Philanthropy Front and Center-Atlanta

Financing Your Education

People all over the country are dusting off their book bags in preparation for their return to school. Others have already re-enrolled and are matriculating through programs. Whether you are a new college student or returning student, the Foundation Center has resources to help you find funding for your education:

• Use the Foundation Center’s online database, Foundation Grants to Individuals Online, for free at any of our library/learning centers to find information on foundations and other grantmakers that award grants directly to individuals. To access the database from the comfort of your own home or office, low monthly, quarterly, and annual subscription rates apply.

• Take advantage of the free online course offered through the Foundation Center’s web site that guides you through the process of seeking financial support from foundations to pursue your studies.

• Visit the Frequently Asked Questions section of our web site to get answers to common questions about scholarships, fellowships, and more.

• Enroll in our free in-person class, Finding Foundation Support for Your Education. Be sure to check the the Foundation Center-Atlanta’s online calendar for the next class offering.

• If you can't make the in-person class, then take the Finding Foundation Support for Your Education webinar. Better yet, watch a free recording of the class on demand.

The Foundation Center offers a plethora of opportunities to learn about individual grantseeking. Now it is up to you to put forth the time and effort to complete and submit your applications. The ball is in your court!

Asia Hadley, Training Coordinator, Foundation Center-Atlanta

Foundation Center Launches National Education Stimulus Initiative

The Foundation Center announced the launch of "Foundations for Education Excellence," a national initiative to engage philanthropic institutions and education leaders across the country in a unified, strategic drive to improve public education.

foundationcenter.org/educationexcellence, the web portal developed by the Foundation Center with a grant from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, was launched in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Education. It connects foundation funders in education to information and tools that will help them support ARRA's education reform goals.

"There is a unique window of opportunity in the coming weeks and months for private philanthropy to leverage its investment in education," said Bradford K. Smith, the Center's president. "Funders need fast-track tools to target areas of need and collaborate in new ways to improve educational opportunities across the country. The Foundation Center is ideally positioned to provide foundations with the knowledge platform needed to advance this process."

Read the full press release for details on the contents and uses of the portal.

Investing in Innovation Fund to Support Leading-Edge Programs in Education

Innovative education programs around the country could soon benefit from a $650 million competitive grant fund included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Associated Press reports.

Part of the $5 billion provided by ARRA to overhaul schools, the Investing in Innovation Fund will support programs run by school districts and nonprofits, including colleges and universities, organizations that work to turn around failing schools, and charter schools. According to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, programs that have proven successful will be awarded up to $50 million each, while programs that need money to expand or build a research base could receive up to $30 million and promising ideas worth trying could receive up to $5 million.

For more information on ARRA funding in your state, see our interactive Mapshot of the Best ARRA Funding Resources by State.

This post was submitted by Jean Johnson, Senior Librarian at the Foundation Center-San Francisco.

Reading on My Mind

When I woke up Friday morning, it was pouring rain in Decatur. As I got ready for work, I was thinking, what a lovely day to loll on the sofa reading a book of no redeeming social value. 

I sat down to breakfast and opened the Atlanta Journal Constitution (yes, I still read a newspaper with my morning meal). The paper contained two articles related to literacy:

1. The Dollar General Literacy Foundation recently awarded a youth literacy grant for $3,000 to the New Schools at Carver Media Center in Atlanta. This was one of 1,101 grants awarded by the Foundation this year for schools, libraries, and nonprofit organizations to establish or expand literacy programs.
2. The Junior League of Atlanta launched a statewide initiative to promote literacy and school readiness on August 25. This “Million Minute Read” initiative is a partnership between the Junior League and the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning’s Bright from the Start program. Bright from the Start, around since 1993, provides high-quality preschool experiences for Georgia’s four-year-olds. Volunteers from the Junior League of Atlanta and its sister organizations around the state will read one million minutes to Georgia children from September 2009-April 2010.

Those articles reminded me of two outstanding literacy organizations serving the metro area:

• Literacy Volunteers of Atlanta, located in Decatur, brings volunteer tutors and students together for one-on-one instruction geared to the individual student’s needs. It has various programs, including adult basic literacy, English as a Second Language, family literacy, and workplace literacy.
• Literacy Action, based in Atlanta, provides teacher-led classroom instruction for functionally illiterate adults. It also provides employment-oriented educational programs.

If you can read this blog, you’re literate. If you are in the nonprofit field, you might want to read a book or journal article to increase your skills or broaden your perspective. The Foundation Center – Atlanta has a library of more than 3,000 titles covering a wide array of nonprofit topics. About 1,000 can be checked out by registered users. To see if we have any books or articles to address your needs, check out the Catalog of Nonprofit Literature.

Reading is a fundamental skill for success in life. It not only helps one function on a job and in day-to-day activities, it brings great joy and personal enrichment to our lives. What do you read? What role does reading play in your life? I would love to read your comments. In the meantime, I think I’ll go read a book.

Pattie Johnson, Director, Foundation Center - Atlanta

Following the Money Trail: The Impact of the Economic Stimulus on Education in Georgia

If you’re wondering about the impact the economic stimulus will have on education funding in the state of Georgia, join us for this special education month program on Tuesday, June 30th at 2:30pm. Lauren Veasey, program officer, Southern Education Foundation will discuss the new federal stimulus law, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). This law offers Southern states an historic opportunity to improve public education from pre-school through college - especially for low-income students. ARRA allocates over $100 billion directly to the 15 states of the South for creating jobs and spurring economic renewal during the next two years, and more than one-third of these funds will go towards education. Reserve your seat and join the discussion.

For more information and resources for coping with the economic crisis, see our Focus on the Economic Crisis web page.

Also at our web page, Jamie P. Merisotis, president and CEO of the Lumina Foundation for Education, discusses the foundation's strategic, outcomes-based approach to expanding college access and success, particularly among low-income, minority, and other under-represented populations.  Listen!

Asia M. Hadley, Training Coordinator, Foundation Center-Atlanta

Listen! Bruno Manno Discusses Annie E. Casey Foundation's Investments in Education

Bruno Manno, Ph.D., senior associate at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, discusses the key role that schools play in advancing the foundation's efforts to improve outcomes for families and children. As the lead in the foundation's education portfolio, Dr. Manno shares information about the foundation's experiences investing in programs that give low-income parents the opportunity to send their children to high quality schools and to get services that strengthen their community-school connections. Listen!

June is Funding for Education Month at the Foundation Center. Check out our Focus on Funding for Education page for more podcasts, news, and resources.

Thanks to Cynthia Bailie, Director, Foundation Center-Cleveland, for sharing this post.

Webinars for Funding for Education Month

Throughout June, the Foundation Center is celebrating Funding for Education Month. In addition to free classes and special events, we've developed a couple of free webinars focused on foundation funding for education. From the comfort of your home or office you can learn to create customized lists of prospective education donors using Foundation Directory Online and hear a timely discussion of foundation funding trends in higher education.  Register on our web site for Researching Education Funders with Foundation Directory Online, Friday, June 12, 1:00-2:00 pm or Foundation Funding Trends in Higher Education, Monday, June 29, 3:00-4:00 pm.

Grants That Make a Difference: World Savvy

June is Funding for Education Month at the Foundation Center, and to celebrate we'll be offering a full slate of special events and programs designed to help grantseekers find education-related funding resources. In the following story, Dana Curran Mortenson at World Savvy describes how a grant and a collaborative relationship with the funder that made the grant have advanced the organization’s mission to educate students about global issues. (For stories about other grants that made a difference, click here and here.)

Grant Recipient
World Savvy
San Francisco, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and New York

World Savvy’s mission is to educate and engage youth in community and world affairs to prepare them to learn, work, and live as responsible citizens in the global community.

Grantmaker
Walter & Elise Haas Fund
San Francisco, California

About the Grant
Two-year, $80,000 grant to support Global Educators Program.

The grant provides comprehensive professional development for middle and high school teachers (grades 6-12) in the Bay Area, building educators' content knowledge, skills, and capacity to consistently integrate contemporary world affairs into their teaching in all subject areas. School partners of the program are provided access to the following services:

1. Professional Development, including one-on-one consulting; provision of relevant global issues curricula resources and materials for classroom use; one-day Global Education Institutes in August 2008 and 2009 and two on-site workshops annually.

2. Online Global Educators Network: A range of online services that provide timely and high-quality global education resources to teachers.

3. Community Connections: Partnerships with individuals, organizations, and associations in the local community and beyond.

Impact of the Grant
The program integrates relevant, current, age-appropriate global issues curricula into the classroom. By leveraging this work to reach more teachers and schools across California and the entire country, World Savvy seeks to promote systemic change in education so as to prepare youth for success and engagement in the global community in the 21st century. An example is World Savvy's Global Youth Media and Arts Festival at Zeum, which featured an exhibition of student’s original artwork on "immigration and identity," including that of students from Phillip & Sala Burton Academic High School (pictured). Through support from the grant by the Haas Fund, teachers from Burton High School received comprehensive professional development and resource support from World Savvy on integrating global issues in their teaching.

How did the funder and grantee work together effectively during the course of the grant project?

The program officer at the Walter & Elise Haas Fund shared knowledge and best practices observed from the field with World Savvy and took a genuine interest in learning about World Savvy's model and approach. The conversations did not revolve exclusively around grant guidelines or geographic areas of service and evaluation tools, but rather the larger issues that the mission and vision of World Savvy sought to remedy. Since the program officer has extensive knowledge and experience in education and reform efforts and is deeply committed to those efforts, the partnership was mutually beneficial in that it offered opportunities for World Savvy to share challenges openly and explore solutions with the Haas Fund during the course of the program's implementation.

What makes this particular grant a good example of the effective use of philanthropic funds?

So often in funder-grantee relationships, the candor in approaching the challenges of difficult work is compromised by a need to demonstrate that the grantee has met strictly defined reporting guidelines and/or to showcase only those aspects of the work that exceeded expectations. It is a missed opportunity for the grantee to learn from the breadth of knowledge of the funder and for the funder to understand the challenges in the field from the grantee’s perspective. The best relationships grow from deep faith in the work and a commitment to institutional learning for both funder and grantee. World Savvy is fortunate to have benefited from such a relationship in this work. Our program officer is in every way an advocate for us and for the work we do.

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Do you have a story about a grant that made a difference? Submit your story, and we'll continue to feature them on a regular basis on PhilanTopic, at one or more of our regional Philanthropy Front and Center blogs, and at other areas of our Web site. We also encourage you to submit stories of grants that are addressing needs associated with the economic crisis.

Grant Recipient
World Savvy
San Francisco, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and New York

World Savvy’s mission is to educate and engage youth in community and world affairs to prepare them to learn, work, and live as responsible citizens in the global community.

Grantmaker
Walter & Elise Haas Fund
San Francisco, California

About the Grant
Two-year, $80,000 grant to support Global Educators Program.

The grant provides comprehensive professional development for middle and high school teachers (grades 6-12) in the Bay Area, building educators' content knowledge, skills, and capacity to consistently integrate contemporary world affairs into their teaching in all subject areas. School partners of the program are provided access to the following services:

1. Professional Development, including one-on-one consulting; provision of relevant global issues curricula resources and materials for classroom use; one-day Global Education Institutes in August 2008 and 2009 and two on-site workshops annually.

2. Online Global Educators Network: A range of online services that provide timely and high-quality global education resources to teachers.

3. Community Connections: Partnerships with individuals, organizations, and associations in the local community and beyond.

Impact of the Grant
The program integrates relevant, current, age-appropriate global issues curricula into the classroom. By leveraging this work to reach more teachers and schools across California and the entire country, World Savvy seeks to promote systemic change in education so as to prepare youth for success and engagement in the global community in the 21st century. An example is World Savvy's Global Youth Media and Arts Festival at Zeum, which featured an exhibition of student’s original artwork on "immigration and identity," including that of students from Phillip & Sala Burton Academic High School (pictured). Through support from the grant by the Haas Fund, teachers from Burton High School received comprehensive professional development and resource support from World Savvy on integrating global issues in their teaching.

How did the funder and grantee work together effectively during the course of the grant project?

The program officer at the Walter & Elise Haas Fund shared knowledge and best practices observed from the field with World Savvy and took a genuine interest in learning about World Savvy's model and approach. The conversations did not revolve exclusively around grant guidelines or geographic areas of service and evaluation tools, but rather the larger issues that the mission and vision of World Savvy sought to remedy. Since the program officer has extensive knowledge and experience in education and reform efforts and is deeply committed to those efforts, the partnership was mutually beneficial in that it offered opportunities for World Savvy to share challenges openly and explore solutions with the Haas Fund during the course of the program's implementation.

What makes this particular grant a good example of the effective use of philanthropic funds?

So often in funder-grantee relationships, the candor in approaching the challenges of difficult work is compromised by a need to demonstrate that the grantee has met strictly defined reporting guidelines and/or to showcase only those aspects of the work that exceeded expectations. It is a missed opportunity for the grantee to learn from the breadth of knowledge of the funder and for the funder to understand the challenges in the field from the grantee’s perspective. The best relationships grow from deep faith in the work and a commitment to institutional learning for both funder and grantee. World Savvy is fortunate to have benefited from such a relationship in this work. Our program officer is in every way an advocate for us and for the work we do.

-----------

Do you have a story about a grant that made a difference? Submit your story, and we'll continue to feature them on a regular basis on PhilanTopic, at one or more of our regional Philanthropy Front and Center blogs, and at other areas of our Web site. We also encourage you to submit stories of grants that are addressing needs associated with the economic crisis.

Would You like Your College Loan Forgiven?

According to a 2005 report by the Building Movement Project, debt does not appear to deter graduates from seeking and securing jobs in the nonprofit sector. Although that’s good news for the sector, the impact of education debt is a source of financial hardship for many nonprofit employees, especially since nonprofit workers earn 21.5% less than private sector workers and 10.9% less than public sector employees.

Yet there is hope for debt-laden nonprofit workers. There are two major types of publicly-financed debt relief programs currently benefiting nonprofit workers. One is the education reward provided by
Americorps, for which only Americorps participants are eligible.

Another debt relief program is the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (PDF).  This program was created by the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 (CCRAA) and is intended to encourage individuals to enter and continue in full-time public service employment by forgiving the remaining balance of their eligible Federal loans.

Many nonprofit workers can take advantage of this opportunity, so here’s what you can do to qualify:

1. Make 120 monthly payments on your loan after October 1, 2007
2. Be employed by a “public service organization” at the time that loan forgiveness is requested and granted, as well as during the period you make the required 120 monthly payments
3. Ensure your loan is not in default at the time of the request.

To learn more about the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, contact the Department of Education at 1-800-4FED-AID (1-800-433-3243).

The best defense against costly student loans, however, is a good offense of scholarship awards and grant money. To help you avoid education debt, the Foundation Center has Foundation Grants to Individuals Online, a database to quickly search through detailed descriptions of more than 6,000 foundations and other grantmakers that offer funding to students, artists, researchers, and other individual grantseekers. 

You can also register for our free class, Finding Foundation Support for Your Education, which is available as an online webinar, or as an in-person class.

Asia Hadley, Training Coordinator, Foundation Center-Atlanta

Hard Times on Historically Black Campuses

The New York Times ran an interesting article a couple of weeks ago about the effect of the economy on black campuses.  The article talks specifically about some of the hardships being faced by historically black institutions in Atlanta. Clark Atlanta University laid off 70 faculty members and 30 staff members in February 2009 as well as canceling physical education classes. Spelman College, among the wealthiest and most prestigious historically black colleges, eliminated 35 staff positions after a decline in enrollment precipitated a projected $48 million deficit next year. Morris Brown College just paid off the majority of a $200,000 water bill and averted having its water shut off.

Although colleges and universities all over the U.S. are looking at shrinking endowments, decreasing giving and government cutbacks, historically black institutions have two major disadvantages during hard economic times.  They typically have smaller endowments requiring heavier reliance on tuition and fees.  They also have a higher proportion of disadvantaged students who are now facing their own credit crunch when they apply for loans.

According to Dr. Michael Lomax, president of the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), the amount UNCF has collected for scholarships was down 10 percent in 2008, but the number of applications increased by 26 percent. UNCF provides operating funds for its 39 member colleges, all of them small, liberal arts institutions; administers 300 scholarship and internship programs; and serves as a national advocate for the importance of minority higher education.

For information about searching for financial aid for education, see our tutorial “Finding Foundation Support for Your Education” or our section of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) concerning financial aid. 

Kayron Bearden, Reference Librarian, Foundation Center-Atlanta