UpMetrics Impact Spotlight - America SCORES Chicago

America SCORES Chicago

Building confidence and character on the field, in school and in life.

Since 2000, America SCORES Chicago has accomplished that goal by delivering free after-school and summer programming that combines three equally fun, powerful activities: soccer, poetry and service-learning.

Together these help them shape enthusiastic students into Poet-Athletes, who grow passionate about their program’s activities—and grow actively engaged in their communities, city and world.

America SCORES Chicago has been working with UpMetrics since 2019.

View Impact Framework

Mission

To inspire youth to lead healthy lives, be engaged students, and have the confidence and character to make a difference in the world.

Vision

America SCORES Chicago envisions a world where all youth find their voice, achieve their goals and unleash their full potential.

Values

Teamwork
Leadership
Commitment

Programs & Impact Approach

America SCORES Chicago offers programming for children from ages K-8, as well as Summer Camp.

Soccer: for Active Bodies - Soccer promotes physical fitness, leadership, and teamwork while uniting communities globally. Their programs align with the 6 National Standards for Physical Education, fostering a holistic impact on children.

Poetry: for Active Minds - They bring soccer's team spirit into the classroom through poetry, hip hop, and presentation, building literacy, creativity, and student voice while emphasizing reading, writing, speaking, and listening.

Service Learning: for Active Community Members - Service-learning blends knowledge, critical thinking, and teamwork to address community needs. In spring, Poet-Athletes collaborate to design and implement a project to address an issue they see in their community.

70,260

Hours of Programming Delivered Last Year

1,400+

Poet-Athletes Supported Last Year

100%

of Parents and Families report that, because of SCORES, their child is getting better at setting and reaching goals

Using Data & UpMetrics to Maximize Impact

America SCORES Chicago is leveraging the capabilities of the UpMetrics platform to streamline reporting, data analysis, and impact measurement, increasing the capacity of their small nonprofit office and unlocking fundraising opportunities for their unique mission of inspiring Chicago youth through soccer and poetry.

Challenges before UpMetrics

Their Theory of Change existed in a static document that didn't include programs and wasn't user friendly.
The system that tracked their student engagement data did not have full reporting capabilities, so they were unable to triangulate data and bring in data sets from multiple sources.
Data was stored in applications that were not integrated, making reporting inefficient.

After Engaging with UpMetrics

Their Theory of Change has been translated into an Impact Framework, making it more accessible to teams. Having their long-term impact objectives included in the framework ensures they remain their north star.
Easier for Development Staff to pull information needed for grant submissions and external communications, freeing up Program Staff’s time.
By pulling in publicly available data, and having community and school-level data in one place, they're able to paint a more vivid picture of their poet-athlete's context and benchmark against community datapoints.
Able to speak on each of their programs’ objectives separately but also together to paint the picture of why such a holistic approach and program works.

Testimonials

As a smaller org, without an evaluation staff person, the platform has cut our reporting time in at least half, if not more. It has also cut down on our need to contract external evaluators as the platform now does the more advanced analysis for us.

Jessica Mater

Managing Director

We started as a Community Impact Cohort grantee in 2019. Two years later, we rolled off after securing increased funding, largely due to our enhanced impact measurement capabilities. Five years later, we are excited about this next phase with UpMetrics and the opportunities the impact framework will provide.

Kimberly Townsend

Executive Director