History

The San Francisco 49ers Academy was established through a partnership with Communities in Schools (CIS) in 1996.  CIS started as a small grassroots movement in a few cities led by Bill Milliken - one of the nation's foremost pioneers in the movement to give young people the help they need to graduate from high school and go on to rewarding careers.

Milliken understood that children who have access to caring adults, safe places to learn and grow, preventative health care and opportunity are less likely to engage in risky behavior and are more likely to stay in school and make a positive contribution to their community.  He also realized that the so called "drop-out problem" begins long before kids reach high-school age and that we need to get the young people before they give up on school. So, he started to show communities how to work with their students inside the schools and coordinate existing community resources to serve kids more directly - inside their schools. Out of this, CIS was born.

In the most recent ranking of non-profits done by Worth magazine, CIS was rated one of the top 100 best charities in the world. According to Worth, they “set out to identify those charities that are doing the best job, dollar for dollar…[Worth is] confident that the charities on this list will spend your money wisely and will do their best to change some of the grim facts of today's world that we all face." For every $1 invested in our organization, we leverage as much as $5 in resources for under-privileged schools.

The 49ers Academy is a unique partnership – a public school, supported by a private non-profit agency. Ravenswood Communities in Schools (CIS) was incorporated in 1996 and is a separately incorporated affiliate of the National Communities in Schools, Inc. We are the only CIS program in the San Francisco Bay Area.