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  • March 2018 (Revised June 2018)
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City Year at 30: Toward Long-Term Impact

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and James Weber
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
  • | Pages:31
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Abstract

In 2018, City Year was a 30-year-old nonprofit that recruited and organized teams of young-adult “volunteers” (corps teams) to provide a year of citizen service. It had 3,100 corps members serving in 327 schools located in 28 U.S. cities. In its early decades, City Year provided a variety of services to a variety of organizations in need. Over its most recent decade, City Year had pivoted to having all corps members serve in low-income public schools to keep students on track to graduation in an effort to reduce the nation’s high school dropout rate. City Year also worked with partners to help schools transform themselves to better meet the needs of low-income students as well as with policy makers and elected officials to promote the value of national citizen service. In 2012, City Year launched a Long Term Impact strategy (LTI) aimed at making a substantial improvement in high school graduation rates. The LTI required City Year to transform itself over time to create an organization capable of delivering its ambitious impact strategy. The case explores City Year’s history and its efforts to align its organization with its strategy. In March 2018, City Year CEO Michael Brown must examine the state of his organization and its strategy to determine the next steps to achieving its LTI goals.

Keywords

Education; Service Operations; Nonprofit Organizations; Growth and Development Strategy; Performance Efficiency; Resource Allocation; Change Management; Social Entrepreneurship; Middle School Education; Secondary Education; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Human Capital; Growth Management; Service Delivery; Organizational Design; Social Enterprise; Poverty; United States

Citation

Kanter, Rosabeth Moss, and James Weber. "City Year at 30: Toward Long-Term Impact." Harvard Business School Case 318-089, March 2018. (Revised June 2018.)
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About The Author

Rosabeth M. Kanter

General Management
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Related Work

    • September 2018
    • Faculty Research

    City Year at 30: Toward Long-Term Impact

    By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jonathan Cohen
    • March 2018 (Revised June 2018)
    • Faculty Research

    City Year at 30: Toward Long-Term Impact

    By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and James Weber
Related Work
  • City Year at 30: Toward Long-Term Impact By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jonathan Cohen
  • City Year at 30: Toward Long-Term Impact By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and James Weber
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