Soho Center for Arts and Education Inc.

“The President/Executive Director is married to the Secretary/Treasurer.”

“The Soho Center does not have any separate committees with the authority to act on behalf of the governing body.”

“At least two Board members review the organization's Form 990 before it is filed. The return is made available to all Board members for review prior to it being filed with the IRS.”

“The Soho Center seeks the opinions of its independent auditors and its accountant and routinely reviews relevant literature to ensure that there is no conflict of interest in any of its dealings. Further, Board members understand their obligation and keep up to date with regulations, recusing themselves to avoid the possibility of a conflict of interest.”

“Only the President/Executive Director is compensated. The Soho Center annually reviews a national survey of non-profit executives and confirms that its Executive Director's salary is consistently less than the average salary of comparable positions.”

“The Soho Center's governing documents, financial statements, etc. are available online and paper copies are available upon request.”

“Name of Program: Comprehensive Children's Literacy/Education/Child Care/REACH/Health Initiative”

“Description of Programs: The Soho Center promotes children's literacy, school readiness, and school success for over 200,000 children each year. The Soho Center's free programs and services are designed to provide children of all ages with educational opportunities and to enhance the health and well-being of children and families. The Soho Center collaborates with - and provides resources to - a variety of child-related non-profits, agencies, and organizations to help large numbers of low-income and medically-challenged children. As funding permits, programs include:”

“Large-Scale Book Giveaways: The Soho Center promotes children's literacy, school readiness, and school success by giving away millions of dollars of new, high-quality children's books each year. The Soho Center gives collections of age-appropriate books to Head Start classrooms, hundreds of after-school programs and Boys & Girls Clubs, hundreds of child care providers, public schools, public libraries, children's hospitals, the USO, and other organizations providing services to children and families. The Soho Center's Book Giveaways help over 200,000 low-income and medically-challenged children have access to quality books and year-round opportunities to enjoy story times, practice reading skills, and learn from books. To see the scope of Soho's Book Giveaways, please visit www.sohobooks.org.”

“Literacy Information: The Soho Center also promotes children's literacy, school readiness, and school success with Soho's National Children's Literacy Website (www.kidsliteracy.org). The Soho Center's Children's Literacy Website is consistently in the Top Five on Google, Bing, and Yahoo for "children's literacy" out of tens of millions of sites - with no paid placement. The site gives easy-to-understand, easy-to-implement literacy tips and information to parents, grandparents, child care providers, teachers, and community volunteers.”

“Model School/Curriculum Development: The Soho Center has developed and tested a model curriculum for high quality early childhood education and elementary education. The Soho Center's approach emphasizes opportunities for learning from birth on, prioritizes the importance of reading, and integrates the arts, nature studies, and other educational activities into a curriculum of traditional academic subjects. Curriculum development focuses on strategies and activities that require little additional cost and are applicable to low-income educational situations. Free outreach and on-site programs for groups of Head Start students and public school children promote children's literacy and offer a range of educational opportunities and experiences.”

“Provider Outreach, Child Care Training and Free Child-Related Support Services: The Soho Center works to improve the quality of family child care by developing and field-testing outreach strategies to surface unregulated providers and encourage them to meet state child care codes, attend training, and access available child care benefits and resources. The Soho Center promotes on-going professional development and training for low-income providers on child care-related topics. The Soho Center develops quality training materials (long-form videos, newsletters, and resource directories) to improve the quality of child care and after-school care and to promote school readiness and school success. The Soho Center's training efforts are designed to provide information on child development, health, safety, nutrition, literacy, and learning activities. The Soho Center also distributes copies of its family child care-related DVD to public libraries, universities, child care associations, and child care-related agencies. The Soho Center distributes free brochures on children's injury prevention, discipline and limit-setting, nutrition, age-appropriate learning activities, children's literacy, and health. The Soho Center also distributes children's clothing and toys to low-income children in Head Start programs and to low-income family child care providers and families. The Soho Center provides free business advice and information about child care codes, child care associations, child care-related agencies and organizations. The Soho Center also provides free support services and information to child care-related organizations which work with low-income providers and parents.”

“Resource Library and Media Technical Assistance and Facility: The Soho Center maintains and continues to expand an extensive model Resource Library of over 30,000 titles of children's books and accompanying educational materials for pre-school and school-age children. The Soho Center also maintains and continues to expand a resource collection of books on parent education, child care, early childhood education, and elementary education. In addition, the Soho Center has created a media facility to cost-effectively support outreach and training efforts, arts and education projects, and non-profits serving low-income families in health, education, and other needed services. The facility continues to be upgraded and expanded. It currently includes a Lightworks Pro broadcast-level post-production video and digital audio system.”