In 2005 the Civic Council saw the need and recognized the opportunity for an organization like PREP-KC. At that time, efforts to improve educational outcomes in the Kansas City region were fragmented and inadequate. Though there was some initial up-turn in one district’s outcomes (KCKPS), confidence in scalable and sustainable improvement was in short supply. Funders and advocates had stepped back, and the city’s two large urban districts continued to struggle to prepare their students for post-secondary education and the 21st century workplace.

Additionally, there was no organization positioned to provide investors with independent and timely data on the impact of their investment, a commitment to stewardship of their funds, and the opportunity to join together to focus resources on a long-standing barrier to the city’s economic and civic progress – the city’s urban education challenges.

As a result of encouragement from a broad cross-section of Kansas City leaders, including key leaders at the Civic Council, a pivotal meeting was held at the Stowers Institute on June 2, 2005, and PREP-KC was founded. Confidence created at this meeting resulted in PREP-KC receiving a “start up” grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which was soon more than matched by an unprecedented list of co-investors. This collective action created a $14 million/five-year fund. The fund, located at the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation and under whose 501(c)3 PREP-KC operated until 2008, launched a new entity in Kansas City – an independent intermediary organization with both resources and leverage to provide strategic “pressure and support” to improve the city’s urban education outcomes.

From the beginning there was shared agreement that PREP-KC was founded on the assumption (grounded in the city’s 2000 Metro Outlook Study, the 2002 CityStates Report, and the 2006 report – The Costs and Benefits of an Excellent Education) that when student outcomes from a region’s urban, public education systems improve, the quality of economic and civic life in that region will also improve.