In April, MDRC received an $800,000 grant from The Kresge Foundation to support MDRC’s Learning Communities Demonstration, Performance-Based Scholarships Demonstration, Foundations of Learning Demonstration, and enhancements of MDRC’s communications efforts with policymakers.

The Kresge Foundation, located in Troy, Michigan, is a private foundation that supports communities by building the capacity of nonprofit organizations in six fields: health, the environment, arts and culture, education, human services, and community development. Sebastian S. Kresge established the foundation; it is not associated with any corporation or organization.

The funding from The Kresge Foundation will support the following activities:

• Expand outreach for the next round of colleges in the Performance-Based Scholarship Demonstration, including colleges that serve a high proportion of low-income students.
  
  
• Complete and distribute a “how-to guide” that provides practical operating lessons from MDRC’s Opening Doors and Learning Communities Demonstrations about developing effective learning communities, programs that place college students into small groups that take coordinated classes together.
  
  
• Expand MDRC’s capacity for outreach to policymakers at the national, state, and local levels and to mainstream and trade press.
  
  
• Augment development and research in the Newark site of the Foundations of Learning study and strengthen MDRC’s staff capacity to conduct future early childhood projects.