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thinking big

looking forward

changing lives

2012 annual report

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Our MissionWe fight to ensure low-income children in

Washington, DC receive a great education and

stay healthy so they can learn.

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Dear Friend of Fight For Children, Thank you for your support of Fight For Children in 2012. With the dedication of our partners and

friends like you, Fight For Children is fighting every day to ensure that low-income children receive a great education and stay healthy so they can learn. None of our successes would be possible without you.

2012 was a year of both transition and exciting developments for Fight For Children. The fifth year of our Quality Schools Initiative continued to shine a light on schools making a measurable impact on student achievement for low-income kids. We also fully launched Ready to Learn DC, our early childhood education initiative, around three strong pillars: schools, teachers, and families.

In October, as part of Ready to Learn DC, we announced the creation of Joe’s Champs—an ambitious program that will directly support Washington’s educational reform efforts. We named this program in honor of our late founder, Joe Robert. Joe challenged us to think big and take bold action. Aimed at three- and four-year-olds, Joe’s Champs will ensure that children in DC’s highest-need neighborhoods are taught by highly-effective early childhood teachers. Over the next five years, Fight For Children hopes to reach over 10,000 children.

We will continue to fight for low-income children in the months and years ahead. Thank you for standing with us.

Sincerely,

Raul Fernandez Michela English Chairman President and CEO

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thinking big

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thinking bigIn October 2012, Fight For Children announced the launch of Joe’s Champs, the newest initiative in Fight For

Children’s Ready to Learn DC program. Joe’s Champs will support and feed the City’s ambitious K-12 reform efforts

by working in the City’s highest need neighborhoods to create a strong, sustainable learning environment that will

prepare young children from any family background to enter kindergarten ready to learn.

Fight For Children’s program will identify 30 to 40 schools in need of improvement with leaders who are motivated to

make their schools highly effective. This program compliments and enhances the ambitious school reform efforts already

underway in the District of Columbia by focusing on schools in DC’s highest need neighborhoods. Principals will receive

training on early childhood development and appropriate classroom practice, and they will be mentored for three years.

Fight For Children is working with proven, highly effective teacher training partners, including the Urban Teacher

Center and the Capital Teaching Residency (a partnership of KIPP: DC and E.L. Haynes Public Charter Schools) to train

100 preschool teachers who will be placed at the selected sites. Fight For Children will create professional learning

communities so that both principals and teachers are supported in their efforts to create a strong, sustainable learning

environment that prepares young children from any family background to enter kindergarten ready to learn.

At the launch of Joe’s Champs in October, Kesso Diallo, a new teacher trained at the

Urban Teacher Center, explained why this program is so crucial: “I look at all of my

students and...I want them to be able to have the options that I had, and to be able to

choose a career path that is meaningful for them. Urban Teacher Center and Fight For

Children are now working together to break the cycle of educational inequality that has

existed for generations.” Visit Fight For Children’s YouTube page at http://www.youtube.

com/user/Fight4ChildrenDC to hear Kesso’s full remarks.

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Joe’s Champs was made possible by $1.6 million in lead gifts from the Embassy of the United Arab

Emirates (UAE) in Washington, DC and Fight For Children Board members Raul Fernandez, Chuck

Kuhn, and Fred Schaufeld.

“ It is a privilege for the Embassy to support this incredibly ambitious program in honor of Joe Robert. Joe was a visionary and a friend.

There is no better way to honor him than to help even more kids get a great start in life.” —UAE Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba

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looking forward Fight For Children is excited to continue investing in DC schools that have

strong leadership and a clear vision for the future of their students. This

support gives the schools already in the midst of change and improvement a

catalyst to continue their upward trajectory and give more kids the education

they deserve.

On April 10, 2012, DC Deputy Mayor of Education De’Shawn Wright

and DC State Superintendent of Education Hosanna Mahaley joined

Fight For Children at our annual Quality Schools Initiative Awards Luncheon to recognize four outstanding DC schools. Capital City

Public Charter Upper School, Cesar Chavez Public Charter School

Bruce Prep Middle Campus, and DC Preparatory Academy Edgewood

Elementary School each won Champion of Quality awards and a

$50,000 grant from Fight For Children. Powell Elementary School was

awarded a Rising Star award and a $25,000 grant.

In addition to recognizing schools that improve student achievement

for low-income kids in DC, the Quality Schools Initiative encourages

exploration, discussion, and sharing of high-quality practices among school

leaders across the city.

looking forward

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Chavez Prep

spotlightChavez Prep is located in the historic Bruce building in Columbia Heights and serves 319 students with 91%

qualifying for free or reduced lunch and over 60% English Language Learners. As a result of the Quality Schools

Award, Chavez Prep now has three instructional coaches: Literacy, STEM and Data/Special Populations. The primary

objective with hiring these coaches is to increase teacher instructional efficacy as a primary lever for greater student

achievement. While the coaching initiative is still new to Prep, preliminary achievement data is showing great results

when compared to historic data trends:

✱✱ Student failure rates are down more than 20%

✱✱ Student discipline referrals and out-of-school suspension rates are down more than 10%

✱✱ Student attendance is up by 2% from 2011-2012

✱✱ Students in grades 6-8 that are meeting reading interim benchmark proficiency targets is up by 5%

“The demands of a global economy that is rapidly changing and growing, combined with the demands of the impending

National Common Core Standards for Learning, brings challenges and unknowns that we must prepare ourselves and our

scholars to overcome. It is this work, the work needed so that we can say with confidence that each and every one of our

scholars is prepared to graduate from the finest colleges and universities in the world,

which excites us...Providing the highest quality education to our scholars is the

reason why each staff member at Prep gets out of bed in the morning.”

— Janell George, Chavez Prep staff member

As a Champion of Quality winner, Chavez was able to leverage the

increased notoriety from the award by hosting several school tour events

which led to a new funder contributing $500,000. With this gift, Chavez

embarked on a project to build a gymnasium for students to have a safe,

appropriate, and inviting environment for physical education classes, mid-

day recess, after school sports, nutrition and wellness programs, school

functions, and special events. Learn more at www.chavezschools.org.

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changing livesIn addition to its own programs, Fight For Children

uses proceeds from its signature fundraiser Fight

Night to invest in other local non-profit organizations

to advance the objectives of its Ready to Learn DC

program and Quality Schools Initiative. Since 1990,

Fight For Children has made grants to over 150 local

organizations that work directly with children and

families. Organizations Fight For Children supported

in 2012 with grants of $100,000 or more include:

Fight For Children is in its third year of a

five-year partnership with AppleTree Institute for Education Innovation to support the

development of its Every Child Ready curriculum and

resource guide for early childhood educators. AppleTree

has expanded the use of Every Child Ready to more than four school sites

outside of their own and has hosted free professional development sessions

for early childhood educators. They will continue to expand their Every Child

Ready curriculum and training to more schools in DC.

@AppleTreeInst http://www.appletreeinstitute.org/

changinglives

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CentroNía is a nationally recognized, multicultural learning community with a pioneering

approach to bilingual education. Fight For Children is excited to work with CentroNia and the

CentroNia Institute to fund the professional development and coaching of five community-based

early childhood centers in the District of Columbia to improve program quality and strengthen school readiness.

Through this effort, the CentroNia Institute will work directly with more than five teachers, five center directors and

five early childhood education center coordinators. In addition, Fight For Children’s grant funded the creation of a

model classroom where a high quality learning environment for young children can be observed, best practices can be

implemented and cohorts of teachers from multiple community centers can be educated. @CentroNia http://www.centronia.org/

Access to oral health care remains a primary public health problem

for underserved children in the District. Low-income children

have five times greater risk for oral diseases than their higher

income counterparts. Dental providers are concentrated in higher income areas, leaving families in low-income

neighborhoods without access to care. Fight For Children and Children’s National Medical Center continue their

strong partnership to help address this barrier to care and prevent poor oral health among vulnerable children.

Funding from this year’s grant expanded CNMC’s Dental Mobile Program to serve Fight For Children’s six pilot year

Joe’s Champs schools serving 3- and 4-year-olds. In addition, there is the potential for the mobile dental unit to serve

up to a total of 12 new sites providing about 500 patient visits for children at the sites during one year.

@childrenshealth http://www.childrensnational.org/

Fight For Children has had a strong relationship with GreatSchools since first

collaborating in 2008 on the DC School Chooser. GreatSchools is now the leading

national source of school information for parents reaching 41 million unique visitors

and 48% of American families with children. GreatSchools.org reaches a nationally representative set of households

by race and a higher proportion of low-income families than the Internet overall. Fight For Children and GreatSchools

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will once again partner to roll out an online preschool guide for Washington, DC to include accurate, reliable and

useful information for parents making a decision on which program is right for their 3- or 4-year old. In the long-term,

this effort will aim to scale preschool profiles nationally and demonstrate that better information about preschools

helps families, especially low-income families, find high-quality programs that are a good fit for their family.

@greatschools http://www.greatschools.org/washington-dc/

Unity Health Care’s mission is to promote healthier communities through compassion and

comprehensive health and human services, regardless of ability to pay. Fight For Children

is excited to partner with Unity to impact children’s readiness to start school. With Fight

For Children’s support, Unity implemented a standardized developmental screening for its

pediatric patients and educated clinical care teams and parents on the profound impact that early screening for

developmental delays can have on a child’s readiness to start school at age 3 or 4. In addition, as part of regular

check-ups, Unity physicians and nurses will provide one-on-one education to parents on the impact that reading

has on a child’s development and send each parent home with a new book to read to their child. Unity screened

more than 200 children for developmental delays in the past year.

@UnityHealthCare http://www.unityhealthcare.org/

Additional grants were made to the following organizations in 2012:

✱✱ Capital City Public Charter School

Upper School

✱✱ Cesar Chavez Public Charter School

Chavez Prep Campus

✱✱ DC College Success Foundation

✱✱ DC Public Education Fund

✱✱ DC Prep Public Charter School

Edgewood Elementary Campus

✱✱ Powell Elementary School

(made through Scholastic Inc.)

Each year since the

founding of Fight Night

in 1990, a portion of

the proceeds from the

event have gone to

support the Alexandria

Boxing Club, a structured

after school program

for children focusing on

character development,

self-respect and physical

health. Fight For Children

is proud to continue

supporting this worthy

organization making

a positive impact on

children’s academic

achievement while

encouraging physical

activity and discipline.

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INCOME 2012 (AUDITED) 2011 (AUDITED)Fight Night $2,113,761 $2,025,350

School Night $463,146 $695,525

J.E. Robert Companies/ Joe Robert donation 1 $0 $907,000

Bequest 2 $4,815,070 $0

Foundation donations $327,231 $213,748

Donated facilities $86,072 $85,976

Other 3 $82,846 $193,137

Net assets released from donor restrictions 4 -$63,301

Total $7,888,126 $4,057,435

EXPENSESPrograms $600,998 $637,566

Grants to other organizations $764,500 $800,235

EVENTSFight Night $1,168,761 $1,135,803

School Night $363,162 $457,612

SUPPORT AND ADMINISTRATIONFundraising and management staff costs $517,084 $487,021

Rent $164,060 $164,532

Other expenses $300,718 $177,441

Total $3,879,283 $3,860,210

Change in net assets $4,008,843 $197,225

Net assets at beginning of year $2,367,411 $2,170,186

Net assets at end of year 2,5 $6,376,254 $2,367,411

1 Through 2011, Fight For Children received in-kind contributions from J.E. Robert Companies (JER), to support the organization’s management, general and other expenses. JER employed Fight For Children’s staff and contributed a substantial portion of the staff’s annual compensation and benefits. On May 16, 2012, Fight For Children and JER mutually agreed to terminate their previous support arrangement. As of that date, Fight For Children began to employ its staff directly and pay all its compensation and benefit expenses.

2 On March 8, 2012, the organization received notice that Joseph E. Robert, Jr. made a gift of $5,000,000 to support Fight For Children, payable over five years at $1 million per year. The total value of the pledge was discounted to its net present value of $4,815,070 and was recorded as temporarily restricted revenue during 2012. As of December 31, 2012, $3,815,070 of this amount remained receivable.

3 Includes other events, interest, and individual donations.4 Includes temporarily restricted assets used by Fight For Children for its programs.5 Unrestricted net assets at end of year were $2,445,001.

financialsWe are proud of our

stewardship of the financial

resources entrusted to us

by our donors. In 2012, we

had an operating surplus of

$193,773, roughly equivalent

to 2011. We also received a

generous bequest from the

Estate of Joseph E. Robert,

Jr., which is payable over

five years. While this legacy

gift will help ensure Fight

For Children’s long-term

sustainability, for accounting

purposes we recognized the

entire amount in 2012 as

reflected in our financial

statements. As in year’s past,

we received a clean audit

in 2012, a copy of which is

available upon request by

calling 202-772-0400.

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27%

6%61%

4%

1%1%

12%

20%

1%

34%

33%

16%

20%

30%

25%

9%

Fight Night

School Night

Bequest

Foundation Donations

Donated Facilities

Other

revenues100% = $7,888,126

expenses100% = $3,879,283

functional expenses100% = $3,879,283

Programs

Grants to other organizations

Fight Night

School Night

Support and administration

Staffing

Event Expenses

Program Expenses (non-staff)

Grants

Other Expenses

For accounting purposes, we recognized Joe Robert’s entire bequest in 2012, which is why it appears to represent such a large portion of 2012 revenue. We received the current portion of the bequest ($1 million) in 2012, while the remainder ($4 million) remained receivable. The current portion represented 25% of revenue, while Fight Night represented 50%. As part of our effort to diversify funding sources, we increased year over year program donations from Foundations by 62% to $346,048.

We allocate staff costs to major activities, including our events, as reflected in our financial statements. Our support and administration expenses increased slightly year over year due to one-time costs associated with transitioning various support functions (such as IT and HR) from J.E. Robert Companies directly to Fight For Children.

This chart summarizes major functional expenses by type, not by programs. These percentages roughly equate to those in 2011.

12thank you

donors $25,000–$49,999

Anheuser-Busch Foundation

Rueben Bajaj / Digital

Management, Inc. /

Bajaj Family Foundation

Children’s Hospital

CityBridge Foundation

Cupid Foundation

Jack Davies / The Davies

Foundation, Inc.

Gary Day

FedEx Corporation

Fort Lincoln Realty Co., Inc.

Freddie Mac Foundation

Michael P. Galvin

Donald E. Graham

Hamilton Insurance

Robert G. Hisaoka

Brian Kearney / Kearney & Co.

Ted Leonsis

Eugene & Agnes E. Meyer

Foundation

MGM Resorts International

Mario Morino

Pelligrini Solutions

Mitchell P. Rales Family

Foundation

Michael Saylor / MicroStrategy

David & Kristin Steinberg

Foundation

Curt Winsor / William H.

Donner Foundation

$1,000,000 and UpThe Estate of Joseph E. Robert, Jr.

$100,000–$249,999The J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation

DC Office of the State Superintendent of Education

W. Russell Ramsey

Fredrick Schaufeld / Swan Investors / NEW Charitable Foundation

Vornado / Charles E. Smith

$50,000–$99,999Ron and Christopher Conway / Conway Family Foundation

Raul Fernandez /Fernandez Foundation, Inc.

Kimsey Foundation

Rick Kay

Republic National Distributing Company

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$10,000–$24,999AT&T

BB&T

BET Networks

BuildingHope

The Carnival Foundation

The Ryna & Melvin Cohen Family Foundation

DarCars Automotive Group

Donatelli Development

Douglas Development

Eagle Bank

Mark Ein

ENTERGY

Fensterheim & Bean, P.C.

First Washington Realty Inc.

Terence C. Golden

Intralot/DC09

Ray Jacobsen

William S. Janes

JK Moving & Storage

Jones Group International

Katten Muchin Rosenman Foundation, Inc.

Bruce Klores

Lockheed Martin

Lockton Companies

David McCormick

MC Dean

The Mody Foundation

Morgan Keegan & Company, Inc.

Pitcairn Trust Company

PricewaterhouseCoopers

Franklin D. Raines

Raytheon

REDPEG Marketing

John R. Reynolds

Saint Sophia

Roger W. Sant

Seneca One Finance

The Starr Foundation

Telos

Reginal Van Lee / Booz Allen Hamilton

Verizon

Washington Winter Show, Inc.

Scenes from Fight Night 2012

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thank you$5,000–$9,999American Petroleum Institute

Bret Baier

Black Swan Group

David & Mikel Blair Family Foundation

Blake Real Estate, Inc.

Scott & Patrice Brickman Family Foundation

Cantor Fitzgerald

Crystal City Business Improvement

DowLohnes PLLC

E Group

Edison Electric Institute

Educational Testing Service

Electronic Consulting Services

EMC Corporation

Ken Falke

FedResults

FTI Consulting

Holliday Fenoglio Fowler

HSU Builders

Sam W. Klein Charitable Foundation

Annette M. & Theodore N. Lerner Foundation

Michael McGillis

NCTA

Occidental Petroleum Corporation

Nels Olson

Ourisman Ford Lincoln

Patton Boggs

PNC Bank

Presidio Networked Solutions

PRM Consulting, Inc.

Joe Reeder / Greenberg Traurig

Carl J. Rickertsen

RLJ Lodging Trust

Rushmark Properties

Doug Smith

Spartan Surfaces, Inc.

SunTrust Bank

Tolson Family Foundation

Urban Pace

Walmart

WPX Energy

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thank you$1,000–$4,9991901 Group LLC

The Anne and Ronald Abramson Family Found

William Angrick

Peter D. Antonoplos

Roy Ayers

Bank of Georgetown

Jim Barratt

The Baupost Group, LLC

Brookfield Properties

Dean Cannon

Anthony Cantalupo

Louis C. Capannelli

Cavalier Maintenance

Mark Chandler

H. Alfred Cissel, Jr.

Patrick and Anna M. Cudahy Fund

DC Chartered Health Plan

Garen Dodge

Anthony R. Dolan

Michela A. English

John M. Fahey, Jr.

Karen Feketis

Fisker of Northern Virginia

Forest City Washington

Forum Properties

S. Alexander Green

Hearts & Homes For Youth

Hilton Hudson

J.E. Robert Companies, Inc.

David Joubran

Kalmia Construction Company, Inc.

Rebecca Kay

Eric A. Kuwana

Mark London

Rafat Mahmood

James B. Martin

McBride Real Estate Services, Inc.

Grant McLaughlin

C. Thomas McMillen

James R. Moffett

Hayden Moore

Robert Morgan

The MYTA Foundation

Nordstrom

Jeramiah Norton

Odell Simms & Lynch, Inc.

Offit Kurman

Sumitro Pal

PEPCO

Ronald S. Perlman, MD

Joel Plotkin

Alan G. Popovsky

Colin Powell

Michael Powell

James Reyes

Ropes & Gray LLP

Linda Roth

Russell Reynolds Associates

Eleanor Rutland

Saks Fifth Avenue

Servarus Systems

Edwin A. Sheridan

Southwest Properties

Geoffrey L. Stack

Courtney Straus

Martha Washington Straus

Casey B. Stringer

Studley, Inc.

Triple D

Charles Verghese

Theodore D. R. Vogel

Daniel T. Ward

Water Street Acquisitions, LLC

Jeffery Weekly

Whitney Bradley & Brown

The Wiltse Family Foundation

World Bank Community Connections Fund

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Fight For Children Board of DirectorsFight For Children is proud of its talented, hardworking board of directors, comprised of local and national leaders in the fields of education, healthcare and business.

Raul Fernandez Chairman and CEO ObjectVideo

James Abdo President and CEO Abdo Development

Gina Adams Corporate Vice President FedEx Corporation

Michela English President & CEO Fight For Children

G. David Fensterheim Principal Fensterheim & Bean, P.C.

The Honorable Adrian M. Fenty Former Mayor of the District of Columbia Special Adviser

Charles “Chuck” Kuhn President JK Moving Services

Anthony A. Lewis Region Vice President Verizon

Dr. Kurt Newman President and Chief Executive Officer Children’s National Health System

Joseph. E. Robert III Sergeant, United States Marine Corps

Fredrick D. Schaufeld Founder and Chairman NEW Customer Service Companies

The Honorable Anthony A. Williams Former Mayor of the District of Columbia President & Executive Director of the Federal City Council

Members as of December 31, 2013

Fight For Children would like to acknowledge the dedication of six board members who served in 2012 and 2013: Patti Austin, Terence Golden, Michael Kimsey, Quincy Jones, Reginald Van Lee, and Curtin Winsor, who passed away in December 2012.

Fight For Children Staff

Michela English President & CEO

Sadie Ellner Program Manager

Anna Faryar Program Assistant

John “Skip” McKoy Director, Programmatic Initiatives

Martine Sadarangani Program Manager

Kim Stevenson Executive Assistant

Jeff Travers Director, External Relations

Liz Warnecki Administrative Manager

Judy Wrench Accounting Manager

List as of December 31, 2013

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our core beliefs ✱ All children, regardless of income or family background, can achieve at high levels.

✱ A great education gives children the tools they need to be successful adults.

✱ Children need to be nurtured physically, emotionally, and mentally to maximize their potential in school and in life.

✱ Children get a great education when engaged families, effective educators, and strong communities work together and remain focused on their success.

how we work✱ We consider evidence and data to be critical tools in planning approaches

and evaluating outcomes.

✱ We learn from and share best practices whenever possible.

✱ We utilize multiple methods to address problems and believe solutions should be tailored to meet the needs of the community we are serving.

✱ We magnify our impact by leveraging our relationships and investments in pragmatic ways.

✱ We believe success is more likely to occur when philanthropists, non-profit organizations, businesses, and the public sector collaborate.

✱ We operate in ways that are transparent, ethically sound, and respectful of others’ beliefs.

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1726 M Street, NW, Suite 202

Washington, DC 20036

202.772.0400

facebook.com/fightforchildren

twitter.com/fight4children

www.fightforchildren.org