Boston Children Thrive’s Membership Card System creates a neighborhood-wide campaign that families can join to support their children’s learning and healthy development, and provides in-depth data to evaluate Boston Children Thrive’s reach, ability to engage families and impact.

The Membership Card System deepens relationships between families and community-based organizations, and helps connect activities sponsored by different organizations into a unified network of opportunities for children and families.

How It Works

The Membership Card System functions much like a store rewards card. In each BCT neighborhood, families receive a membership card pre-printed with a bar code after completing an enrollment form that collects basic information about the family, including demographic data used to determine the extent to which BCT is reaching its target population.

Member families regularly receive calendars, newsletters and other communications that inform them about upcoming community activities, events and programs. A family’s membership card is scanned when they participate in these events and activities. Families receive points for their participation and earn incentives that further Thrive in 5’s school readiness mission, such as books and educational games. A growing number of local business are offering discounts or special rewards to BCT members, making the card a valuable resource for families and providing a concrete opportunity for businesses to support BCT.

Supporting Data Driven Family Engagement

From a quality improvement and evaluation perspective, the Membership Card System supports data-driven decision making and a more intensive evaluation of Boston Children Thrive’s impact on families and children. Data from the Membership Card System is regularly used by School Readiness Roundtables to direct outreach to families and groups in the community that are not well-represented among current members and to drive planning for neighborhood activities and events. The Membership Card System also enables the Boston Children Thrive evaluation team from the Center for Social Policy at the University of Massachusetts to link family demographic information with participation data and, in the future, parent and child level outcomes.