Broadway for Arts Education (BAE) is a nonprofit organization that provides arts education to underserved youth by engaging volunteers from the Broadway community. BAE strives to shape a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive community for its students and volunteers. BAE enlisted a team to develop a method for assessing the impact of its Urban Assembly program in NYC, with the objective of creating and implementing a sustainable measurement system of student-oriented key performance indicators, including racial sensitivity, confidence, program enjoyment, and teacher effectiveness. This system will allow BAE to evaluate its impact and articulate its value to prospective donors and grantmaking institutions. The team undertook a literature review, case study analysis of similar organizations, and extensive interviews with students and staff. With this research, the team helped develop performance goals and pilot a pre- and post-survey system, which it linked to a live dashboard that visualizes key results in relation to BAE’s mission.

Futures and Options is a NYC-based youth workforce development nonprofit organization that aims to empower underserved youth by providing paid internship opportunities to high school students. Since 1995, Futures and Options has worked with over 7,000 students and 500 businesses. The organization has expanded to provide additional programming that includes career essentials and college counseling. The organization partnered with a team to create a strategic plan that reduces employee turnover and equitably recruits, retains, and develops employee talent. The team conducted market research and an environmental scan on current competitors, mapped the trajectory of former employees, researched talent retention best practices, developed and implemented a survey, and conducted interviews with current employees. Using this data, the team produced a report outlining recommendations for strengthening Futures and Options’ talent pipeline by creating consistent and transparent organizational processes.

Opening Act is committed to advancing arts equity in New York City and beyond by providing free, high-quality theater programming to the city’s highest need schools. The organization works in 57 schools throughout NYC and has served over 5,000 young people over its 20 year history. Opening Act engaged a team to explore new service models and revenue streams, and identify its potential impacts on the organization. The team evaluated the adoption of a fee-for-service model and new earned income opportunities. It conducted staff and alumni interviews, school partner surveys, desktop research, and a competitive analysis. The team’s recommendations and resources include insights into fundraising trends, feedback from stakeholders, an actionable guide to the NYC Department of Education contracting process, and market research on professional development classes and online education platforms.