Urban Alliance empowers under-resourced youth to aspire, work and succeed through paid internships, formal training, and mentorship. Urban Alliance is the only year long employment program for under-resourced high school seniors in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, MD, and Chicago, IL. Our goal is to give youth access to professional growth and experiences. The program prepares students for a life of work and self-sufficiency through paid internships, formal training, and mentorship. Urban Alliance Interns are selected after a rigorous application process. During the school year, each Urban Alliance Intern works part time with a job partner in the public or private sector. On Fridays, they attend life skills and job readiness workshops.
Urban Alliance empowers under-resourced youth to aspire, work and succeed through paid internships, formal training, and mentorship. Urban Alliance is the only year long employment program for under-resourced high school seniors in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, MD, and Chicago, IL. Our goal is to give youth access to professional growth and experiences. The program prepares students for a life of work and self-sufficiency through paid internships, formal training, and mentorship. Urban Alliance Interns are selected after a rigorous application process. During the school year, each Urban Alliance Intern works part time with a job partner in the public or private sector. On Fridays, they attend life skills and job readiness workshops.
Urban Alliance aims to ensure that all young people have access to education and employment opportunities, leading to lives of self-sufficiency, regardless of race or socioeconomic status.
What are your strategies for making this happen?
Urban Alliance is an intensive intervention for high school youth, providing up to 700 hours of service to each young person served. The intervention revolves around a ten-month, paid professional internship. Examples of placements include, law firms, banks and financial institutions, government agencies, and other non-profit organizations. At the worksite, Interns are able to hone in on such professional skills as office administration, technology, and communication. In addition, they are exposed to a new world of professional contacts and mentorship. Prior to placement, Interns are put through an intensive training where soft skills such as professionalism, attitude, and punctuality are emphasized. These skills are reinforced in weekly workshops throughout the year. Finally, individual case managers work with each youth to create a detailed post-high school plan, ensuring youth are on-track for college and career readiness.
What are your organization's capabilities for doing this?
Youth have access to multiple sources of positive adult relationships. All Urban Alliance Program Coordinators, who have a caseload of approximately 30 young people, are trained in Advancing Youth Development principles. In addition, most of these trained youth developers have had previous classroom experience. Moreover, each Intern is paired with a worksite supervisor or Mentor. Mentors not only act as a professional support, providing tasks and appropriate feedback, but also support the young person in pursuit of their post-secondary goals, often acting as a professional reference and contact.
How will your organization know if you are making progress?
Urban Alliance is a results-oriented organization, committed to both the process and performance measures that will ensure success for our youth. We rely on four primary indicators to ensure our youth are progressing towards the goal of living self-sufficiently: 1. High School Graduation - number of youth graduating high school on-time 2. College Enrollment - number of youth enrolling within six months of high school completion to a two- or four-year college 3. College Persistence - number of college-bound youth who remain enrolled into their second year of college 4. Connectedness - the number of youth employed and earning a liveable wage, enrolled in post-secondary education, or enrolled in a career training program. In addition there are a number of indicators that measure program delivery success. These include hours worked, measured growth in both hard and soft skills, and post-secondary readiness.
What have and haven't you accomplished so far?
Urban Alliance is committed to its results and are constantly tracking them against regional averages. Results are listed below: - High School Graduation Rate = 100%- College Acceptance = 95%- College Enrollment = 81%- College Persistence = 81%
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This results data is current as of November 2017, when it was provided to us by GuideStar.
Results information published on this organization's rating page has no effect on its rating at this time.
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Program names and associated costs are listed for the top programs as reported on the charity's most recently filed Form 990. The top programs displayed will include the largest three programs, or those programs covering at least 60% of the charity's total expenses, whichever comes first.
Program Name
Amount Spent
% of Program Expenses
High School Internship Program
$4,401,157
74.0%
Youth Programs
$823,199
13.8%
Program Development
$720,210
12.1%
Ratings History Urban Alliance has received 7 consecutive 4-star ratings from Charity Navigator.
Independent - the organization is an independent organization or an independent auxiliary (i.e., not affiliated with a National, Regional, or Geographic grouping of organizations).
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