Efforts Effectively Expanding Success at Big Brothers Big Sisters

To help strengthen affiliates in the Carolinas and expand their reach to more children from single-parent or no-parent homes, The Duke Endowment in 2000 launched a five-year, $2.1 million effort that involved 48 grants and 15 affiliates in North Carolina and South Carolina.

Insights

Since the first phase of the mentoring project ended in 2005, The Duke Endowment has maintained a relationship with Big Brothers Big Sisters and its affiliates in North Carolina and South Carolina. This has given the Endowment an opportunity for ongoing learning about the effectiveness of mentoring and the Big Brothers Big Sisters model.

Five key insights grew from the mentoring project. We invite others to use these findings as a starting place for their own efforts.

1. Match length matters. Since the initial funding round of this initiative concluded in 2005, Big Brothers Big Sisters America has conducted ongoing randomized trials of their community-based and school-based mentoring programs. Results of these trials so far indicate that matches that last for more than one year deliver significantly higher positive impact. In the Endowment's view, this presents a challenge for school-based matches, which typically last only through a single school year (nine months). Another challenge is the fact that the mentors in some school-based matches are high school seniors, who then leave for college or jobs. Community-based matches, the hallmark of BBBS's long-term success, appear to have more promise for creating matches that pass the one-year mark.
2. We can help encourage best practices. The national office of BBBS has developed standards of best practice for service delivery among its affiliates. However, as independent organizations, the affiliates are not bound to adopt or adhere to these standards. As an independent funder, The Duke Endowment provides incentives to help affiliates comply with national standards and begin to track uniform data to complement research and evaluation at the local and national levels.
3. Merging makes sense. Several of the affiliates that participated in the Mentoring Initiative were located in relatively close proximity to one another, and ended up competing for support within the same media markets and among the same local funders. With the Endowment's aid and encouragement, several of these affiliates merged in recent years, thereby maximizing their fund development potential and gaining significant economies of scale in service delivery.
4. Fund development is a stumbling block. All of the Big Brothers Big Sisters affiliates in North Carolina and South Carolina need help increasing their fund development capacity. In fact, this must happen hand-in-hand with their efforts to increase their service delivery. The Duke Endowment is hesitant to help establish fund development capacity without the assurance that organizational capacity is in place, including active board involvement.
5. What about smaller communities? Since the original mentoring project ended in 2005, five affiliates in smaller communities have closed. These closures were mainly because of challenges in sustaining leadership and funding. Unlike their counterparts in larger communities, it's difficult for affiliates in small communities to create relationships with local employers, for example, that can provide both funds and mentors.

Impact

During this project, Big Brothers Big Sisters affiliates served 15,175 children. More than 10,000 of those children came from single-or non-parent homes. Results from a 2006 evaluation were positive.

Overall:

• The number of matches at participating affiliates grew from 2,708 in 2002 to 4,695 in 2005, an increase of 73 percent.
• 47 percent of community-based matches lasted 12 months or longer.
• More than 90 percent of the children in community-based matches were from single- or no-parent homes. (The percentages declined for school-based matches, although the total number of children served in school-based matches increased.)

For participating children:

• More than 80 percent of participating children showed increases in self-confidence.
• 90 percent of children in school-based matches showed increased trust of their mentors, as did 85 percent in community-based matches.
• 95 percent of children in school-based matches were able to avoid early parenting, as were 75 percent of children in community-based matches.
• Attitudes toward school also improved, from 67 percent to 73 percent in community-based matches and from 63 percent to 82 percent in school-based matches.

For Big Brother Big Sister affiliates:

• 100 percent of affiliates now conduct outcome evaluations, and 75 percent compare evaluation results with match plans, up from 35 percent in 2000.
• 75 percent of affiliates now do annual planning for fundraising and technical improvements, up from 69 percent in 2002.
• Most affiliates use 90 percent or more of the best practices for volunteer management as established by BBBS of America.

Since the original mentoring project concluded in 2005, the Endowment has maintained an active relationship with Big Brothers Big Sisters and its affiliates in North Carolina and South Carolina and made them "permanent" grantees of the Child Care program area. This has given the Endowment an opportunity for ongoing learning about the effectiveness of mentoring and the Big Brothers Big Sisters model.

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