Executive Summary

Horizons New York City (HNYC) is an affiliate of Horizons National (HN), whose origins go back to 1964. Over the years, Horizons has established a proven track record of advancing educational equity by reversing the crippling effects of cumulative summer learning losses through summer K – 8 programs of academics, arts, social-emotional learning, and confidence-building activities like swimming. School-year gatherings and programmatic offerings maintain the Horizons connection between summers. Horizons programs are also increasingly adding high-school programming, as well as support for students transitioning to college or the workforce.

HYNC, however, is just entering its third year of operation. Its purpose is to strengthen and help to support, financially and otherwise, current Horizons programs throughout the New York metropolitan area and expand the number of programs to serve more students. As part of the process of appointing our first fulltime executive director, our Board recognized the importance of creating a short-term strategic plan, with a focus on ensuring we will be positioned not only to achieve objectives for the next three years such as tripling the number of students served yearly, but also to lay the groundwork for our much more ambitious long-term goal of serving 5% of the 75% of New York public school students who are eligible for Horizons based on NY State and City–determined poverty levels. The need for programs like Horizons in NYC is stark.

The Strategic Plan identifies four crucial areas to focus on:

• Defining who we are succinctly and clearly. This goal led to a revised mission statement and statements identifying our approach and who our students are. Also included is a document that clarifies mutual responsibilities between HNYC and its local partner sites, provides guidelines for HYNC financial support of local sites, and ensures consistency of local program sites with the essentials of a Horizons program, but allows for differences and flexibility.

• Establishing reasonable expansion goals, while maintaining quality of local programs and their sustainability. The 3-year goal is to expand programs to increase the number of students served yearly from 450 to 1500.

• Determining and meeting financial needs. A 3-year budget was created detailing fundraising and staffing needs to allow HNYC to meet its expansion goals and support additional program sites. By 2025, the final year of the plan, our budget is projected to have tripled in comparison to that of 2022, in keeping with the goal of tripling the number of students who will be served.

• Strengthening governance. In addition to clarifying the responsibilities of board members, the plan calls for increasing and diversifying the board, including participation on the board of two rotating representatives from local program sites.

The next 3 years will be critical as HNYC works to increase its role in advancing educational equity throughout the city. With that in mind, 3 board committees (Expansion, Finance/Advancement, and Governance) will be appointed to monitor progress on the goals and develop action plans as needed. In addition, the board will review progress on the entire plan twice yearly in June and December and adjust as appropriate.

The following HNYC board members worked on this strategic plan:

Joe Chan, Senior Vice President, Real Estate and Property Management YMCA of Greater NY and Horizons Alumnus

Amy Downer, Community Volunteer and Horizons Alumna

Carmen Farina, Ret. Chancellor NYC Public Schools

Michael Nill, Ret. Educator and Head of School

Jane Stoddard Williams, Former Board Chair of Horizons National and Horizons NCCS

With much assistance from Alison Marcell (Director of Expansion, Horizons National) and Aubrie Therrien (former HYNC Executive Director).