2017-18 Report | The Sergey Brin Family Foundation | June 1, 2019 
 2018-2019 Report     | The Sergey Brin Family Foundation      | June 1, 2019

​June 1, 2019  
Dear Ms. Misslin,  
 
As a result of The Sergey Brin Family Foundation’s critical multi-year investment, Spark Program Inc. has impacted 
the lives of thousands of middle school aged youth through transformational learning opportunities and career 
exploration activities.  The Foundation’s support has enabled Spark to provide students the opportunity to build 
social-emotional skills, expand their social awareness and social capital, and improve their performance and 
engagement in school - at a time when youth are developing rapidly and also at the highest risk for disengagement 
with their educational journey. Our multi-year partnership has allowed Spark to make critical investments to our 
program model and evaluation practices and expand our partnerships with key collaborators such as corporations 
and school districts, all of which leads to stronger results and student impact. Spark is incredibly grateful for your 
continued commitment to building The Possibility Movement that empowers middle school students to realize 
what’s possible for their unique futures.

Spark targets middle school candidates who historically demonstrate a low level of school engagement. Most of our 
students do not participate in afterschool programs, truly qualifying them as the most underserved student 
population. This creates a higher demand on our team to continuously engage and support our students’ 
participation but also allows the program to arguably impact the “highest need” students. 

SPARK-WIDE PROGRAM UPDATES

Spark remains committed to continuous refinement of our program model to ensure we are providing the most 
impactful program to our students and generating consistent, sustainable outcomes. In almost 15 years of operation, 
Spark will have engaged and impacted more than 10,000 students and 10,000 mentors in a variety of industries in 
four markets across the country: Chicago, Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. This program year was deeply 
rooted in evaluating the effectiveness of the organization-wide integration of our new program sequence and 
collecting data to discern best practices for future roll-outs. Our culture of continuous evaluation and refinement 
ensures our students and curriculum maximize their potential. Additionally, our dedication to program fidelity is 
demonstrated through our increased efforts to create a space for best practice sharing across all four of our 
operating regions. By creating a cross-regional forum for program staff to share information and learn from one 
another’s experiences – our national program manager is able to maintain and promote program quality and fidelity. 

Spark Labs: ​In the 2018-19 school year, we launched an updated program model in all four regions after a successful 
pilot the year prior. Our refined program consists of a three-pronged approach that uses the powerful combination of 
mentoring, hands-on learning, and access to resources to help students develop the motivation, skills, and 
relationships necessary to transition to high school and continue on a long-term trajectory of academic and career 
success. This year, we offered Fall ‘Labs’, which are structured workshops hosted by and at local company partners 
over the course of 5 weeks. This program component serves as an introduction to the more intensive mentorship 
phase in Spring, and allows 7th graders to explore different careers and survey a variety of different work 
environments. This Fall, almost 1,000 students ​across the organization​ participated in Labs - 550 of the students 
attended this program component for the first time. 

Mentorships: ​In the Spring, students progress to an intensive 1:1 mentorship with an employee volunteer for in-depth 
exploration of the student’s unique career interests. Spring 2019 is the first time all four regions are offering a 
13-week mentorship program (extended from 10 weeks) which allows the students to develop deeper connections 
with their mentors, a greater opportunity to hone the skills they are developing, and increased time to complete a 
shared interest project. Mentorship culminates with an end of year celebration at our ‘Share Your Spark’ event; 
science fair style celebration of learning where students and mentors showcase their semester long interest driven 
projects. 
 2018-2019 Report     | The Sergey Brin Family Foundation      | June 1, 2019

High School Pathways (HSP): ​Once students enter 8th grade, Spark staff lead a series of in-school workshops 
guiding students through structured self-reflection activities, personality assessments, and career planning. Students 
then use Spark’s online “High School Pathfinder” database to compare and select high school programs that match 
their skills and interests, accelerating them down their unique path to college and career success. As students 
graduate from Spark’s high-touch, personalized middle school programming, we keep them engaged with additional 
9th grade supports -- including a texting platform that shares tips for high school success, as well as reminders for 
important opportunities and deadlines.

BAY AREA PROGRAM UPDATE 

During the 2018-19 school year, Spark endeavored to expand its reach to high-need communities in San Mateo and 
Santa Clara Counties. However, after evaluating the long-term sustainability of expansion, we found it impossible to 
maintain the high standards of our program in expanding into Santa Clara county during the 2018-19 year due to our 
staffing capacity, geographical implications, and finances. We operate with a lean program staff of four, currently 
serving four middle schools in the Bay Area. Creating a strong partnership with schools in Santa Clara County was 
challenging because of the distance and traffic from San Francisco proper. In FY20, Spark in the Bay Area will serve 
three middle schools in San Francisco and two middle schools in East Palo Alto. 

EVALUATION OF PROGRAM EFFECTIVENESS 

Spark defines and measures impact around three central pillars: Social Emotional Skills, Social Capital, and 
Performance & Engagement. Spark’s student curriculum and evaluation tools align with CASEL — the Collaborative 
for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. CASEL’s widely used framework centers on five core social and 
emotional competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible 
decision making. A growing body of research from groups like CASEL and the Chicago Consortium for School 
Research shows that these non-cognitive skills are important contributors to a host of positive student outcomes, 
including academic success. 

The Social Emotional Skills pillar focuses on student growth in the 5 CASEL competencies noted above. The Social 
Capital pillar focuses on growing awareness of and access to relationships, resources, and information for 
educational and career success. Finally, the Performance & Engagement pillar centers on key indicators of academic 
success: grades, attendance, behavior, and high school graduation. Students who finish 9th grade on-track are 
nearly three times more likely to graduate from high school than students who did not. 

Spark’s rigorous program evaluation process begins with surveys, which are collected at three points throughout the 
Spark Lab and Mentorship experiences. Surveys are collected not only from students, but also their teachers and 
mentors, in order to assess progress toward target outcomes. Spark also monitors mentor engagement, since 
program data show that mentor satisfaction is correlated with positive student outcomes. Finally, Spark has 
established data-sharing agreements with partner districts in order to track the student Performance & Engagement 
indicators outlined above. 

● Social Emotional Skills - Spark measures students’ development in the five CASEL competencies (a widely 
used framework supported by a growing body of research): self-awareness, self-management, social 
awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making. Students complete surveys pre-, mid- and 
post-program to measure growth in each competency.
● Social Capital - Spark’s workplace-based programs provide exposure and access to new career paths, 
ultimately increasing students’ social capital. Spark measures student awareness of opportunities available 
to them and how they make use of their resources.
● Performance & Engagement - Through data-sharing agreements with partner school districts, Spark tracks 
students on the three warning signs of disengagement – grades, attendance, behavior – as well as 
graduation.
 2018-2019 Report     | The Sergey Brin Family Foundation      | June 1, 2019

SPARK IN THE BAY AREA 2017-18 STUDENT OUTCOMES

Spark expects future results to demonstrate the same strong improvements measured in Spark’s 2017-18 impact 
report:
● Social Emotional Skills: 79% of Spark students grew in social emotional skills;
● Social Capital: 93% of Spark students agree that they learned about different jobs and careers they didn’t 
know about before Spark, and 93% agreed that their Spark experience helped them figure out what kind of 
job or career they want as an adult;
● Performance & Engagement: At a time when average student engagement declines, according to their 
teachers, 80% of Spark students improved in critical competencies for successful classroom engagement. 
Overall, 92% of Spark Alumni are on track to graduate on time compared to 68% of their peers.

Like students, mentors build new skills and increase their engagement through Spark: 
● Social Emotional Skills: 75% of mentors report learning skills at Spark that will help them do their job better.
● Social Capital: 91% of mentors report an increased sense of responsibility for contributing to local 
communities after their involvement with Spark.
● Performance & Engagement: 81% of mentors report feeling more comfortable working with people that are 
different from them because of their involvement with Spark.

SPARK-WIDE 2018-19 PARITICPANTS 

Organization-Wid Bay 
e Area
Students  2218 471
Enrolled
Volunteers 1600 239
School Partners 23 4
 
BAY AREA PROGRAM PARTNERS
 
School Partners   Corporate Partners  
Willie Brown Jr. Middle School  Ford  Intuit  Ionpath 
Ravenswood Middle School  Facebook  Paypal  PureStorage 
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School  Square   Google  SFPUC 
Visitacion Valley Middle School  Udemy  Zendesk  Betts 
  Autodesk  Salesforce  YearUp 
  DocuSign  Move Inc.   Roblox 
 
STUDENT & MENTOR SPOTLIGHT
An anecdote from a Senior Technical Architect at Zendesk and Spark Mentor, Ben Reyes:
“Spark has been an incredibly profound, valuable, and rewarding experience for both myself and my mentee, Darnell. 
Sometimes we all have to take a step back and realize that we all got to our careers and where we are with the help of 
others and mentors. That might be a teacher, a mentor, or a manager. Volunteering and supporting the spark program is 
one of the ways I'm able to pay it forward.
 
Darnell is the youngest child, raised by his single mother. He’s super interested in building things and engineering. Super 
enthusiastic, and had a lot of energy. Though he was outwardly confident you could tell when he didn’t feel so 
comfortable. I worked with Darnell on an engineering project to turn him into Iron Man, and we eventually made a 
prototype of an electromagnetic glove (an idea he came up with himself). We worked through the project from scratch 
 2018-2019 Report     | The Sergey Brin Family Foundation      | June 1, 2019

and did a lot of googling. Through the Spark Program you saw Darnell's confidence in himself grow, he now wasn't just 
the kid with the crazy ideas, but the kid that would follow through and build those crazy ideas.
 
A lot of people noticed a change in behavior in Darnell. So much so that his guidance counselor reached out to ask if I 
could continue mentoring Darnell. Not only did Spark have a big impact on Darnell but it also impacted the way I saw 
things in my own industry. The tech industry is not the most diverse. One of the challenges (and activities) with Spark is to 
make your mentee feel like they belong in your company. Through this exercise, I realized the lack of diversity in my 
industry which has turned me into an advocate.
I just got an email from him saying he has just learned to play the guitar, skateboard and just applied to a local high 
school in the area and if I could still continue mentoring him through high school. I continue to stay connected with 
Darnell and look forward to supporting him through his schooling and career.”

 
   
PROFESSIONAL RECOGNITION
Over the past year, Spark received a series of recognitions for the quality of our impact evaluation. We earned a 
US2020 STEM Mentoring Award for “Excellence in Impact Measurement” based on our success identifying key 
indicators that “can be most effective in reaching the long-term goal of a stronger, more diverse workforce.” An 
external evaluation by Mission Measurement determined that the quality of Spark’s evaluation data was the highest 
in their database. Finally, the survey platform Algorhythm compared Spark participants to students from 150 different 
programs, finding our students in the top 15% in terms of social/emotional growth.

Looking ahead, supported by a 17 member Bay Area regional board, a tenured staff, a broad collection of corporate 
partners, and demonstrated impact on our students, Spark is focused on growing our earned income program 
model. Our goal is to secure financial support from our schools, program partners, foundations, and individuals to 
provide predictable funding to scale our impact. We currently operating in the three middle schools identified by the 
Sab Francisco Mayor’s Initiative as the most under-resourced with additional school partnerships in negotiations. We 
are also investigating opportunities to partner with nonprofit organizations to seamlessly graduate our students into 
high school career and college pathways. We look forward to work with The Sergey Brin Family Foundation to build 
together the futures of our students. Thank you for our partnership. 

Thank you, 
 2018-2019 Report     | The Sergey Brin Family Foundation      | June 1, 2019

 
Robin M. Keefe, ​Executive Director