Walton Family Foundation Awarded $157 Million for Education Reform in 2010

The Walton Family Foundation has announced that during 2010 it awarded grants totaling more than $157 million in three education-related program areas — a $23 million increase year-over-year.

The foundation's education initiatives — Shaping Public Policy,Creating Quality Schools, and Improving Existing Schools — are designed to empower parents, particularly in low-income communities, by providing information about and increased access to high-quality schools in order to spur competition within public schools and boost performance in school districts across the country. To have the greatest impact, the foundation focused on seven regions with high concentrations of low-income families, including Albany, Denver, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New Orleans, Newark, and Washington, D.C.

"The Walton Family Foundation operates with a sense of urgency regarding the need to raise student achievement, particularly in low-income communities," said Jim Blew, who leads the foundation's K-12 education reform efforts. "The foundation invests to expand the right of all parents to have access to quality schools, regardless of type. When all parents have the ability to choose quality schools for their children, a competitive dynamic emerges that can inspire the broader school system to improve, helping transform public education in our nation."

“Walton Family Foundation Invests $157 Million in K-12 Education Reform in 2010.” Walton Family Foundation Press Release 6/28/11.

Marin Community Foundation Awards $6 Million to Bolster Student Achievement

The Marin Community Foundation has announced grants totaling more than $6 million to nonprofit organizations working to help low-income students and students of color succeed academically.

The grants were awarded as part of the foundation's five-year commitment to closing the achievement gap in four Marin districts — San Rafael, Novato, Sausalito Marin City, and Shoreline. To help boost the number of low-income students and students of color who attend college, the foundation awarded approximately $3 million to enable them to participate in in after-school education and social programs and receive college scholarships, including those available through 10,000 Degrees, which received $1.8 million from MCF to provide scholarships to students with financial needs. The college readiness efforts are designed to help students improve their study skills, prepare for tests, receive academic counseling, develop leadership skills, and learn about the college admissions and selection process.

The grants include more than $2 million to early education programs that have achieved success by involving families, enhancing teacher training, ensuring smooth transitions between grades, and using data to identify the specific needs of each student. In addition, $1 million was awarded to schools in the Novato, San Rafael, and Sausalito Marin City districts to improve student achievement through school transformation initiatives designed to strengthen school leadership, encourage greater collaboration among teachers, involve parents, undertake more rigorous assessment of student performance, and establish school cultures that set high expectations for students.

"So often, students fall through the cracks because they don't get the extra help with their studies that can make the difference between dropping out and thriving," said MCF president and CEO Thomas Peters. "This is a missed opportunity for these students, their families, and the community as a whole, so we're determined to help fill that void."

“MCF Announces $6 Million in Grants to Help Close the Education Achievement Gap in Marin.” Marin Community Foundation Press Release 6/22/11.

Safeway Foundation Raises $10.4 Million for People With Disabilities

Safeway and the Safeway Foundation have announced that during April they raised more than $10 million to support Easter Seals, theSpecial Olympics, and other organizations working to provide services that improve the lives of people with disabilities.

Donations contributed by Safeway customers during the month-longPeople with Disabilities campaign will be used to provide assistance, job training, therapy, and social outlets to people who live with physical and developmental disabilities. The foundation also partnered withRebuilding Together to modify homes and senior centers in ten cities. Both initiatives are part of Safeway's corporate social responsibility efforts, which the company detailed in its recently released 2010 Corporate Social Responsibility Report (36 pages, PDF).

"On behalf of the entire Special Olympics family, we are so grateful to Safeway and their customers for their amazing support of our athletes," said Special Olympics chairman and CEO Timothy Shriver. "From providing employment to rallying the community for support, Safeway has proven time and time again their leadership in creating opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities."

“Safeway Raises $10.4 Million for People With Disabilities.”Safeway Press Release 5/17/11.

Target Selects Forty-Two Elementary Schools for Library Makeovers

National retailer Target Corp., in partnership with the Heart of America Foundation, has announced the names of forty-two elementary schools that will receive new libraries as part of the 2011 Target School Library Makeover program.

Each of the library makeovers will feature a complete renovation, including light construction, eco-friendly design elements, technology upgrades, new furniture and carpeting, and new books and shelving. In addition, every student in the selected schools and his or her siblings will receive seven new books for their own collections at home.

The principals of the selected schools also attended a summit led by Ralph Smith, executive vice president of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, at which they discussed best practices for cultivating reading skills and approaches to literacy strategies.

"Research shows that a child's ability to read by the end of third grade is a pivotal point in his or her academic career. A recent study confirmed that children who cannot read proficiently by the third grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school than those who can," said Smith. "With staggering statistics such as this, it is critical for organizations and individuals alike to work together to help build a nation of readers."

For a list of the forty-two schools, visit the Target Web site.

“Target Announces 2011 School Library Makeover Program.”Target Press Release 5/24/11.

New Research Helps Us Better Understand Donors

Here is a brief overview of two fundraising research reports published this month that offer interesting insight into donor behavior.

2011 donorCentrics Internet and Multichannel Giving Benchmarking Report

When donors give to an organization through more than one source (e.g., direct mail and the Internet), are they more likely to:

• give larger gifts?
• be retained at higher rates than those who give through only one source?
  

These are some of the questions that Target Analytics (a Blackbaud Company) addresses in their benchmarking research about online and offline giving. They’ve used data gathered from 15.6 million donors and more than $1.16 billion dollars in revenue to draw some general conclusions about multichannel giving in their recently published 2011 donorCentrics Internet and Multichannel Giving Benchmarking Report.

After five years of research, they've drawn the following key conclusions:

• direct mail giving is still the overwhelming majority of fundraising revenue;
• organizations must find ways to optimize multichannel giving versus hyper-focusing on internet giving alone;
• nonprofits must closely consider how fundraising channels work in relation to one another versus as competing initiatives.

Key findings of the 2011 report include:

• It has become increasingly common for new donors to give their first gift online.
  
  
• In aggregate, online-acquired donors have much higher cumulative value over the long term than traditional mail-acquired donors.
  
  
• Every year, large proportions of online-acquired donors switch from online giving to offline sources – primarily to direct mail.
  
  
• Without the ability to become multichannel givers by renewing support via direct mail, online donors would be worth far less.

The report also notes that “organizations that use a wide range of techniques — beyond direct mail and the Internet — to acquire new donors do tend to have robust fundraising programs. While implementation of these multichannel acquisition programs often requires higher levels of investment, having a variety of acquisition methods available often results in greater success.”

Want to read the full research report?

• You can download the report PDF here
  
• Alternately, you can view Allison Van Diest’s “Improving Overall Giving Through a Multichannel Approach - A Companion to the 2011 donorCentrics Internet and Multichannel Giving Benchmark Report.”

Heart of the Donor

In an overview of their Heart of the Donor report, Grey Matter Research & Consulting suggest that"donors are the lifeblood of most not-for-profit organizations. So it’s critical to understand them---their behaviors, their beliefs, their motivations, their perspectives, their desires.” And, as Katya Andresen (Katya’s Non-Profit Marketing Blog) suggests in a recent post (where I learned about this study)“making sweeping assumptions about donors and activists is dangerous. Our guesses are often wrong, and that’s why getting to know our supporters is critical to effectively engaging them.”

Heart of the Donor, a study commissioned by Russ Reid Company and conducted by Grey Matter Research & Consulting, explores how Americans interact with nonprofit organizations. Through telephone and online surveys of 2,005 American adults in both English and Spanish, this research investigated how political persuasion, ethnicity and age impacts donors.

The study offers some interesting findings, including dispelling the myth “that religious people only support specifically religious causes.” In fact, the study found that:

• among donors who attend religious worship services on a regular basis, just 41% supported a cause they described as “religious,” other than any contributions they made to a place of worship.
  
  
• donors who attend religious services are more likely to have given toward disaster relief (68%), domestic hunger or poverty relief (66%), helping people with disabilities (56%), health care or medical research (54%), and veterans’ causes (52%) than they are to have supported specifically religious work.

For the Heart of the Donor's key findings you can read this Grey Matter overview and you can also request an executive summary.

Kellogg, Kalamazoo Community Foundations Announce Education Initiative

The Kalamazoo Community Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation have announced their support for an education initiative designed to ensure that every child in Kalamazoo County is ready for school, college, and life.

To that end, Kellogg awarded a three-year, $6 million grant and the community foundation pledged $5 million over five years for the creation of the Learning Network of Greater Kalamazoo, which will seek to engage area residents and organizations in measurably improving the performance of students in pre-kindergarten through college while building community-wide support for fundamental changes in how — and how well — future generations are educated.

According to the Battle Creek Enquirer, the details of the initiative are still being finalized, but at least $1 million will be used to fund a new preschool program called Kalamazoo County Ready 4s that will place fifteen hundred four-year-olds in pre-K settings that have been rigorously assessed for quality.

"We want to change the community culture so that we are a community that insists on every child being successful and recognizes it's everyone's responsibility to make that happen," said Carrie Pickett-Erway, vice president of community investment at KCF. "The schools can only do so much. This is about supporting every family and the community as well."

Hinkley, Justin. “Kalamazoo Invests $11M in Education.” Battle Creek Enquirer 6/14/11.

Department of Education to Award Second Round of 'Investing in Innovation' Grants

The U.S. Department of Education has announced that $150 million will be made available to school districts and nonprofits in partnership with districts or school consortia through a second round of Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) grants.

As in its initial funding round, the i3 program will award funds in three categories: Scale-up grants to applicants with the strongest track records of success; Validation grants to verify the effectiveness of programs with moderate levels of evidence; and Development grants to support new and high-potential practices whose impact warrants further study. Grant amounts have been adjusted, however, to ensure that awardees have adequate funding to achieve their goals while enabling the department to fund as many high-quality applications as possible.

The department also announced that in addition to the fund's efforts to support effective teachers and principals, implement high standards and quality assessments, and turn around persistently low-performing schools, it will focus on improved achievement and high school graduation rates in rural schools as well as promoting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. All applicants in this funding round must address one of the five key areas areas of reform. Applications for each category are due by August 2, and recipients will be announced before the end of the year. To assist applicants, the department plans to offer workshops and several webinars on key i3-related topics in the coming weeks.

"Extraordinary work is happening throughout the country with the potential to not only transform our education system but invest in our economy and ensure equal access to a high-quality education for thousands more students," said DOE assistant deputy secretary for innovation and improvement Jim Shelton. "The Investing in Innovation fund will continue to support promising and proven projects that elevate student performance, close achievement gaps, increase graduation rates, and attract, support, and retain high-quality teachers and principals."

“Second Round of i3 Provides $150 Million to Continue Scaling-Up, Validating and Developing Effective Education Innovations.” U.S. Department of Education Press Release 6/03/11.

Gulf Coast Community Foundation Receives $4 Million From Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors

The Gulf Coast Community Foundation in Gulfport, Mississippi, has announced a $4 million grant from Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors to support nonprofit organizations working to provide relief services to people in need in southern Mississippi.

Awarded through the new Fund for Gulf Communities, which was created by RPA with an anonymous donation, the funds will be used to enhance the resiliency of Gulf Coast communities and address the unmet needs of individuals, families, and children affected by last year's Deepwater Horizon oil spill and its aftermath.

Initial grants of $250,000 each will be awarded to the following organizations, which were selected for their hands-on experience in assisting and addressing problems in their communities: Back Bay Mission, the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Gulf Coast, the Gulf Coast Women's Center for Nonviolence, and Asian Americans for Change.

"The Gulf Coast Community Foundation is in a unique position to identify and address critical local needs as well as provide technical assistance, guidance, and monitoring to area nonprofit organizations that assist individuals and families affected by the oil spill," said Gulf Coast Community Foundation president Rich Westfall. "We are grateful to be selected by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors for this project."

“Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors Award $4.0 Million Fund for Gulf Communities to Gulf Coast Community Foundation.” Gulf Coast Community Foundation Press Release 5/27/11.

University of Arizona Receives $1.55 Million From Helios Education Foundation

The University of Arizona has announced a four-year, $1.55 million grant from the Helios Education Foundation to redesign the early childhood teacher preparation program in its College of Education.

Through the CREATE (Communities as Resources in Early Childhood Teacher Education) partnership, the college will work to address concerns that educators are too detached from their students' communities and that the assets and resources families bring to the classroom often are underutilized or ignored, while also engaging teachers in its three partner districts, Flowing Wells, Sunnyside, and Tucson Unified. Among other things, the redesigned program is expected to spark new partnerships among early learning centers, better engage families and communities in literacy and language-learning initiatives, aid teachers in developing a greater awareness of the historical and cultural contexts of those communities, and help children develop a deeper understanding of themselves and others.

Other key features of the redesigned program include a focus on storytelling as a way to boost literacy and an online and in-person community center that features early childhood education resources. UA College of Education faculty members already have begun to redesign the curriculum and are planning to evaluate the initiative along the way, making changes when necessary.

"What we're trying to do is to really support [new] teachers so that they may create spaces where they can build collaborations among children, families, and key community stakeholders," said Iliana Reyes, a UA associate professor of teaching, learning, and sociocultural studies. "Too often, we are thinking about what we need to do in the classroom, and teachers don't have the opportunity to make those spaces and create those relationships."

“UA Gets $1.55M to Redesign Early Childhood Education Program.”University of Arizona Press Release 6/02/11.

African Americans, Hispanics More Likely to Engage With Causes Online, Study Finds

Based on a 2010 survey of two thousand Americans age 18 and over, the study (4 pages, PDF), found that 30 percent of African Americans and 39 percent of Hispanics feel they are more likely to support a cause or social issue online than off, compared to 24 percent of Caucasians. When it comes to spreading information about a cause or social issue, the survey found that 58 percent of African Americans and 51 percent of Hispanics are more likely to do so through online social networks, compared to 34 percent of Caucasians.

While traditional media and word-of-mouth remain the primary ways in which Americans learn about causes, the survey found that African Americans and Hispanics are more likely than Caucasians to use social media as an additional source of information as well as to engage with causes by joining a group on Facebook or posting a cause's logo to their online profile.

In addition, the study found that when it comes to social media-induced "cause fatigue," Caucasians are more likely to feel that cause-related e-mails sometimes feel like spam (76 percent, compared to 66 percent and 69 percent of African Americans and Hispanics, respectively), while Hispanics are more likely to believe that everybody "likes" causes on Facebook and it doesn't really mean anything. The survey also found that while 48 percent of Caucasians and 51 percent of Hispanics agree they get too many e-mails from the causes or charities they support, only 33 percent of African Americans feel that way.

Overall, survey respondents agreed that everyone can make a difference by supporting a cause or causes. However, the study found that African Americans and Hispanics feel more strongly that it's important for their family to be involved in a cause (55 percent of Hispanics and 54 percent of African Americans, compared to 46 percent of Caucasians) and are more likely to be involved in key issues such as diabetes, domestic violence, bullying, childhood obesity, Haiti earthquake relief and recovery efforts, and HIV/AIDS.

“Social Media Plays Greater Role in Cause Engagement for African Americans and Hispanics.” Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies Press Release 5/31/11.

Andre Agassi, Canyon Capital Realty Advisors Partner on Charter School Venture Fund

Former tennis champion Andre Agassi and Canyon Capital Realty Advisors, a real estate investment firm headquartered in Los Angeles, have teamed up to establish an investment fund that will support the creation of up to seventy-five charter schools in low-income, urban communities across the country, the Associated Press reports.

Intel Capital, Citigroup, and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation are among the investors in the $750 million Canyon-Agassi Charter School Facilities Fund, the first for-profit venture fund created to finance the construction of charter schools. The fund hopes to develop the schools, lease them to charter school operators for four to six years, and then give operators the option to purchase the buildings through low-interest, tax-exempt loans.

One of the most significant challenges facing charter schools, which operate independently of local school districts, is securing funding for the construction of facilities. "Unlike the school district, charter schools don't have facility financing provided to them by the state," Canyon Capital Realty Advisors chairman Bobby Turner told Bloomberg News. "If you're a charter school, what you're relegated to doing is cobbling together philanthropy every time you want to build a school. As you can imagine, that's very difficult."

Agassi, who founded the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy in Las Vegas in 2001, told Bloomberg that for-profit investment vehicles are the best way to get charter schools built quickly and that schools built by the new fund could provide space for some forty thousand students within four years.