America's Promise Alliance Receives $1 Million From AT&T to Address Dropout Crisis

[From Philanthropy News Digest] The America's Promise Alliance in Washington, D.C., has announced a $1 million grant from the AT&T Aspire initiative — a $100 million effort launched by AT&T and the AT&T Foundation to help American students succeed in high school, the workforce, and life.

According to a study from Arizona State University's School of Social Family Dynamics, high school teens spend more than half their time in the company of their peers; indeed, the credibility, authority, power, and influence of peers is greater during adolescence than at any other time in life. Funding from AT&T will help the Alliance create a new grants program designed to empower youth to develop and implement their own program ideas for increasing graduation rates and workforce readiness among teens.

Through the My Idea program, the Alliance will award local grants ranging from $500 to $1,500 to youth in one of ten Alliance-identified communities with high dropout rates and national grants of up to $20,000 to youth in all fifty states for community-wide projects. Youth participating in the program will be paired with Alliance partners to carry out their initiatives.

The grant from AT&T also will support Grad Nation, the next phase of the Alliance's Dropout Prevention Campaign. The ten-year initiative will focus on areas of the country where need is greatest, especially communities surrounding the nation's two thousand lowest-performing high schools, which account for approximately 50 percent of all young people who drop out of school.

"Grad Nation offers us an opportunity to build on the terrific summit work and start driving real change in our communities to help kids stay in school," said America's Promise Alliance CEO Marguerite Kondracke. "To be successful we must have partners like AT&T who are committed to helping students prepare for a productive and fulfilling life. This partnership is the perfect opportunity to engage our young people and give their voices and ideas the support and spotlight they deserve."

“AT&T Contributes $1 Million to America's Promise Alliance Grad Nation Initiative to Support Student-Developed Programs That Help Tackle the High School Dropout Crisis.” America's Promise Alliance Press Release 4/07/10.