Ignite Afterschool

Every Community. Every Youth.

Ignite Afterschool strengthens afterschool programs to ensure all Minnesota’s youth are inspired and engaged in their communities. Help us raise funds to elevate the importance of afterschool programs in our state’s public discourse.

What does Ignite Afterschool do?

Ignite Afterschool is a statewide network of funders, program providers, researchers and others dedicated to ensuring all young people can ignite their passion through high-quality afterschool, before-school, and summer learning programs. We leverage the connections and resources of our network partners to advance afterschool in three key areas: Partnerships, Policy, and Quality.

Why Support Afterschool?

Minnesota’s afterschool and summer learning opportunities have a huge positive impact on our state’s youth, communities, and economic prosperity. From narrowing the opportunity gap, to inspiring learning, to keeping young people safe – afterschool is essential for Minnesota’s youth and families.

Despite the ample research demonstrating these benefits, Minnesota faces serious barriers to providing quality afterschool learning opportunities for all youth. These barriers include:

Inadequate funding for afterschool programs, that has significantly declined in recent years A lack of accessible professional development and program quality supports Race, income, and geography-based gaps in young people’s access to afterschool learning opportunities

Your support will help Ignite Afterschool’s efforts to raise awareness about these urgent barriers, which stand in the way of equitable learning opportunities for all our state’s youth.