Discusses research on sustaining out-of-school programming financed by the U.S. Department of Education’s 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21CCLC) program. The 21CCLC grants provide seed money for tutoring and enrichment programs to help low income children and families; as grants expire, these programs struggle to exist. Interviews with individuals and focus groups of 21CCLC grantees provide keys to program survival techniques: build collaborative partnerships, use varied funding sources, initiate high quality programs that deliver proven results, gain support from the school administration, and develop community champions to raise public awareness and funding sources. Successful state and federal policies include: (1) extending the length of the grant period from three to five years; (2) matching grant size with community needs to support a reasonable per child and per hour rate; (3) forcing self-sufficiency by annual grant decreases; (4) refunding existing grantees; (5) training and assisting grant administrators; and (6) charging nominal program fees to ensure no family is turned away.
