Annual Report

Think Together was founded 25 years ago from a need to provide a safe and welcoming place for children and youth to receive academic support.

For more than two decades, Think Together has worked side by side with education leaders across California to grow our services from its humble beginnings as a single afterschool center in Costa Mesa funded solely by the generosity of our earliest donors to the state’s largest nonprofit provider of expanded learning programs serving close to 200,000 students.

While there’s much to celebrate, there’s also much to reflect on and respond to. There’s a deepening divide of outcomes for students. Those hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic—mostly lower-socio-economic individuals and families—are lagging even further behind academically and feeling the mental-health and social-emotional effects.

This divide was made clear when results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), often called The Nation’s Report Card, revealed that two out of three students did not meet state math standards, and more than half did not meet English standards on state assessments taken in the spring of 2022.

Yet, there’s hope. As California has grappled with the impacts of the pandemic, it has also increased its investment in education and supports including plans for universal expanded learning. Previous funding served about 15% of the students at a typical school. In the new environment, all students will have access. This implies a growth of six times current program levels just at schools we currently serve!

To meet this moment, we need the same kind of village of supporters from Think Together’s earliest days to bring their ingenuity, creativity, and resources to continue the growth trajectory, enhance program quality, and recruit and retain the best talent for our young people. Together we can forge ahead with renewed hope and determination in our work with schools to change the odds for kids.

As I reflect on the three years in which I had the opportunity to lead Think Together’s board, it’s been a whirlwind of activity. In the fall of 2019, we launched a strategic planning initiative with the pro bono support of Boston Consulting Group. In the midst of that process, we acquired the expanded learning division of the nonprofit organization, Youth Policy Institute, which had suddenly closed its doors. The acquisition saved programs for 10,000 students as well as 450 jobs.

In March 2020, the pandemic hit and schools closed. With no idea of what the future might bring, we needed to respond with new supports for our communities.

Think Together also recently completed the acquisition of Orenda Education, which trains school leaders to improve the academic performance of their school systems. Now, with a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Orenda Education is turning its data-driven school-improvement methodologies into software tools in order to scale its impact.

Why are we doing all of this work? Pre-pandemic, only about half of California’s 6 million students were performing at grade level, whereas 2 million students were—by any definition—struggling academically. In response to this, the Think Together board created a moonshot goal to close this gap—a vision we call Project 2 Million. We know there are examples of schools and districts that have closed these gaps, and we believe that Think Together can help replicate and scale these bright spots so that no child is left behind.

As you think about your time, talent, and treasure and how you might invest those valuable resources to make the world a better place, I would encourage you to join us at Think Together in our journey to change the odds for vulnerable kids. My life has been greatly enriched by my time being involved here, and I bet yours will be, too.