Leadership

ABACUS

ABACUS is an initiative whose goal is to increase the likelihood that young people facing multiple barriers graduate high school and access postsecondary, by focusing on the pivotal middle-school years.

In 2015, HCF awarded the first grants aimed at expanding community capacity to support students experiencing multiple barriers and who may be underserved in the education system.

Ten years later, formal evaluation showed the positive impact of ABACUS-funded organizations, and HCF committed to another 10 years of education work. HCF’s support to education includes ABACUS granting and systems change. By providing another 10 years of support, HCF will be reaching a cohort of Hamilton students who were in kindergarten when the COVID pandemic began and seeing them through to graduation.

Why education?

Education is a key social determinant of health, affecting a person’s income, employment, career success and health literacy (CPHA, 2023). Further, it is an “upstream” and effective intervention, meaning that it can prevent social issues such as poverty, homelessness, substance use and violence against women. HCF’s education work, which includes ABACUS granting and education systems change, aims to strategically support education-sector initiatives that increase the likelihood that students graduate high school and access post-secondary education.

Where are we now?

The next 10 years are building on the lessons learned to refine ABACUS. It prioritizes three pillars — equity, wellness and academic achievement — to better address student needs and deepen impact by supporting programs successfully serving systemically underserved students, and by granting to programs that have longer engagement in a student’s life.

With a commitment to 10 more years of education work, the 2025-26 round of ABACUS grants will support current program partners. Starting in 2026, ABACUS will distribute a closed round of multi-year funding, prioritizing programs that meet all new requirements.

What we learned

Over the 2023-24 program year, ABACUS program partners participated in an in-depth evaluation with external evaluators, which demonstrated

ABACUS programs were successful in key indicators: 

Indigenous and non-Indigenous ABACUS program evaluators presented findings demonstrating that:

ABACUS: the next 10 years

Given programs funded by ABACUS focus on Grades 6,7,8 and support the transitions into and out of middle-school years. The aim is to increase the likelihood that young Hamiltonians graduate high school and access post-secondary opportunities.

Program refinements based on what we’ve learned include: