Horizons National Strategic Plan 2023-2025

2023 - 2025 Strategic Plan Overview

VISION Our vision is a future in which every child thrives.

MISSION We advance educational equity by building long-term partnerships with students, families, communities, and schools to create experiences outside of school that inspire the joy of learning.

Expand Horizons. Expand Educational Equity.

LETTER FROM the CEO and Horizons National Board Chair

Dear Horizons National Supporters: The last several years, though challenging, have brought new opportunities for learning together for Horizons students and their communities, the Horizons Network, and Horizons National in our support of the Network.

As we grapple with the reverberations of COVID, our mandate has never been clearer: to serve as many students in as many communities as possible. We now know that reading and math proficiency rates among nine-year-olds nationwide have lost 20 years of progress. For Horizons students living in communities deeply impacted by inequities, the effects have compounded as challenges that existed before the pandemic were further exacerbated.

We are here to meet this moment. Horizons’ high-quality, evidence-based programs provide fun and engaging learning environments for students, a source of inspiration for teachers, a resource for school districts, and a way for education institutions everywhere to support accelerated learning for young people.

The Horizons Network has been expanding steadily since our inception in 1995, and at a consistent rate since 2007. This Strategic Plan recognizes that this moment in time demands that we do more.

We must find ways to expand Horizons to support thousands more students today, and well into the future. We will identify new opportunities to accelerate growth of the Horizons Network while continuing to provide resources and community for Horizons affiliates across the country.

The Horizons National team and Board of Directors are excited to embark on our next chapter with this strategic direction, and with the support and collaboration of our affiliates, host schools and institutions, community and government partners, and Horizons students, families, and alumni to advance educational equity everywhere we can.

Sincerely, Lorna Smith, CEO Vicki Craver, Board Chair

Over the next three years, HORIZONS NATIONAL will focus on delivering:

Pillar 1: Accelerated Network expansion Central to our mission of creating more experiences that inspire the joy of learning is the expansion of the Horizons Network to serve more students. Over the next three years, we will accelerate our rate of growth using strategies we already know work and explore other strategies for growth through strategic partnership and new models.

Our goal is to grow from 74 sites to

100 SITES

by the end of 2025

Pillar 2: A high-impact customer service system for the Network We will develop a stronger and more efficient customer service model for Horizons sites and prioritize the services we provide to focus on the areas where we can have the most impact. We will work closely with our affiliates to align our internal systems and services with the Network’s highest priority needs, and employ technology as appropriate to deliver them effectively.

Pillar 3: A culture of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) Our ongoing work to advance equity will be embedded into every aspect of this Strategic Plan and we will continue to make progress on our staff and board equity plans. We will create vehicles for our stakeholders to be seen and heard, particularly as it pertains to the decisions that impact them, and we will co-create EDI guidelines for affiliates.

Pillar 4: Increased and diversified revenue Horizons National’s financial health is essential for the success of this Strategic Plan and our mission to build long-term partnerships that create more out-of-school time learning opportunities for students.

We see opportunities to partner with affiliates in fundraising, specifically related to our Campaign for Growth and regional expansion initiatives. We will work closely with our affiliates to explore a costsharing model for some centralized services.

In July 2022, First Lady Jill Biden and Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona visited Horizons at Albertus Magnus College (CT) and Horizons Atlanta at the University of Georgia (GA) to highlight programs providing summer learning opportunities made possible by the American Rescue Plan.

We are honored to represent high-quality summer learning at this moment in time when it is essential to pandemic recovery for millions of young people.

“The Horizons program is a phenomenal program; a program that other programs in the country could learn from.”

- Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona

Join us in EXPANDING HORIZONS!

Horizons National leads a network of high-quality, evidence-based education and youth development programs specifically designed to support the learning recovery of K-12 students. We invest our resources in expanding to reach more students and ensuring affiliates across the country are strong and sustainable.

Visit www.HorizonsNational.org.