History and Overview

The DC Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation (The Corporation) is an independent non-profit organization incorporated in June 1999 to increase the quality, quantity and accessibility of services for children, youth and families in the District of Columbia. The Corporation is the result of a group of concerned stakeholders determined to improve the approach taken to providing services to children and youth in the District. Out of this year-long convening of young people, parents, caregivers, service providers, community leaders, school officials, corporate partners, foundations and federal and District government officials, the ideal for a new entity was born.

The goal of the Corporation is to create a sustainable network of effective programs for children, youth, and families across the District that encourages their healthy development through support for quality out-of-school time programs and opportunities. The Corporation leverages public and private funds and to disburse these funds through grants to community organizations in the District that provide direct services to children, youth and their families.

In our first year of funding, the focus of the Corporation has been out-of-school time programs for school-age children and youth, youth entrepreneurship programs, and early childhood development strategies for parents. This year, we have made grants totaling more than $7.3 million to programs in these three categories.

Another key component of our mission is to bring services to scale in the District, so that opportunities are available to every child in every community. To achieve this goal, we must address the ability of community-based organizations (CBOs) to expand their services to children and youth. This fall we initiated a Pilot Outreach Program designed to expand the capacity of service providers in the city. Our first target for this program is East of the River in Wards 6, 7 and 8. We have selected twelve CBOs that we feel would benefit from a staff-performed assessment and individually designed technical assistance plan. The program will receive funding for expanded services while working to develop the internal structures necessary to support this expansion. These organizations will each receive up to $100,000 over the course of the year, provided they meet agreed upon benchmarks of improvement and growth each month.

A complete listing of all grantees is included on this website, under "Current Grantees".