1. What was the catalyst for the creation of The Giving Tree?

The Giving Tree co-founders have always had a strong passion for developing innovative ways to improve education. After working for successful companies in the for-profit sector and studying how they operate, they began to research the possible qualitative and quantitative outcomes that could be realized by community’s partnering with consultants who provided support to educational providers.  The work of the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) was also a catalyst in The Giving Tree’s evolution. HCZ’s work is proof that efforts to address the entire community have a longer lasting effect on students.

2. How are your services different from most educational consultants?

We are not for profit organization that consults other not for profits and education program providers. We blend education best practices with business best practices in order to create rich solutions that enable educational communities to both operate more effectively and to serve learners throughout all stages of their development. Lastly, we work to service the entire community versus just one organization, program or school.

3. What do you mean by the term educational community?

The educational community includes all who receive and provide educational services or instruction. This includes but is not limited to parents, students, administrators, faith based organizations, community organizations, etc.  We value all members of the educational community as central to learning.

4. Could you elaborate on the concept of taking a communal approach?

Once we undertake work in a community. The first we thing we do is an analysis. We identify the strengths of the educational community, as well as, areas that could be improved. By default, each community already has its own portfolio of educational programs and services. We work to add more value to that portfolio. Once the educational community begins to maximize its capacity building efforts it will see a higher rate of return on its investment in learners.

5. Can you explain capacity building?

This is a focus on identifying assets and then linking those assets in order to increase the educational community’s profitability (positive outcomes for learners). For example, one community organization may offer free computer classes to students while a neighborhood school may be seeking ways to provide its students with greater technology exposure. In this situation, we would make the school aware of the computer program and find ways to assist students in taking advantage of the community organization’s offerings. The idea is to link all institutions, organizations, programming and services that exist within a community so that they can work in unison and achieve greater results.

6. How do you accomplish your work?

We utilize business and education professionals as staff members, volunteers, and advisory board members to complete our work.  We will also utilize the talents of interns from several area colleges and universities.

7. Do you charge for your services?

Many times grant funding, individual donations or corporate sponsorship will allow us to work on specific projects or initiatives at no cost. In most cases, we are able to work on projects at a reduced rate that is substantially less than what is billed by for profit consultants.

8. Are your services specific only to Rogers Park?

No, although we do have an initiative specific to Rogers Park (Rogers Park Youth Zone) we seek to serve communities citywide. We also have a record of providing professional development to teachers through out the Chicago area and are working to expand our development offerings to include school administrators, community organization leaders and their staff.

9. How do you disseminate your research?  

We provide our research to the educational community in a variety of ways. One is through publishing reports and fact sheets on our website. We also utilize Ed Leaf, our newsletter publication, to inform the educational community of our research results. As we have stated, we consider everyone in the educational community as central to learning so we try to provide all members with the information that they will need to engage in the capacity building process. 

10. What is your approach to providing personal and professional development opportunities?

Over time, The Giving Tree organically grew a successful development model that we work from called R.I.S.E. By incorporating the elements of Reflection, Interaction, Socratic questioning and Engagement into our trainings we create a balanced approach to development that has proven to have a long lasting effect on participants. For teachers and administrators, we also incorporate a community education piece into all of our offerings. We believe that school curriculum and educational programming should reflect the values, and needs of the community it serves.

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