Growing Together: An Open Letter From Our Founders
MICR ANNOUNCES THREE-YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN AND VISION FOR THE FUTURE
Dear MICR Family,
We are excited to share some big news with you. After nine years of service to our communities, MICR is making new and significant investments in the impact and sustainability of our mission. As our teammates, families, stakeholders, donors, and fans, we want you to know how and why we are growing and what values, goals and priorities will guide us into the future we are building together.
In 2012, MICR was an idea. We had 2 rugby teams, a few balls and an intention to fill gaps we saw after our students were dismissed. Since then, we’ve had the privilege of building enduring relationships with over 2,000 student-athletes, countless families, principals, teachers, coaches, ruggers and stakeholders in communities across Memphis and around the world. We’re a 501(c)3 nonprofit with 14 teams, 3 full-time staff members, a dozen part-time coaches and a little office with desks and a printer.
Our experiences watching kids learn transferable skills, grow as students and cultivate their individual potential have now been backed by a growing body of international research. What we initially dubbed “the power of rugby,” is now recognized around the world as “Sport Based Youth Development,” and leading neuroscientists study the unique power of sport to mitigate the impact of childhood trauma. Many of the kids on our first teams are now our coaches and what was once a well-intentioned, short-term plan has grown into something far greater, more enduring, and more important than the sum of its parts.
THREE-YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN
In January 2021, we set out to develop a holistic strategy to guide our organization into a more sustainable and impactful future. For six months we engaged our staff, students, board, alumni, parents and a committee of independent professionals in philanthropy, sport-based-youth-development, business and education to craft a robust three-year strategic plan. The plan we produced serves as a foundational document for our leadership and board to allocate - and extract the maximum value from - our resources, remain focused on key priorities over time and energize our staff, donors and community toward common, clearly defined goals. Additionally, the plan provides us with a tool to evaluate the impact of our growth, and create more consistency, predictability and transparency in our programs and services.
You can read an outline of our plan here.
To that end, we are excited to announce that we will be opening applications for two new full-time jobs in 2022. We will search near and far for the most talented and qualified individuals who will deliver world-class services and experiences for our kids. Both of these positions will be ‘program-facing’ jobs, which means that the selected candidates will use their entire full-time capacity to support our kids.
You can keep up with new opportunities to join our team here.
FINANCES
MICR is positioned to execute a bold strategic plan because of the generous support from donors across the country - and around the world - that make our work possible. We would not be here today without YOU, the incredible village behind us, empowering us to do more for our kids than ever before.
Our kids and communities have been the benefactors of an unprecedented and historic year of fundraising - our 3rd Annual Evening for MICR nearly tripled our previous record. We take these investments seriously, and as we scale, we pledge to scrutinize every expenditure for its impact and alignment with our mission. With a 9-year track record of fiscal responsibility, we take pride in our frugality in overhead and our unsparing approach to investing in people and resources that support our kids.
As we scale, it is especially important to us to be transparent about how our financial decisions align with our values, mission and commitment to driving cost-efficient impact. Below, you can see how we have allocated our funding this year:
NEW PATHWAYS
The keystone of MICR’s impact has always been the development of deep, caring, long-term relationships with individual students over time. As a result, we invest a majority of our funding in people - leaders that wake up everyday and work tirelessly to coach, mentor, empower, support, tutor, resource and build great relationships with our kids. One of the defining priorities in our strategic plan is to double down on this strength with a new program model that centers on increasing the depth of our services and relationships with students over time. We call this strategy an “MICR Pathway.”
Our vision is to create accessible and connected programs within a specific neighborhood from elementary school to and through our post-secondary Alumni Services. As a result, a student joining MICR in elementary school can experience a clear pathway of support, resources and opportunities all the way through their post-secondary choices, pursuit of college-credit internships and professional employment. Through the research-driven benefits of sport, competency building, social-emotional learning, academic mentoring, scholarships, internships, employment and professional development opportunities, MICR aims to surround our participants in a holistic supportive infrastructure and walk alongside them on their individual journeys to their full potential. One day, an MICR participant will graduate college after 14 years of programming with a vast community of caring supporters behind them that will always remain in their corner.
IMPACT AUDIT
Since 2018, MICR has been studied and supported by Slingshot Memphis. Nearly five years of rigorous evaluation, discussion of greater opportunities for impact and ongoing thought partnership have helped shape our strategy and improve our poverty-fighting impact. Slingshot’s most recent impact study of MICR is summarized below, and provides an independent layer of validation that our efforts are pointing in the right direction. The green boxes indicate that MICR is “At Least Strong” in every dimension of Slingshot’s analysis:
Through all the changes ahead, MICR will always return to a fundamental, grounding premise: we exist to be responsive. We exist to serve. The only way to do that is to listen. To observe. To internalize and process to the best of our ability a holistic understanding of where needs really are, what gaps exist and where our resources can help close them. In order to be responsive, we must commit to a continuous cycle of reflection, adaptation and change. We must time and time again reinvent ourselves as the best organization we can be for our kids, who deserve world-class services, support and opportunities.
Now more than ever, your support directly translates into deeper, greater and wider impact in our city. You have empowered us to stand where are today, certain of our impact, in a strong financial position, dreaming boldly about a more equitable and just future for our our students. Your continued advocacy, belief and generosity will help unlock that future and drive us forward into this bright new chapter that we are writing together.
Please help us spread the word about our new job openings, keep up with our growth on Facebook and Instagram and mark your calendars for a 10-Year Anniversary celebration this October in Memphis.
Together - relationally, responsively, relentlessly - we are #changingthegame.
