About San Francisco RBI
San Francisco RBI began with a desire to bring the greater community together around improving education for at-risk children in underservedcommunities.
We wanted to do this through a universal language we know well: Baseball!
Launched within the framework of Major League Baseball’s renowned RBI (Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities) program, San Francisco RBI continues to develop through its second year of operation.
Our promise to those we serve is to be a reliable grantmaker of the following:
Meaningful Coaching and Mentoring
San Francisco RBI provides meaningful coaching and mentoring to every student to build teamwork, confidence, discipline, and the willingness to master new lessons and skills. We encourage consistent practice and wisely focused risk-taking. Our staff is supported by a number of committed volunteers, including student athletes from University of San Francisco whose work in the community is a direct expression of their school’s well-known culture of community service. We adhere to the tenets of Positive Coaching Alliance, a program seeking to reinvigorate coaching of youth sports through a call to exemplary conduct which will “honor the game.”
One-to-One Tutoring
San Francisco RBI provides one-to-one tutoring in literacy to each classroom’s five to eight most challenged readers based on initial Fountas and Pinnell assessments. Working within the school day itself, we seek to ease burdens of class size and provide targeted support to ensure that every student is reading at grade level by Grade 3 and remains at grade level or better thereafter. San Francisco RBI provides access to a leveled library to every classroom we work with to bolster the variety and depth of content each student may freely engage. We also introduce our own original word games and activities to spur progress where struggle may have previously been the norm. (Coming soon: A post on San Francisco RBI’s own original “baseball and reading” games, created specifically for our program! )
An Active Approach to Learning
San Francisco RBI provides a professionally coached baseball and softball curriculum. Athletics, from team practice to competitive games, are seen as a powerfully effective platform for learning across a variety of subjects. We’re encouraging those who learn kinesthetically to excel along with their peers who are more accustomed to “traditional” audio and visual methods of in-classroom instruction.
San Francisco RBI’s proprietary “indoor/outdoor curriculum” seeks to widen the view of how learning success is measured, toward offering support and acceleration opportunities for schools serving at-risk youth in communities of economic challenge.
Major League Baseball!
San Francisco RBI is affiliated with one of the most well-known and beloved brands in the world – Major League Baseball. Recognizing the learning and enrichment brought by positive experiences, we provide opportunities and outings which reinforce lessons of reading, athletics and character. Many of these experiences involve special access to VIP baseball and softball skills clinics, held on University campuses such as University of San Francisco and Stanford. We hosted a visit with Sharon Robinson, accomplished author and daughter of MLB hero and legend Jackie Robinson . We’ve made trips to the MLB All-Star Game, attended the World Baseball Classic, and cheered on our World Champion San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park!
A Locus for Collaboration: Improving Education
Knowing that the role of nonprofit organizations is rapidly evolving in terms of delivery of essential social services, San Francisco RBI seeks a role as a locus for collaboration, providing a centerpoint within which organizations from academic, corporate, government and community service arenas may work together and invest resources in a targeted way.
