Mission
New Haven Promise is a scholarship and support program designed to promote college education as an aspiration for all New Haven Public School students.
New Haven Promise's mission is to build a culture in the public schools in which students aspire to attend and graduate from college; to provide financial support for those students; and to facilitate their return to live, work, and serve in the greater New Haven community.
New Haven Promise envisions a community where all young people gain the education and experience required to function productively in a knowledge-based economy.
Background
Yale University, the City of New Haven, The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven and New Haven Public Schools announced and launched New Haven Promise on November 9, 2010. The original goal of Promise was to incentivize academic achievement and to ensure the existence of an educated workforce to function in the city's knowledge-based economy.
The scholarship program was then phased in with the first entering cohort receiving the full scholarship amount in 2014. As classes enter college at full funding, Promise will reach full implementation in 2017 (i.e. when all classes enrolled in college will be receiving the full scholarship amount). At that point, Promise expects to disburse approximately $3 million per year.
The past three years have resulted in the tremendous growth of programming for Promise Scholars. From the emergence of a summer internship program to a nationally-recognized peer mentoring program, New Haven Promise is focusing more and more on supporting students through school and ensuring they have opportunities back in New Haven upon graduation. A particular space of growth has been college affordability beyond the Promise Scholarship, focusing on financial literacy and education regarding other sources of college funding for residents of the greater New Haven region.
After five years of incubation within and support from The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, Promise launched as an independent 501(c)(3) organization this year. As an independent organization, Promise looks forward to expanding programming even further moving forward.
Impact
New Haven Promise currently has four primary goals:
• Foster a college-going culture among New Haven public school students and motivate students to gain admission to college
• Broaden and deepen community support for the New Haven Promise program
• Motivate scholars to graduate from college within four years
• Facilitate scholars' return to live, work, and participate fully in the greater New Haven Community
Over 750 New Haven students have qualified for Promise since the program’s inception and gone on to enroll at in-state Connecticut colleges and universities. For the 2015-2016 academic year, Promise will have disbursed over $1.7 million in scholarship dollars. Since 2010, Promise has disbursed nearly $4 million. Through its partnership with New Haven Public Schools, Promise has impacted roughly 23,000 City students. The ultimate effect is the emergence of a college-going culture in which students have the incentive and financial support to pursue and graduate from college.
However, New Haven Promise has expanded beyond just disbursing scholarships. For instance, in just two years, the New Haven Promise Internship Program has placed more than 75 students in paid summer positions throughout the City of New Haven. Now in our third year of the program, we expect that number to continue to increase dramatically. The result is that students are able to gain valuable work experience in their fields, earn money to pay down their expected summer contribution, and develop professional networks in their city.
In addition, Promise has spent the past year expanding programming and broadening its abilities to address college affordability even beyond the city. With the implementation of fafsanewhaven.org, a college affordability resource for all families within greater New Haven, Promise launched a three-part series of events to help students and their families prepare for college, including film screening and financial workshops.
Needs
Gifts made to New Haven Promise, a component fund of The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, support outreach to students and parents, events such as our Scholar Celebration and on-campus receptions, leadership and networking initiatives for Promise Scholars, and more.
CEO Statement
New Haven Promise is one of the nation’s largest and most visible responses to a problem faced by numerous cities across the country. With outward migration, economic decline, and poor education outcomes becoming more and more ubiquitous nationally, place-based scholarships like New Haven Promise have emerged as a potential solution. In the past five years, New Haven Promise has indeed had a tremendous impact on the City of New Haven. We hope you’ll join us for the next five years to continue to provide support for the future leaders of New Haven.
Our Promise program has become a leader in this national movement, offering extensive programming and support for our scholars at every stage of their academic and professional development. Our Promise Internship Program is a testament to our growth and ability to adapt to the needs of our students, and our nationally recognized peer mentor program continues to provide on-campus support. Additionally, we have extended our programming to offer college affordability resources to students and their families across greater New Haven.
Promise has also become a vital voice for students in the city, representing their interests and leveraging our scholarship dollars to secure even more benefit for students. This year, we announced a partnership with the University of Connecticut that will result in a guaranteed $5,000 renewable award for all Promise Scholars in addition to their New Haven Promise Scholarships. We hope this is a first step to many more agreements as colleges and university’s compete for New Haven’s best and brightest students.
As we prepare to reach full implementation and distribute more than $3 million per year to our scholars, we look forward to expanding programming further. New Haven Promise has taken an important first step in our future development through establishing ourselves as an independent 501(c)(3) after five years of incubation within The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven. We hope you’ll join us in the next five years as we continue to increase opportunities for students across the region and ensure the vitality of New Haven for decades to come.