Our Mission and Vision Ring as True Today as in 1997

Since Invest in Youth’s founding in 1997 we have provided individualized tutoring to third, fourth and fifth-grade learners in Seattle Public Schools, at no cost to the families or schools, to enhance students’ academic abilities, self-confidence and life prospects.

Unlike most other tutoring programs, Invest in Youth matches each volunteer tutor with one student for the entire school year at no cost to families or schools. Some tutor/student pairs work together for multiple years.

The schools and students we work with reflect the richness and diversity of the surrounding communities, and although we customize our program to each site and student, tutoring typically includes helping with homework, building reading confidence and working on math fundamentals. In addition, tutors serve as role models, mentors and friends.

Tutors come from varied backgrounds but all share a common desire to advance our vision to help students become confident, capable learners who engage with and look for solutions to the challenges around them. Students are selected by their teachers and administrators as those most likely to benefit from this one-on-one support.

One-on-one tutoring takes place after school with tutors and students catching up on the past week and working on fundamentals such as reading and multiplication drills. We also offer small group enrichment, which offers hands-on, interdisciplinary activities to supplement regular classroom curriculum.

Invest in Youth is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and is funded through individual donors, grants, and proceeds from our annual gala and golf tournament. Our staff consists of a full-time executive director and two part-time program coordinator interns. Our board is comprised of educators, business leaders and community volunteers committed to making a difference in these students’ lives.

mission

We enhance the academic abilities, self-confidence and life prospects of young learners in Seattle Public Schools.

vision

Invest in Youth envisions a community of engaged, confident and capable students who actively seek solutions to the challenges they encounter.

Values

Compassion: Our work is driven by care and kindness.

Collaboration: We partner with each school and adapt our program and each tutoring session to the individual needs of students.

Determination: Grit and resiliency are paramount to success.

history

In the fall of 1996 financial adviser Harriett Morton began tutoring one third-grader at Bailey Gatzert Elementary. She soon realized many other students would benefit from this individualized time with an adult. It didn’t take long for her to realize she had a solution to helping more students through the investment firm she and her husband John Morton founded in 1995.

She initially recruited her colleagues (working East-coast trading hours) at Morton, Clarke, Fu & Metcalf to volunteer as after-school tutors. She partnered with teachers and administrators to individually match tutors with third, fourth and fifth-grade students. The plan would be to have these tutor and student pairs meet one-on-one, one hour each week for the school year.

In January of 1997 Harriett formalized the program and named it Invest in Youth. She expanded her reach to six other investment firms to recruit additional tutors. By then, the number of tutors at Bailey Gatzert, including herself and her husband John, was nine. By the fall of 1998 Invest in Youth paired 40 tutors from various investment firms to 40 students and expanded to a second school, Thurgood Marshall Elementary.

In the following years students from Daniel Bagley Elementary and Beacon Hill International enrolled in the program and more tutors were recruited from industries beyond financial services. Although the number of tutors increased steadily in these early years, Invest in Youth has historically served approximately 100 students (with approximately 100 volunteer tutors) to ensure an effective program delivery to the students and rewarding experience for tutors.

During the first 15 years, Invest in Youth relied primarily on limited corporate grants and individual donations to fund programming expenses. Anticipating that Harriett would someday step down from day-to-day management of the program and hire staff, Invest in Youth (operating as a nonprofit under a partner umbrella organization) filed for and was granted nonprofit status from the IRS in 2010.

In 2011 Invest in Youth hired its first full-time executive director. To fund the increase in programming and operating costs to serve the growing number of students, Invest in Youth launched its first annual golf tournament that year and in 2015 hosted its first annual spring fundraiser.

In 2016 Invest in Youth began offering enrichment programming to offer exposure to topics and material students would not typically have the opportunity to participate in. In addition to hands-on STEM curriculum from organizations such as Pacific Science Center and the Museum of Flight, enrichment also includes introduction to theater, yoga and farm-to-table nutrition.

In the spring of 2020 we began tutoring online through the online classroom platform used by Seattle Public Schools. True to our mission we remained focused on supporting students’ academic success through the once-a-week, high quality one-on-one time between students and tutors. Although markedly different from in-person tutoring, many students still reported that their weekly tutoring sessions were a highlight of their week.

During the 2021-2022 academic year most student-tutor pairs met in-person each week with a small cohort meeting online and we were able to re-engage with our enrichment partners on a limited basis.

Beginning in the fall of 2022 all tutoring was conducted in-person at each of our schools, complemented with STEAM enrichment from our full slate of partners ranging from robotics, nutrition and theater arts.

For the 2023-2024 school year we are excited to return to Roxhill Elementary and add Sanislo Elementary (both in West Seattle) to our schools served.

To read our past communications and view photo galleries, visit our updates page. To learn more about the tutoring experience as told by tutors, read some short highlights. And be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn through the links below.

This page last updated February 28, 2024.