The goal of the education program area is to actively engage youth, parents, and the broader community in improving the quality of public education. Four grantmaking strategies support this goal:

Youth Leadership: To encourage youth leadership on educational issues, this strategy will advance a variety of high-quality youth development programs—based within or outside of schools—that specifically address quality issues in education. These may include:

• Programs that support students developing their own voices and abilities to act directly on their own behalf, and on the behalf of other students.
• Programs that broaden youth opportunities to develop meaningful connections with young people and adults outside of their own communities.

Parent Organizing: To support parent organizing activities that seek to improve educational quality. Parent activities may be led by organizations external to the school system or they may be initiated within the public schools, including:

• Programs and projects that actively engage parents in improving the quality of education. Such efforts should foster meaningful relationships among parents, teachers, and/or other community members.
• Activities and organizations that creatively engage non-English-speaking and otherwise isolated parents.

Community Partnerships: To develop effective community partnerships in support of education, this strategy seeks to mobilize the broader community—area businesses, congregations, community organizations, and/or neighborhood residents in support of public schools. Such efforts may originate within the school district or be fostered by outside entities and might include:

• Efforts to establish new partnerships on behalf of education.
• Programs that leverage volunteer, material, and financial resources.
• Other activities that reflect a shared, broad-based commitment to improving public school quality.

School Partnerships with the Community: To assist teachers, principals, and schools to be more strategic in utilizing parent, student, and community support. Priority will be given to programs reflecting collaboration between school districts or school sites and community-based organizations. These may include:

• Programs that increase the receptiveness of schools to constructive external involvement and support, and increase the effectiveness of such support.
• Projects to facilitate conversations among school staff and community members to identify shared interests and mitigate concerns, provide training in cross-cultural communication, or changes to the physical school environment that make campuses more welcoming.

* How To Apply: For a step-by-step guide to the Fund's grant application process, please see the For Grantseekers section of our Web site.