2022 Year in Review • Portfolio Overview
DC Initiatives
The Clark Foundation’s DC initiatives focus on three strategic areas: Strong Schools and Community Anchors, College Persistence and Career Building, and Parent-Child Health. Each program embodies Mr. Clark’s core values: To give back to the community in which he lived and found success, create opportunities and open doors for local residents, and cultivate long-term, sustainable impact.
Strong Schools & Community Anchors
The Clark Foundation’s deep involvement in DC schools and community organizations opens educational opportunities that set students on the path to success. The Foundation invests in the growth and infrastructure of DC-area schools, and community anchors that provide health care, food access, youth development, and other essential services to help individuals and families thrive.
DC Bilingual Expansion
The Clark Foundation invested in the 27,000 square-foot expansion to DC Bilingual Public Charter School’s Ward 5 campus. The new site was completed in fall 2022 and includes 12 new classrooms, a lab, a bilingual library, and three multi-purpose spaces, enabling DC Bilingual to provide an additional 260 students with a high-quality education.
New KIPP DC High School
The Foundation also made an investment to help build a new KIPP DC high school in Ward 8. The new building for KIPP DC Legacy College Preparatory opened to students and staff in January 2022, currently serving 400 students and eventually doubling in size.
School Leader Lab Impact
The Foundation invested in general operations from 2018 – 2021 as one of the founding funders. The Clark Foundation’s final 2022 investment will continue to support School Leader Lab’s training to DC school leaders through cohort models and alumni support programs.
College Persistence & Career Building
The Clark Foundation’s college persistence initiative opens opportunities for DC youth to succeed in higher education and early in their careers through individualized academic and transition support.
College Persistence Grantee Gathering
The Clark Foundation hosted a lunch meeting for its current college persistence grantees, almost half of which had new leadership, to cultivate collaboration among organizations supporting young people in their college journey.
CityWorks DC
Clark Foundation grantee CityWorks DC became an independent 501(c)3 this year. The Clark Foundation was a seed funder of CityWorks’ general start-up operations and youth apprenticeship pilot during the 2019-2020 school year. CityWorks improves early career outcomes for young adults of color by creating innovative programs to mobilize employers, educators, and city leaders to foster a local, equitable talent pipeline.
Parent-Child Health Initiative
The Clark Foundation’s Parent-Child Health Initiative grantees continue to work toward a more integrated, culturally responsive system of health care so that there is no wrong door for parents, babies and families in DC. These targeted investments go towards innovative community health centers, major hospital systems, key wrap-around supports and collaboration across institutions.
To date, these growing partnerships have attracted new funders and helped our grantees leverage over $43.4 million in new funding to support the sustainability of their work. The increasing interest among funders in this initiative came to fruition in September 2022 when the Foundation held its first Partners in Parent-Child Health Forum. The gathering brought together community health providers, hospitals, nonprofits, funders and community leaders from across the DC region to celebrate and reflect on the successes of the initiative so far and discuss its future potential.
