While the importance and impact of mentoring continues to echo around lunch tables, meetings rooms, and coffee shops, the methodologies of mentoring have evolved to fit the dynamism and demands of the world today. Now more than ever, mentoring is recognized as a critical driver of achievement and growth across sectors and contexts, prompting increasing…
One of Urban Initiatives’ six core values as an organization is impact. We engage in data-driven decision making to achieve positive outcomes, and each year we spend a great deal of time, effort, and resources evaluating each of our programs’ impact. By intentionally evaluating each program, we can effectively determine which of our program goals…
Fun is pretty universal, and the unifying power of having fun together is the foundation for our belief in the unifying power of sport and play. However, fun, sport, and play are all concepts that many see as belonging on a playground or in the realm of children, not in the workplace. For 16 years,…
One of Urban Initiatives’ six core values as an organization is impact. We engage in data-driven decision making to achieve positive outcomes, and each year we spend a great deal of time, effort, and resources evaluating each of our programs’ impact. By intentionally evaluating each program, we can effectively determine which of our program goals…
One of the first major programming events of the school year is also one of our most beloved events. The Multicultural Cup is one of the most fun events of the year because it brings together all of Urban Initiatives values, but especially emphasizes inclusion, fun, and teamwork.
Urban Initiatives’ Culture & Climate department’s primary goal is to bring adults into a school in order to positively impact the school’s environment through sport and play. They impact the school’s environment in an effort to improve student outcomes in the areas of social-emotional learning, physical activity, and academic success.
Urban Initiatives’ programs focus on supporting youth in underserved communities. We reach entire school communities daily, through our Culture and Climate programs that strive to help schools value play and enrichment activities alongside classroom instruction. Through our Continuum of Programming, we reach students over many years and engage them in sports-based youth development programs from…
Urban Initiatives utilizes research-backed, evidence-driven curriculum to guide our program sessions. This summer a team of Urban Initiatives staff and Board members worked together to improve our elementary schoolers’ health and education soccer program curriculum. We sat down with Urban Initiatives Program Director, Sara Shanley, who oversaw the project to chat about the updates.
On July 13, thirty competitive and soccer-skilled companies in the Chicago area came together for our 5th Annual Corporate Challenge Cup, presented by Morningstar, Inc. This annual tournament holds friendly 6 vs. 6 matches between teams in an eventual elimination battle for the Corporate Challenge Cup championship title. All teams played hard to benefit the…
Despite a week of rain leading up to the event, the 7th Annual Work to Play Cup held last weekend at the Midway Plaisance was a smashing success! Each June this event celebrates our continuum of programming participants’ hard work throughout the school year. The Work to Play Cup is a blend of the world’s…
Urban Initiatives uses sport and play as a key strategy to positively impact our program participants’ social emotional learning (SEL). Play can have profound impacts on youths’ SEL, and Urban Initiatives has intentionally developed its recess curriculum and overall program approach to positively impact SEL outcomes through intentional, active games and SEL skill-building.
