Impact
What KARA has built, counted rather than described — and what it will not claim.
By the numbers
Programs, and what they are for
Four initiatives carry most of the work. Each has its own page with what it does and who it is for.
- CASA Google Ad Grant Initiative. Google gives eligible nonprofits up to $10,000 a month in free search advertising. Most CASA programs qualify and most never use it, because the setup and the monthly reporting are the barrier rather than the eligibility. KARA takes that on for them, so the ad budget turns into volunteer recruitment in their own county.
- Financial Literacy and Grant Program. Monthly peer groups plus seed funding for fostered and adopted Minnesota youth aged 18 to 28 — the years after a young person ages out of a system that was managing their money for them.
- National Child Abuse Information and Solutions Platform. The national picture assembled in one place, for lawmakers, administrators and anyone else who needs it. KARA SIGNAL and the resource library are its first live pieces.
- America’s Children in 100 Charts. KARA’s next book, underway now, with draft chapters open to readers.
Who carries it
Fifty colleges and universities have put student teams, capstone projects and public-health and social-work research onto KARA’s programs, several of them through Riipen. Google, Amazon Web Services and a video production partner carry it in kind. They are all named, with what each one gives, on the partners page.
What this page does not claim
The counts above are the size of the work, not its effect. KARA does not know how many children were safer because a teacher read a toolkit, and a page that put a number on that would be inventing one. Where a program has outcomes it can evidence, they are on that program’s page and the figure comes with its source.
The money side of the same question — what funds this, and the filings that prove it — is on Financials and Accountability.