Read Ahead’s reading-based mentoring develops in students the social-emotional skills essential for academic and life-long success. Our vision is that our students have the opportunity to unlock their full potential through mentoring relationships based on a love of reading.

Throughout 2019, Read Ahead continued to work closely with our public school, corporate, and community partners to deliver a high-quality reading-based mentoring program to children in high-need elementary schools. In addition to high levels of program satisfaction among program stakeholders (teachers, volunteers, and students), we also achieved meaningful and measurable positive student outcomes, built program and operational capacity, and exceeded our revenue goals for the fifth consecutive year. We have deepened our program's rigor and impact by implementing research-based training and support for volunteers, including refreshed training for over 750 new and returning volunteers and expanding our innovative mentor support pilot to all 15 program sites, in collaboration with Loyola University researchers. We were honored to co-present the learnings and successes from our mentor support work at the National Mentoring Summit in Washington, DC. This year marked our first year of direct student outcome measurement at all 15 of our school sites, and we are proud to report high levels of student progress of success, including the majority of our students demonstrating improved confidence in their abilities, and 95% of students succeeding in one or more measure of social-emotional learning. Read Ahead has continued to grow our supporter base and build sustainability through diverse revenue sources. We exceeded revenue targets across all major campaigns and events and grew our board of directors by five members.