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What was done with the IRC Children's Needs Assessment? The Needs Assessment Executive Summary and complete report were widely distributed in the community. Slide presentations highlighting the data and conclusions were presented to multiple audiences (e.g. John's Island, Grand Harbor, IR Club, CSAC, Rotary Club, Executive Round Table, School Board). This report provided grant committees of many Funder's Forum members with important information to make informed grant awards. Equipped with facts and examples of effective work in other communities, members of our community then focused on convincing the IRC Commissioners that there was good reason to increase funding for children (March 3 and 17 Commissioner Meetings). The outcome was that $1,051K was allocated via 2015-2016 CSAC Grant process in June. $651K was provided from the original IRC Budget. An additional $200K was raised by the community via a "match" resulting in the Commissioners match of $200K Overall this total budget of $1,051K represented a 62% increase over funding in 2014! Simultaneously, existing agencies became focused on replicating relevant programs they had seen on site visits (set up by the Kindergarten Readiness Collaborative) and expanding/scaling their existing effective programs that addressed the Focus Areas. In June 2015, the CSAC Grant Committee evaluated eleven new requests. All but two were funded. The 2014 Children's Needs Assessment top two focus areas, early childhood development and building parent capacity, received $676K. Highlights of the funded programs are described below. In the area of early childhood development, research indicates that teacher quality is the most important variable. Yet, Florida preschool standards are very low - in particular in the area of teacher training. Most preschools in IRC that serve low-income children are for profit businesses. Following the Florida standards, they hire minimally trained staff that is paid $8/hour. New grant requests into CSAC this year which were focused on preschool teacher training include: Big Brothers Big Sisters ($48K granted) will expand their use of AmeriCorps mentors into a third preschool. Childcare Resources ($21K granted) will offer teacher workshops to all IRC preschool teachers. The Learning Alliance ($45K granted) will pilot master coach training for preschool teachers as well as imbed trained teachers into certain programs. Additionally, new funding will expand the four-year old VPK school year for struggling students by the Education Foundation Ready -Set -Grow ($123K granted). This program was started in Summer 2014 and has shown excellent outcomes. CSAC has picked up a major piece of the program funding for 2016! .75A , q