Project Redwood has always sought grantees that can meet the challenges of scaling, but poverty-fighting non-profits face difficult tests as they seek to grow ideas from proof-of-concept to full-blown implementations with widespread impact.
Former Project Redwood grantee Educate! has mastered those tests, and more. It’s vaulted from its beginnings as a group of twenty-somethings with passion for education to an established non-profit with a proven model that’s garnered accolades and sweeping acceptance.
Educate! is one of fourteen non-profits whose successes form the basis for a comprehensive set of recommendations recently published by the Brookings Institution’s Center for Universal Learning. Their report, Millions Learning: Scaling Up Quality Education in Developing Countries details the ingredients for developing successful education programs around the world.
Early on, Project Redwood funded Educate!’s two year social entrepreneurship and leadership program in Ugandan secondary schools with $75,000. From 2011 to 2013, we supported 350 students in a handful of schools. Now, in 2016, Educate!’s programs will reach 120,000 youth in 350 partner schools; that amounts to 12% of Uganda’s secondary education system. In addition, in 2015, Educate! formed a partnership with the Rwandan government that will incorporate elements of the Educate! program into competency-based reforms that will roll-out across the country.