Our 2024 Annual Report
July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024
In the 2023-2024 fiscal year, WriteBoston made significant strides in our mission to empower youth through literacy. We enhanced our programs for both educators and students, expanding our impact through efforts focused on literacy practices, community building, and supporting marginalized youth. We coached over 60 educators reaching 1,390 students, and engaged 134 youth in its Teens in Print (TiP) program.
Key developments included launching the TiP Newsroom, which offered real-world journalism experiences, and strengthening our focus on equity in coaching by addressing bias among school leaders and teachers. We introduced a continuous learning methodology to better measure our impact. We also adopted an equitable compensation philosophy to recruit and retain a diverse staff.
Looking ahead, WriteBoston is positioned for sustainable growth, emphasizing expanding community partnerships and professional development offerings. Our purpose remains clear: to empower youth through literacy, foster transformative learning, and advocate for social justice by supporting educators, students, and schools in driving educational equity. WriteBoston continues to reshape literacy, so that all youth think critically and use their voices to create change.
WriteBoston aims to foster inclusive, engaging learning experiences. In the last year, our work impacted…
134
students through after-school & summer programming
60
educators through professional development & coaching in schools & community settings
1,390
estimated students through the ripple effects of programming
Teens in Print
Teens in Print (or TiP) is a writing and journalism program, focused on youth community building, social-emotional learning, and identity development. We engaged a total of 78 youth from Greater Boston over four program cycles, culminating in multiple publications and multimedia projects. We engaged an additional 56 students through partnerships, reaching a total of 134 students last year.
Considered a flagship program in Boston After School and Beyond’s portfolio of summer youth experiences, our Summer Journalism Institute continues to center youth empowerment, literacy, and community engagement. The program took place at Babson College, where teens participated in an immersive, six-week experience. Through writing and multimedia projects, students explored topics related to the history of Boston, their identities, and current events. The program included an “Inspiration Breakfast” to foster connections between current students and alumni. This event marked the beginning of a robust alumni engagement initiative.
134
students participated in TiP programming and partnership, with 12 experienced TiPsters publishing local stories from the TiP Newsroom.
72
articles published, with 400 magazines distributed to local schools and organizations in addition to online publication
84%
of students reported: "Being part of TiP has helped build my confidence" and "Writing stories for TiP makes me feel like I am positively contributing to my community.
100%
college matriculation for TiP seniors, with 13 students attending institutions like UMass Boston, Brown, and Bryn Mawr College. All our graduates are first-generation college students.
Check out the digital issues of Teens in Print magazine!
Additional Accomplishments
- Cross-publication partnerships expanded TiP’s reach, with articles featured on platforms such as Lady Gaga’s Channel Kindness and Boston Compass.
- TiP Ambassadors (TiPsters and WriteBoston staff) continued to recruit students and staff to promote the program, fostering greater participation and community support.
We are making great strides toward raising TiP’s visibility and ensuring that teens’ voices are heard and valued throughout Boston.
Professional Development& Coaching
WriteBoston’s Coaching Team facilitates programming across schools.
Our Coaching & Professional Development (PD) team made significant progress this year in advancing educator practice and fostering continuous learning.
WriteBoston provided tailored professional development and year-long coaching support to approximately 60 educators. This support was aimed at transforming literacy practices, with a focus on educational equity. Our coaches delivered in-person assistance after two years of hybrid engagement, working in collaboration with school leadership to implement site-specific work plans. In the 2023-24 school year, WriteBoston provided embedded coaching and PD in the following locations:
Additional Accomplishments
- Boston International High School and Newcomers Academy (BINcA): Supported 500 students through weekly coaching, focusing on English Language Learners.
- Madison Park Technical Vocational High School: Impacted 400 students through coach-the-coach models and teacher collaboration.
- Mel H. King Academies: Supported 134 students with high-support-needs behavioral and emotional disabilities.
- Cyrus Peirce Middle School (Nantucket): Provided intermittent professional development workshops for teachers to improve writing instruction for over 350 students.
Program Highlights + Impact
60
educators received tailored professional development and year-long coaching support
96%
of educators report that WriteBoston workshops offered varied approaches that enabled them to actively engage with the content and concepts
5
partner schools received support, reaching approximately 1,390 students across multiple districts
87%
of educators report that WriteBoston’s professional development was more effective than that of other PD providers
In the 2023-2024 school year, the Coaching/PD Team worked to improve their ability to recognize and redress even the subtlest biases, inequities, and oppressive ideologies by examining their root causes and how they show up in practices, policies, and systems. The team collectively identified and brainstormed common inequitable beliefs and statements heard and seen in schools; then they collaboratively worked to identify the underlying belief for each statement and brainstorm ways to address them. Recordings and transcripts of coaching conversations helped to identify, build on, and practice key coaching moments and moves that helped their coachees shift their beliefs.
OrganizationalTransitions & Growth
Building Staffing Capacity
In FY24, WriteBoston was pleased to welcome five new staff members. These new hires played a crucial role in supporting our expanding programming needs and advancing our organizational goals. Here are the important steps we undertook:
- We redesigned the instructional coaching team to consist of three part-time instructional coaches, led by a full-time Director of Professional Learning & Partnerships.
- Our Development and Communications Coordinator was promoted to Director of Marketing & Communication.
- We established WriteBoston’s Advancement team to focus on development and donor stewardship.
- A Youth Program Facilitator joined the team in June to support the TiP Newsroom.
Additionally, we focused on:
- Maximizing TiP Team Impact: We reduced administrative and operational duties for the TiP team, allowing them to dedicate more time to working directly with students.
- Strengthening the Advancement Team: We invested in building a stronger team focused on marketing, communications, development, and operations to better steward long-term donors, enhance nonprofit partnerships, and expand our fundraising efforts.
Performance Management & Continuous Learning
We made strides toward:
- SMARTIE Goals: We aligned individual, team, and organizational goals with our commitment to equity and transparency, ensuring meaningful contributions to our mission from every team member.
- Performance Management Process: We reviewed our internal communication flow and created new tools to support effective onboarding, inclusive meetings, and shared learning experiences. In establishing our Performance Management Process, we are able to promote our norm of flexible and ambitious expectations.
Special thanks to Positively Partners for inspiring the foundation for WriteBoston’s compensation philosophy.
The following efforts laid the foundation for using data to narrate our impact, increase transparency, and refine our practices for greater effectiveness in the future:
- Teacher Logs for Data Collection: Our Coaching team developed logs to collect valuable data on educator practices, moving beyond reliance on teacher surveys, which can be difficult to consistently obtain.
- Student Tracking: The TiP team used a project management system to track students, streamlining student data collection, supporting our impact reporting, and aiding the publication processes for TiP.
- Knowledge Management: The Advancement team piloted task management systems and began collecting staff feedback to streamline our organizational processes.
Our Finances
The charts below share funds raised and used on operating activities during FY24. In addition, WriteBoston has restricted funds for use in FY24 and FY25 of $522K and Board designated reserves of $400K.
Expenses
Revenue
While expenses are presented by function, each category is core to delivering on our mission. Program services include the staffing necessary to plan, run, and evaluate programming, as well as material costs ranging from subscriptions to online education tools to stipends for student writers.
General and administrative expenses include accounting, audit costs, IT, insurance, and staff time associated with managing the organization effectively and efficiently. Fundraising includes events, campaigns, and staff costs to maintain the resources to operate and grow our programs.
A Major Thank You to Our Supporting Foundations!
- Anonymous Foundation (2)
- Argus*
- Beacon Research*
- Beacon Services, Inc.*
- BlueHub Capital*
- BNY Mellon
- Boston After School Program & Beyond (BASB)
- Boston University*
- BPS Summer Fund
- Brookline Savings Bank
- Bushrod H. Campbell and Adah F. Hall Charity Fund
- Calderwood Charitable Foundation
- Cambridge Community Foundation
- The Castle Group*
- City of Boston Youth Development Fund
- Cummings Foundation
- DOT Joyce Consulting LLC*
- The Eastern Bank Charitable Foundation*
- Liberty Mutual Foundation
- Liberty Mutual Climate Resiliency Fund
- Munroe Morrow Wealth Management*
- National Grid Foundation
- The NBT II Foundation
- Nicole Russo Communications*
- Nutter, McClennen & Fish, LLP*
- Paul and Edith Babson Foundation
- Encore Boston Harbor*
- Frank W. and Carl S. Adams Memorial Fund
- The Greg Monroe Foundation
- The Philanthropic Initiative
- Sanofi*
- Schrafft Charitable Trust
- Stull & Lee, Inc.*
- Teak Media*
- Titus Foundation Inc
- TJX Foundation*
- Wellington Foundation
- The Young Authors Foundation
- Youth Development Fund
*Pros&Conversation sponsor
Acknowledgments
WriteBoston is grateful to its donors, partners, staff, and volunteers who have supported our work over the past year. Together, we have empowered hundreds of youth and educators, creating meaningful change in the communities we serve.
For more information about our work or to support our mission, read more here.
Thank you for your continued support!
