BUZZ: The Doe Fund ... Change Capital Fund ... NYC contracts

The Doe Fund celebrated last night the graduation of more than 100 formerly homeless and incarcerated men from a program called Ready, Willing & Able at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in Manhattan. Participants in the program wear blue uniforms as they clean streets and sidewalks throughout the city, a first phase of the program. Months of job training follow as well as educational opportunities and other services. Men in the program must secure independent housing and full-time, private sector employment to graduate from the program, according to a press release.

New York City-based Change Capital Fund – a collaborative of 17 public and private funders that invests in community development organizations – touted in a press release the accomplishments of its grant recipients as a new funding cycle gets underway. Here are a few examples:

• St. Nicks Alliance’s Literary Immersion Model Pilot Project increased the percentage of third graders in their after school program who were reading at grade level from 7 percent to 31 percent in a nine-month period.
• New Settlement Apartment’s College Access Program participants exceeded CUNY persistence and graduation rates.
• Fifth Avenue Committee’s Employment Training Bridge pilots provided remedial math and English tutoring to help participants meet requirements for job training programs. In one pilot, 83.3 percent of participants were able to achieve the required level for the training programs.

Kpmg has received a $3.7 million contract from the New York City Administration for Children’s Services  to provide consulting on Raise the Age, according to the City Record. Nasry Michelen Day Care Center in Manhattan has landed a $481,197 contract from ACS to provide child care. Brooklyn-based Camba meanwhile secured a $7.94 million contract with the Department of Social Services/Human Resources Administration for “homebased homelessness.” And Coalition for the Homeless has $492,000 more from those same agencies for homelessness prevention programming.