Moving Toward Sustainability: Kansas City Teacher Residency

Kansas City Teacher Residency (KCTR) recruits, certifies, and develops new teachers in order to increase the number of high-quality classrooms for children in Kansas City’s urban schools. Launched in2016 with the support of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, KCTR prepares educators to serve in elementary and middle school settings. In late 2018, KCTR and the Kauffman Foundation engaged Bellwether to support their strategic planning work aimed at ensuring long-term sustainability and impact.

Over six months, Bellwether collaborated with KCTR’s senior leadership team, Board, and key advisers to address some of KCTR’s key priorities: reducing the ongoing fundraising need, strengthening partnerships with schools and universities, optimizing KCTR’s expenditures, exploring new earned revenue opportunities, and scaling the number of residents to increase impact.

We spoke with Charles King, KCTR’s founder and executive director. He shared his thinking about the unique financial and programmatic challenges that teacher residency programs face and the value of rigorous strategic planning — you can read the in-depth interview on our blog, Ahead of the Heard. 

You can view the plan on Kansas City Teacher Residency’s website or read it in the viewer below: