held for 11 years. Gale’s extensive experience with nonprofit organizations includes service as board chair of the award-winning Gateway High School, a charter school that she helped to found in 1998; director of major gifts for Huckleberry Youth Programs; and board president and capital campaign co-chair for the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco. She is a graduate of Brown University and Harvard Law School.
by Gale Mondry
Underscoring its core value of helping individuals realize their full potential, Koret has a long history of funding youth development programs. One funding area, which we highlight in this issue, is youth docent programs at science and wildlife museums.
Since its very beginnings in 1979, Koret has been committed to improving the lives of young people from low-income backgrounds through grants to community-based organizations with a track record of delivering high-quality, effective services.
In this effort, we strive to help make available to low-income youth the supports and opportunities that are more readily available to young people in middle- and upper-class communities.
The youth docent programs highlighted here offer young people opportunities to engage in work-based and service-learning activities at various Bay Area science and technology museums. Every year hundreds of young people who participate in these programs improve their self-confidence, develop important interpersonal relationships, enhance their knowledge of science and math, and think differently about their own future endeavors.
The youth docent programs that Koret supports utilize “best practices,” have achieved desired outcomes, regularly evaluate their performance, are financially sustainable, and have the potential for expansion and/or replication.
Koret’s activities in the youth development field complement its goals in its K–12 education funding area. At the same time, the youth development program focus is broader than school success, encompassing the development of a range of skills and competencies important for success in life.