August 3, 2011; Source: Memphis Daily News  |  NPQ has been following Youth Villages for years, as it has grown from a local, highly innovative agency in Memphis serving young people in foster care to a national phenomenon with its sights set on reforming policy and practice nationwide. Youth Villages’ use of research and evaluation to build a program model with extraordinary outcomes for youth in foster care has attracted a lot of private and public money as well as attention over the years, including $14 million dollars from Clarence Day, a local philanthropist who died in 2009. Now, the Day Foundation has made a $42 million challenge grant to allow the organization to expand its transitional living programs, among other things. It must match the grant with an equal amount from other sources. Disclosure: NPQis glad to have Richard Shaw of Youth Villages as one of its board members.—Ruth McCambridge