The $55 million program to assist students in the west Charlotte corridor could have a director named by the end of May, one of the chief organizers said Tuesday.

Speaking at the Tuesday Morning Breakfast Forum, Richard “Stick” Williams of the Duke Energy Foundation said organizers have received more than 150 resumes from people interested in leading Project LIFT.

He also said the group has been meeting with officials from Microsoft Corp. and three local hospitals to discuss how those organizations might get involved. In the case of the hospitals, he said, talks have centered on the feasibility of putting nurse practitioners in targeted schools. Similar talks are ongoing with dental groups, he said.

Funded primarily by some of Charlotte’s largest foundations, Project LIFT is a private, five-year initiative to improve educational results at West Charlotte High School and its feeder schools – some of the worst-performing schools in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools system. Williams said the program could potentially impact about 7,500 students.

Williams said Project LIFT would focus on attracting top teachers to low-performing schools, finding ways to extend the school day, improving technology in selected schools and building corporate and community support.

He called the effort unprecedented.

“I know $55 million has been raised in this community before,” he said, “but it was for buildings. It was not for people. It was not for educating children.”

Along with the money, he said, have come high expectations for success: “For anyone giving the kind of money we are giving, outcomes are very important.”

Some who attended the forum told Williams they hoped that Project LIFT, in addition to focusing on academics, would include vocational training, mentoring and programs to address what they described as low self-esteem among African American teens. Others expressed concern that Project LIFT has not reached out to programs and individuals already working in west Charlotte to achieve similar objectives.

Qcitymetro.com met with Williams after the meeting for a brief Q&A. Below is an edited transcript.
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Q. I heard some concern, if not skepticism, expressed about whether Project LIFT would be inclusive. Did that surprise you?

The fact of the matter is that a lot of the organizations and parents and leaders and citizens in this particular corridor have heard it before. They had a lot of different organizations come in and say, “This is what we’re going to deliver, and we’re going to bring our own team in.” And they just ignored the people who were on the ground giving of themselves to make a difference. If we, Project LIFT, come in to do the same thing, we’re going to lose the support of the people in this community. So our intent, as much as possible, is to engage all the organizations that are already delivering service to see if we can’t work together, collaborating to create something special. But I clearly hear the people who are around this collective table, their concerns that this is going to be the same thing they’ve experienced in years past.

Q. At the same time, you also were blunt in saying that everyone can’t be at the table. How do you balance the two?

That’s exactly right. I hope that I was very clear in saying that it is our intent as the leaders of Project LIFT to deliver excellence to this group of students. We don’t want folks who are going to deliver average, and especially mediocre. We want to be transformative, so everybody can’t be at the table. But I really like the possibility of some of these smaller organizations joining forces with other organizations, collaborating and suggesting something special that they might be able to deliver through Project LIFT.

Q. Some also expressed a desire for vocational training, mentoring and programs to address self-esteem issues. Is that something that bubbling now, or is that something new that you’re hearing?

The vocational piece we did hear when we had our community meetings. I just never heard it as intense and as passionate as I heard it today. The other piece is that there were folks who graduated from those programs who were here today who talked about how effective it was in their lives. That made quite an impression on me. So that’s got to be a part of our thinking. Mentoring is critical as far as our initiative is concerned.

Q. You mentioned a possible partnership with Microsoft. How did Microsoft hear about this?

Project LIFT got a lot of publicity at the time we were creating this model. It caused people to start thinking about the role that they might play to make it successful. Microsoft, for instance, they don’t normally give money; they give their expertise. So it might be knowledge about software; it might be software. But those are the kinds of things they are normally willing to talk about. And as we talk to others, whether it’s in health care or other sectors, they come talking about their expertise and how they might bring their expertise to the table.

Q. So Microsoft approached Project LIFT?

Yes. Microsoft approached us. There were folks like Mayor Foxx and others who have relationships with people at Microsoft. So there was a reaching out to us and a reaching back to them.

Q. What are you looking for in a director?

We are looking for folks who have been very engaged in reform already. That’s one thing that would be great. But we’re also looking for folks who’ve had success with initiatives. It might be education related and it may not be. Our leaning is to try and find folks who have shown great success in developing initiatives for folks in low-income or low-performing schools and absolutely transforming them. That’s our preference.

Q. Have you boiled it down to a group of finalists?

Our committee is being delivered a group of about 20, and we hope to cull it down to a list of six or seven that we might then interview. We had about 150-plus resumes come in.

Q. What’s been the biggest surprise to you so far?

The biggest surprise for me is how excited people have been. There seems to be a universal feeling that if we do this right, this can work. A lot of people are approaching us because they believe this can work, and people who we are approaching either for funding or for partnering are being very, very receptive because they believe this can work. Even though I believe that, I didn’t expect others to share that some thinking. So that has been a big, big surprise – a very pleasant surprise for me.

Q. Given the many programs that have failed before and all the excitement now around Project LIFT, do you worry that this might be the last chance to get it right?

I don’t know if it’s the last chance, but this absolutely has to succeed. It can’t be the next program of the month. This has got to touch lives, and it’s got to change lives. That’s our mindset. I think major funders would be a lot less prone to contribute to big initiatives like this if we can’t make this work.

Q. But you also conceded that you, as a group, don’t know what success looks like in the case of Project LIFT.

That’s exactly right. There are a lot of business folks sitting around the table, a lot of foundation leaders. We know that we are not the experts. So there’s still a lot of work to be done around what success looks like. But considering how we all work, there are definitely going to be metrics that we’re all going to be focused on. That, to us, spell success. And I hope to all of our partners it will spell success.

Q. You talked about growing up poor and attending schools much like those in west Charlotte. What do you personally think success should look like?

For me, success is if we’ve go parents who are very much engaged because they are excited about what this potentially does or is doing for their kids…and if there’s an expectation within the schools that these kids will succeed. That was an interesting thing about the all-black schools I went to. Those teachers didn’t take a lot of trash. They expected you to succeed, and that really shaped my thinking. If we can create that, if there is an expectation that every one of these kids is going to succeed and those teachers are really pushing and pushing and pushing, that is going to go a long way toward success.

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