Annual Report 2004 - Charles Stewart Mott Foundation

GRANTEE
PROFILE
Afterschool Technical Assistance Collaborative
For young people around the country,
afterschool programs offer
opportunities to learn, grow and
explore new horizons. Helping bring
together the resources and support to ensure
the future of such programs — and the
future of the children and youth who benefit
from them — is the focus of the Afterschool
Technical Assistance Collaborative (ATAC).
This partnership of national advocacy,
nonprofit and governmental membership
organizations was introduced in 2000, with
the support of the Mott Foundation, and is
rooted in the partners’ efforts — individually
and collectively — to help states create
afterschool-related policies and systems that
promote high-quality programs and which
key decisionmakers and stakeholders in the
field the opportunity for joint planning;
sharing of resources and best practices;
bridge-building to and between federal, state
and local afterschool initiatives; and the
creation of partnerships necessary to develop
comprehensive statewide policies.
Mott support for organizations
conducting ATAC-focused activities
consisted of eight grants totaling more than
$3.3 million in 2004. Related grantmaking
also went for the launch or enhancement of
25 statewide afterschool networks.
For Janet Frieling, the critical role of
ATAC in helping the statewide networks
reach across political, philosophical and
geographic boundaries is proven time and
“THE POTENTIAL FOR CREATING GOOD POLICIES THAT SUPPORT AFTERSCHOOL PROGRAMS — WITHIN
THE CONTEXT OF STATE PRIORITIES AND CIRCUMSTANCES — IS WELL WORTH THE EFFORT.”
Elisabeth Wright
will sustain the field into the future.
The ATAC organizations consist of
Afterschool Alliance, Council of Chief State
School Officers, Finance Project, National
Conference of State Legislatures, National
Governors Association Best Practices Center,
National League of Cities and the University
of South Carolina Education Foundation.
Additional support is provided by Learning
Points Associates and Collaborative
Communications Group.
Among the critical roles played by
ATAC is the provision of technical assistance
and support to the nation’s statewide
afterschool networks. These networks offer
again. She is coordinator of the Washington
Afterschool Network, housed at the Seattlebased
School’s Out Washington.
Frieling says ATAC members are
instrumental in updating statewide networks
on developments in afterschool-related
policies, trainings and strategies, which the
networks then share with local programs.
Members are equally effective, she says, in
helping the networks bring community
issues and concerns about afterschool to the
attention of state and federal policymakers.
“Their peer-to-peer relationships with
those leaders are helping the networks gain
entry to doors that might otherwise be
54 CHARLES STEWART MOTT FOUNDATION