Hartford Business Journal

6 Hartford Business Journal • March 19, 2018 • www.HartfordBusiness.com By John Stearns jstearns@HartfordBusiness.com E mployers looking for new workers might very well find them coming out of a local Boys & Girls Club in Hartford, or any of the other 4,367 clubs in the U.S. Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) has long emphasized preparing teens for life after high school as one of its pil- lars, but the organization is sharpening its focus on college and career readiness, thanks in part to a $3 million grant from The Hartford last year to develop college and career centers at 30 clubs across the country, including Hartford. "I believe this will happen: We'll be the preeminent source in the country, in the next five, seven years, when it comes to this whole mechanism around workforce readiness for youth," Atlanta-based BGCA President and CEO James Clark said during an in- terview on a recent visit to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Hartford. "Companies are coming to us say- ing, we want to partner with you because you have 4 million youth and 600,000 teenagers," Clark said. "That is a ready-made, if you will, workforce." The college and career centers can amplify the BGCA's focus on help- ing teens prepare either to enter the workforce immediately, or help pre- pare them for trade/technical schools, college or the armed forces. The centers add attention and resources, including dedicated center staff, to helping BGCA further pave college and career pathways, with a strong focus on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) to correlate with job trends of the future. "We recognized that approaching the end of high school can be daunt- ing for young people," The Hartford's Diane Cantello, vice president of cor- porate sustainability, which includes philanthropy, said in explaining the company's grant to help teens explore their options, build their skills, demys- tify that next stage in life and move forward "with a bounce in their step." It's about "setting young people up to be as successful as they can be post high school," she said of the impetus behind the donation for 10 centers last year, 10 this year and 10 next year. The Boys & Girls Clubs of Hartford college and career center, which opened in June, includes a part-time college and career coordinator whose job includes facilitating financial literacy, career exploration and job readiness programs, facilitating internships and job shadow- ing, providing tips, advice and resourc- es, and organizing workshops and field trips to colleges or workplaces, said Julie Dubé, director of program services for the Hartford clubs. "One of my goals for the college and career center is for the Boys & Girls Club of Hartford to become a hub for teens to get the skills they need to get a job," Dubé said. The clubs also wants to be viewed by employers as a talent source. Samuel Gray Jr., president and CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Hartford, said BGCA's suite of programs to develop teens can help the Hartford region, where many companies are desperate for talent and some are relocating to find it. "I think we're a valuable resource that could be a solution with the corpo- rate community as we develop young people to give them the soft skills that they need to be able to be good candi- dates," Gray said. BGCA research shows soft skills — creative problem-solving, customer service, how to collaborate, interact with peers and develop solutions — are important to employers, Clark said. "Everything they do here will build into those soft skills so that they are pre- pared for those jobs and then the hard skills — résumé writing, applications — of course, that will be a byproduct of what comes out of this," he said. Workforce Ready Boys & Girls Clubs sharpen focus on college, career readiness Samuel Gray Jr., president and CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of Hartford (left), Julie Dubé, director of program services for the Hartford clubs, and James Clark, president and CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of America, based in Atlanta, are pictured in the college and career center at the Asylum Hill Boys & Girls Club in Hartford. HBJ PHOTO | JOHN STEARNS Boys and Girls Clubs of Hartford's Financial Snapshot Revenues FY 2017 FY 2016 Contributions $1,670,785 $1,171,282 Grants and contracts $905,351 $912,097 Total revenues $4,474,485 $3,986,014 Expenses Program services $3,196,539 $2,851,717 Management and general $610,461 $622,704 Total expenses $4,291,900 $3,865,098 Margin $182,585 $120,916 Source: Boys and Girls Clubs audited financial statement

• Cover