Think Together, a provider of after-school programs for underserved kids in the state, has changed its name to Think Education.<\/p>\n
The new moniker highlights the nonprofit\u2019s ongoing expansion beyond after-school programming and into directly supporting school systems, according to Chief Executive Randy Barth.<\/p>\n
The Santa Ana-based organization is currently making investments in educator development and AI technology to give the education sector a boost.<\/p>\n
Barth said the name change also reflects the organization\u2019s \u201cgrowing suite of services\u201d from the last decade, such as the Orenda Education platform focused on school improvement and Think TalentEd used for district staffing services.<\/p>\n
Think Education merged with the consulting firm Orenda in 2022 for its data-driven school improvement model and launched Think TalentEd, formely known as the California Schools Talent Collaborative, one year later to deal with the leadership crisis in education, according to Barth.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw that these tools work, but really, those tools work in the hands of good leaders,\u201d he told the Business Journal.<\/p>\n
The nonprofit, established in 1997, works with close to 120 school districts across California. Barth said that by working on school campuses, Think Education has been able to \u201csee what\u2019s working and not working\u201d among its partners.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Think Education\u2019 created the opportunity to have this parent brand that holds these different strategies,\u201d Barth said.<\/p>\n
The Game Plan<\/p>\n
Think Education will continue to increase the reach of its after-school programs while also launching two new divisions in time with the name change. Think Transcend will lead the nonprofit\u2019s leadership program designed for public education officials and Think Digital will provide AI tools and training for district administrators.<\/p>\n
The Think Transcend team, formed in 2025, is preparing to collaborate on the professional development program for the Association of California School Administrators (ACSA) in 2026. The plan is to instruct and coach three cohorts of 30 superintendents per year in Southern, Central and Northern California.<\/p>\n
For the Think Digital initiative, Barth pointed to a project focused on California\u2019s Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) which requires schools to create a spending plan for money received from the state. The LCAP started off as \u201ca relatively simple document\u201d but has turned into a 175-page template which can produce plans up to 600 pages, according to Barth.<\/p>\n
He believes an AI model can be built to help administrators create these plans by researching relevant data and effective strategies that address each school\u2019s pain points. Work will begin this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can leverage AI as a tool for these leaders in the system to then optimize their practices and remove some of the toil,\u201d Barth said. \u201cThen focus that executive talent on other areas and help drive performance in the whole ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really an education services (and technology) organization,\u201d Barth added. \u201cWe\u2019re providing a variety of services; some are direct to students, and some are working with the adults in the system.\u201d<\/p>\n
HQ Project Update<\/p>\n
Think Education ranks as Orange County\u2019s second largest nonprofit with 12-month OC revenue of $244.5 million for the year ended June 30, 2025, according to the Business Journal\u2019s annual list.<\/p>\n
Last year, the group announced plans to convert its Santa Ana headquarters into a $150 million workforce housing project, proposing 270 residential units. It might be worth $175 million now with rising costs, according to Barth.<\/p>\n
The nonprofit is preparing to raise approximately $70 million of equity for the development once approved, hopefully this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt helps the rents. The more equity we could raise for that, the more the rents will cash flow. And then we see the rents funding our innovation,\u201d Barth said.<\/p>\n
While initially on the hunt for a new headquarters, Barth noted that the nonprofit could stay on-site and possibly take up the first two floors of the redeveloped building.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Think Together, a provider of after-school programs for underserved kids in the state, has changed its name to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-244004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}