Accountability
What we govern. What we promise. What we publish.
Our principles, our protection standards, and our finances — published in full, because institutions built to last publish this way.
Most organisations describe what they do. Fewer publish how they govern themselves, what they promise, and what they have not yet accomplished. The Coach Wren Institute publishes all of it, in one place, from the founding year. Not because transparency is required, but because an institution intended to last generations should be legible to the people it asks to trust it.
At a glance
Structure
The Coach Wren Institute is in the process of being established as a Florida nonprofit corporation and will seek recognition as a 501(c)(3) public charity.
Board
The office of Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer remains vacant by decision of the Board. The Board anticipates appointing a qualified CPA, chief financial officer, or other senior finance executive to that office.
Protection
Every adult with direct contact with young people is screened and trained before that contact begins, and is bound by the Institute's protection framework without exception.
Plan
Published in full, including what we have not yet done.
Student Protection
The safety of young people overrides every other interest of this Institute.
Without exception. If a rule below conflicts with a program goal, a schedule, a relationship, or the reputation of the Institute, the rule below wins.
Screening
Every adult with direct contact with young people completes national criminal background screening before contact begins and at least every five years thereafter, meeting Florida Level 2 standards where the role requires. No waiver is granted for any offense against a minor, in any circumstance, regardless of how long ago it occurred or who vouches for the individual.
Training
Delivered before placement and annually thereafter, for every adult, regardless of standing or experience.
The two-adult standard
Activities are conducted with at least two screened adults present, or in open, observable settings. Closed one-to-one contact is prohibited.
Communication
All electronic contact with a young person occurs on open channels that include a parent, guardian, or Institute staff member. No private messaging, ever. No adult here will ever ask a young person to keep something from their parents.
Transportation
No young person is transported alone by a single adult. Written parental consent is required in advance, and drivers are screened.
Photography
Written consent is required and is offered in degrees, including full refusal. It may be withdrawn at any time. The Institute never publishes a young person's home address, school schedule, or anything revealing a pattern of their movements.
Reporting
Every adult at this Institute is personally required by Florida law to report suspected abuse, neglect, or endangerment directly to the Florida Abuse Hotline at 1-800-96-ABUSE. Internal review never substitutes for, delays, or filters a legal report. No one who reports in good faith will face retaliation of any kind.
Confidentiality
Information about young people and their families receives the highest protection we can give it, with one limit: it never applies to a concern about a child's safety.
Governance
Directors govern. Advisors advise. Mentors mentor.
Every role at The Coach Wren Institute supports the same mission, and no role is subordinate to another in importance. But they are not the same, and the difference matters.
Board of Directors
Governs. Decides, adopts policy, approves budgets, and is accountable at law. Directors hold three duties recognised in law: care, loyalty, and obedience. They govern; they do not operate.
Board of Advisors
Advises. Offers counsel, opens doors, and champions the mission. Advisors hold no fiduciary authority, cast no governing vote, and do not act for or bind the Institute. That is not a lesser role. It is a different one.
Founding Advisors
Advises, and stewards the founding culture of the Institute during its earliest and most formative years. What the founding generation models now will be understood as the standard by everyone who follows.
Mentors and Coaches
Do the work. Every adult with direct contact with young people is screened and trained before that contact begins, and is bound by the Institute's protection framework without exception.
Legacy Council
Returns. Emerging leaders who have begun building the generation behind them. Advisory, with no fiduciary authority, and no expiration.
Future Leaders
The reason the Institute exists. Every decision is finally measured against them.
Governance exists to preserve the Institution for future generations, not merely to oversee its current operations.
Leadership
The people accountable for this Institute.
Board of Directors
Elliot Silverstein
Founder and Chairman
Wealth Advisor · Assistant Head Football Coach, Western High School · Chair, American Cancer Society Palm Beach Executive Board
Elliot has spent his professional life advising families on how to build things that outlast them, and his evenings on a football field with young people who needed someone in their corner. He founded the Institute because he watched Coach Wren do for decades, one young person at a time, what no organisation was doing at scale. He brings the discipline of institutional finance to a mission usually run on good intentions.
Erik Coleman
Vice Chairman
Private Client Advisor, HUB International Northeast · Nine-Year NFL Veteran and Former Team Captain · Member, American Cancer Society Palm Beach Executive Board
Erik played nine seasons in the National Football League and captained his team. He knows precisely what it takes for a young athlete to reach that level, and precisely how many people it takes. He also knows what happens to the ones who almost make it, which is the group this Institute exists to serve. He joined because the model addresses the part of the story nobody photographs.
Donna Wren
Secretary
Carrying Forward Coach Wren's Lifelong Commitment to Young People
Biography pending family approval.
The Chairman intends to nominate Blake Barnes for election as a Director at a future meeting of the Board.
Treasurer
The office of Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer remains vacant by decision of the Board. The Board anticipates appointing a qualified CPA, chief financial officer, or other senior finance executive to that office.
Founding Advisors
Blake Barnes
Founding Advisor
Litigation Attorney
Blake brings the judgement of a courtroom to a founding board, and the useful habit of asking what happens if this goes wrong. He facilitated the Institute's founding meeting and shaped its governance.
Jack Chadam
Founding Advisor
Director, CBIZ Advisors · Area Board Director, American Cancer Society, Southeast Florida
Jack has built volunteer leadership boards that outlasted the people who started them, and he knows the difference between a board that meets and a board that governs.
Daunte Culpepper
Founding Advisor
Former NFL Quarterback · Mentor and Community Leader
Daunte reached the highest level of the sport and has spent the years since investing in young people in South Florida. He opens doors that would not otherwise open, and he tells young athletes the truth about the odds.
Adam Ratkevich
Founding Advisor
Teacher · Head Football Coach, Western High School
Adam sees these young people every day, in the classroom and on the field. He is the Institute's check against building something that sounds good to adults and does not work for a sixteen-year-old.
Kai Jensen
Founding Advisor
Market Maker, UBS · Technology Leader and Low-Latency Systems Architect
Kai builds systems where failure is measured in microseconds. He brings that standard to how the Institute handles information about the Future Leaders in its care.
Our Commitments
What we promise, and to whom.
Every person connected to this Institute signs something. So does the Institute. These are the promises we make in return.
To Future Leaders
We will remove barriers. We will surround you with people who have done it. We will tell you the truth, including when it is not what you want to hear. We will keep you safe. And we will not disappear when the season ends, when you graduate, when you move away, or when you fail at something.
To families
We work alongside you, never around you, and never in place of you. We will keep you informed. We will never ask your child to keep something from you. You can always reach us, and you may withdraw your child at any time.
To mentors and coaches
We will train you before you are placed and every year afterward. We will support you and never leave you alone with a situation you were not prepared for. We will back you when you follow our standards, including when doing so is uncomfortable. And we will listen, because you see things about these Future Leaders that no one else does.
To board members and advisors
We will value your time, asking for it deliberately rather than habitually. We will seek your counsel thoughtfully and tell you honestly what we did with it. We will provide meaningful opportunities to contribute rather than ceremonial ones. And we will operate with integrity and transparency, including when the news is not good.
To donors
We will tell true things. We will publish no number we cannot support. We will steward every gift as a public trust, and we will tell you plainly what it accomplished and what it did not.
To community partners
We will represent this work accurately, share credit, and never imply an endorsement you have not given.
Financial Stewardship
We never make a commitment we are not prepared to keep.
Most organisations decide how many young people to serve and then raise money against that number. We do the opposite.
$17,500
invested per Future Leader, every year
We fund the promise before we make it
We never admit a Future Leader unless the Board has determined we can honour our commitment through high school. The full multi-year cost is set aside before an offer is made, in a restricted fund that cannot be spent on anything else.
This means we will sometimes decline to admit a young person we could serve, in a year when we have the will but not the funded capacity. That decision is difficult every single time. It is also the reason this Institute will still be here in thirty years.
We built the Institution before we enrolled anyone
The Coach Wren Institute enrolled no Future Leaders during its founding months. Governance, insurance, and the child protection framework came first, because an organisation that begins serving young people before those things are operational has not started early. It has started wrong.
Our community grantmaking began immediately. Our first individual commitments waited until we could keep them.
We keep administration low and falling
Administrative expenses are managed carefully, with a long-term goal of remaining at or below fifteen percent of annual expenditures. Our plan holds administration below that ceiling in every period and reduces it as we grow. Scale should lower the proportion spent on running an institution, not raise it.
We strengthen organisations as well as individuals
The Institute exists not only to develop Future Leaders but also to strengthen the organisations that serve them. Community Partnership Grants and Opportunity Grants are permanent parts of the mission rather than programs that run while funding allows.
We build stability before we expand
We build reserves and financial stability before expanding commitments. An institution that promises a lifelong relationship needs a balance sheet capable of outliving the people who founded it.
Where the money goes
Approximately seventy-three cents of every dollar goes directly to mission: Future Leader commitments, Community Partnership Grants, Opportunity Grants, and the delivery of both. Thirteen cents runs the Institution. Eight cents raises the next dollar. Six cents builds reserves and the endowment.
- 73¢
- Mission
- 13¢
- Running the Institution
- 8¢
- Raising the next dollar
- 6¢
- Reserves and the endowment
How a commitment is funded
Money is raised. The full multi-year cost enters a restricted Commitment Fund. Only then is an offer made. The annual investment is drawn from that Fund every year until the commitment is complete. Money in the Fund is never available for anything else, including a shortfall somewhere else in the Institute.
01
Money raised
02
Commitment Fund
03
Offer made
04
Commitment honoured through high school
Strategic Plan
Published in full, including what we have not yet done.
Most organisations describe their plans. Fewer publish them. We publish ours because an institution asking people to fund a decade of work should be willing to show what that decade is meant to look like.
What the plan contains
The Foundation Period and a five-year roadmap. Fundraising milestones for each period. The commitment-based model by which Future Leaders are admitted, including what one commitment costs and the questions the Board answers before making one. Community Partnership and Opportunity Grant strategy. The Transportation Initiative in four phases. The campus vision, measured in decades. Reserve and endowment policy. A risk analysis. And the dashboard the Board reads at every meeting.
What it does not contain
Enrollment targets. We do not set them, because a target creates pressure to admit a young person before the commitment to them is funded.
What lives here
- Our Commitments
- Governance
- Founding Principles
- Operating Principles
- Founding Documents
- Institutional Vision
- Leadership Philosophy
- Commitment Documents
- Student Protection
- Transparency
- Strategic Plan
- Institutional Timeline
- Institutional Library
- Annual Letters
- Annual Reports
- Legal and Compliance
Some of these pages are short today. They will not always be.
Transparency
What we publish, and what we have not yet earned the right to publish.
This page will be short in our founding year. That is the honest position of a new institution, and saying so plainly is more useful than filling the page.
Available now
- Founding Principles
- Conflict of Interest Policy
- Commitment Documents
- Brand Standards
- Digital Experience Standards
Available when adopted or received
- Articles of Incorporation
- Bylaws as adopted
- IRS determination letter
- Form 990
- Audited or reviewed financial statements
- Annual reports
- Strategic plans
Our current status
The Coach Wren Institute is in the process of being established as a Florida nonprofit corporation and will seek recognition as a 501(c)(3) public charity.
Contributions made before federal tax-exempt status is granted may not be tax-deductible. Donors should consult their tax advisors.
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