Back to School: Expanding Support for Education

It’s time for back-to-school planning! If education is on your mind, you’re in good company. Charitable giving to education rose in 2024 to more than $58 billion! If education and related causes are important to you, the Community Foundation can help you explore a variety of meaningful ways to make an impact. Here are three ideas to inspire a deeper discussion:

Explore options for expanding student support
In many cases, donors set up a scholarship or other type of fund to support a particular educational institution, and then set it on autopilot. There’s nothing wrong with this approach, but you might be missing an opportunity to make a deeper impact. The Community Foundation team is happy to facilitate a dialogue with you and the school to structure your funding–whether through a scholarship or other types of support–to fill gaps in student need. For example, if you’d like to support students pursuing a college degree beyond simply scholarship dollars, the Community Foundation can help identify needs for dollars to increase faculty salaries, purchase lab equipment, or pay an on-campus counselor to help students acclimate to college life.

Investigate opportunities to improve the quality of education itself
Many donors are concerned that high school graduates are ill-prepared for post-secondary education, whether that’s a traditional four-year college, community college, or trade school. The Community Foundation can help you address this gap with your charitable dollars. For example, you could establish a fund to support teachers, which in turn helps improve student success. Indeed, teachers are often considered the single most important in-school factor for student success. Charitable funding that enhances teacher training, mentorship, and ongoing professional development creates ripple effects across classrooms and generations of students.

Find your education “niche”
By establishing a field-of-interest fund at the Community Foundation, you can work with the Community Foundation team to identify specific parameters within education that you’d like to fund. For example, you may  be interested in supporting local grassroots programs offering tutoring and mentorship. Or, you may decide to direct your charitable dollars to quality early childhood programs, which have been shown to yield high returns on investments in education. The Community Foundation can help you identify an area of focus. Going forward, our team leverages the Community Foundation’s deep knowledge and research to identify high-impact opportunities, helping to ensure your generosity makes the greatest difference within your area of interest.
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Please reach out to our team anytime! As students head back to school and education is top of mind, the Community Foundation is here to make sure your giving is impactful, focused, and in line with your philanthropic goals.