826 Boston Inc.

“The draft of the form 990 is provided to the finance committee for approval prior to being submitted.”

“Board members and officers are provided a conflict of interest policy to disclosure any potential conflicts that may exist.”

“The board of directors reveiw the executive director's performance each year to approve the salary and the salary increase is communicated to the executive director by email from the board president.”

“No other documents available to the public.”

“826 boston is a nonprofit youth writing and publishing organization that empowers traditionally underserved students ages 6-18 to find their voices, tell their stories, and gain communication skills to succeed in school and in life. 826 boston is part of a network of nine 826 chapters across the country co-founded by author dave eggers and educator ninive calegari. Since 2007, 826 boston has worked with more than 29,000 students and hundreds of teachers, and has published dozens of high-quality, professionally designed collections of student writing. 826 boston's programs, offered free of charge, are rooted in the understanding that great leaps in learning can occur with individualized attention, and that writing skills are fundamental to future success. These programs include publishing projects, after-school tutoring, writing workshops, field trips, writers' rooms in boston public schools, and college essay support.”

“826 boston opened the doors to its roxbury tutoring center in 2007 in a ribbon-cutting with then mayor thomas menino. Programs such as after-school tutoring, field trips, creative writing workshops, and publishing programs in schools have been a part of the organization since its inception. In our first strategic plan, spanning 2011-2016, the focus was on the growth of all programs within the roxbury community. In our second strategic plan, spanning 2016-2021, we took stock of all our programs and identified the writers' room as the vector for scaling the impact of the organization across the city. The writers' room is modeled after the university writing center, and is intended to serve students in school, where they do the majority of their writing, but where large class sizes and lack of teacher support preclude individualized feedback. 826 boston fuels writers' rooms with trained volunteer tutors, which drastically reduces the student-to-teacher ratio, and with a culture of creativity, which includes after-school clubs, open mic events, publishing opportunities, and more. 826 boston initiated the writers' room program in 2013, beginning at the john d. O'bryant school of mathematics and science in roxbury (grades 7-12). We are so grateful for the support from the cradle to career initiative at that critical juncture for the organization. In 2016, our second strategic plan set out to open at least five additional writers' rooms in five years, which we accomplished ahead of schedule. With this expansion, we grew the number of students served across the organization from 3,000 in 2016 to 4,278 in 2020. It was a paradigm shift for our program delivery, and the 826 boston writers' room program now serves as a model for other 826 chapters across the country. The effect of covid-19 when boston public schools (bps) announced its closure due to the covid-19 outbreak, 826 boston paused in-person programming and moved our team to work and serve remotely. Between march 23, (when schools shut down) through the end of the school year, we provided 548 students with 3,398 hours of writing support on projects. Over the summer, 826 boston served 130 students with high-quality writing-focused programmingfrom creative writing workshops to college essay preparation. The lessons learned during these initial forays into virtual learning set us up to meet student needs this fall. For example, we have offered college essay support in person for ten years. Beginning with a one-day college essay boot camp at northeastern serving 80 students, our college essay support is now offered in many 826 boston programs, and has skyrocketed to now serve 648 students. The abrupt school closures forced us to make writing support more accessible, flexible, and on-demand. We created three youtube modules to start students on their college essay journey, and then facilitated "office-hours" follow-up times for students to schedule. Students responded well to this on-demand format. This spirit of student-centered and flexible program shifts is one we know will feature prominently in our plans going forward.”