In the early 1990s, HCZ ran a pilot project that brought a range of support services to a single block. The idea was to address all the problems that poor families were facing: from crumbling apartments to failing schools, from violent crime to chronic health problems.

HCZ created a 10-year business plan, then to ensure its best-practice programs were operating as planned, HCZ was in the vanguard of nonprofits that began carefully evaluating and tracking the results of their work. Those evaluation results enabled staff to see if programs were achieving their objectives and to take corrective actions if they were not.

In 1997, the agency began a network of programs for a 24-block area: the Harlem Children's Zone Project. In 2007, the Zone Project grew to almost 100 blocks. Today the Children's Zone® serves more than 8,000 children and 6,000 adults. Overall, the organization serves more than 10,000 children and more than 7,400 adults. The FY 2010 budget for the agency overall is over $75 million.

The project is defined by a unique approach to rebuilding social fabric and breaking the cycle of inter-generational poverty, underpinned by a focus on guiding children through a ‘pipeline’ from school to university and on to the job market. Now encompassing a 100-block area – serving more than 8,000 children and 6,000 adults – the Harlem Children’s Zone brings together a number of targeted initiatives. While the most prominent is the network of ‘Promise Academy’ charter schools, the organization also delivers after-school, social service, health and community-building programs free of charge, working towards a developmental ‘tipping point’.

Although the long-term impact of this ambitious ‘cradle to college’ model cannot yet be known, early evaluations have shown substantive improvements already across a range of educational and health indicators.