Four Steps From Good Intentions to Lasting Change
Most organizations that want to help a school never get past the first phone call. Our four-step process takes the guesswork out of it, and a coach on our staff walks leads you from the first conversation to a partnership that can run on its own.
Want to start helping today? Download our free guide on 38 ways to serve schools.
You Want to Help. But Where Do You Start?
Community leaders already care about the kids down the street. They have plenty of desire to help local schools. What they do not have is a way in. Worse, they find:
- It’s hard to get started
- Determining the best way to help is harder
- Coordinating resources and volunteers without a plan is impossible
All too often the wanting to help stays, but nothing changes. Meanwhile teachers carry more than any one staff can hold, and kids who need one more caring adult go without.
That’s why Caring for Kids is here to help.
You Bring the Heart. We Bring the Plan.
We have spent more than a decade building school partnerships across Kansas City, and we do not just hand you a brochure and wish you luck. A coach on our staff sits down with you and a real principal, helps you build a plan around goals that school already has, and stays with you while the work gets going.
That is how a one-time donation becomes a partnership that lasts for years instead of an afternoon. And it costs your organization nothing.
Learn how to get started at one of our free lunch & learn workshops.
Caring for Kids’ Four-Step Process
Every partnership we build follows the same path. It starts with a conversation and ends with a school and a group of partners who know how to keep going without us. Here is what happens at each step, and where your coach fits in.
Step 1: Engage
Before you ever meet a school, we are already doing the hard part. Our team finds the schools that need partners and learns what opportunities are already there. Then we host envisioning events where businesses, faith communities, nonprofits, and civic groups can see the real needs in their own neighborhood. We build a menu of school initiatives to share with you, and we sit down with the principals who want partners. This is where most orgs get stuck, and we solve it before you start your partnership.
Step 2: Connect
At the Kickoff Event, partners and principals meet face to face and answer one question together: how can we help? You hear straight from the school what it needs most, you meet the other organizations serving alongside you, and you set goals for the year. Most of it happens over a meal. By the time you leave, you know who you are working with and what you are working toward.
Step 3: Empower
Once the needs are clear, you and the school build a simple action plan that puts your people and resources where they will matter most. You plug into what the school already runs, and you bring ideas of your own. From there, principals and partners meet regularly to track progress, share what is working, and keep the relationships strong. Nobody is guessing, and nobody is working alone.
Step 4: Coach
This is the step most partnerships outside our process never get. Your coach stays with you through ongoing feedback, evaluation, and celebration, backed by the tools and events that keep a partnership healthy. The goal is a partnership that is truly sustainable and transformative. One that lasts for years and eventually runs on its own strength. Our schools stay in the network long after they stop needing us to hold it together.
Want to start helping today? Download our free guide on 38 ways to serve schools.
Wondering If You Can Help a Local School?
If your organization cares about kids, there is a place for you here. Businesses, faith communities, nonprofits, and civic groups all partner with schools the same way, through the same process, with the same coaching behind them. You do not need experience in education. You just need to be willing to show up.
Businesses
Give your team a meaningful way to serve, earn real goodwill in the community, and open doors to mentoring, internships, and career pathways for local students.
Faith Communities
Serve the neighborhood right outside your doors. Faith communities of every size find that a school partnership gives their people a clear, steady way to love their city.
Nonprofit Organizations
Reach the families you already serve in the place they gather every day, and collaborate with other partners at the same school instead of working on your own.
Civic Organizations
Police, fire, government offices, and service clubs bring trusted faces into schools and show students what it looks like when a community takes care of its own.
Want to start helping today? Download our free guide on 38 ways to serve schools.
How to Become a School Partner
You do not need a big budget, a background in education, or a plan of your own. Here is exactly what happens between your first hour with us and your first day in a school.
01
Join a Lunch & Learn
Spend one hour with us online, and learn everything you need to partner with a school.
02
Make an Action Plan
Build a simple plan matched to real needs at a real school.
03
Make a Difference
Put the plan to work with your coach beside you, and watch it grow into a partnership that lasts.
Join a Lunch & Learn
We host regular lunch and learns about how you can partner with a school. We cover Our proven 4-step process for community partnerships, what a partnership looks like day to day, and how to start your project.
We finish with time for your questions, whether you are brand new to this or you have served a school for years and want to do it better.
Join our next Lunch & Learn to see how you can serve your local schools.