Community Partnerships for Adult Learning
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Supported by the Office of Vocational and Adult Education
of the U.S. Department of Education
Commitment Comes in All Shapes and Sizes
Executive Summary
Introduction
The Community Partnerships
A Commitment to Learners and the Community
Strategies for Leveraging Resources
Coordinating Services
Stretching Resources
More and Better Services
Squeezing the Dollars: Strategies for Leveraging Funds
How Leveraging Resources Increases Capacity
Many Models, Many Partners
Issues For The Future
Conclusion
Endnotes
Appendix A: Partnership Nomination and Selection Process
Appendix B: Partnership Highlights
Complete Report (PDF, 928kb)
Return to Summary

STRATEGIES FOR LEVERAGING RESOURCES
Squeezing the Dollars: Strategies for Leveraging Funds

Coordinating services is only the first way that partnerships help adult education providers meet community needs. Partner organizations also pool their funds, apply jointly for grants, and collaborate on fund-raising events. Partners take advantage of their links to different funding sources and leverage these to obtain other dollars. As a result, they can make better use of their collective resources and gain access to new funding. Instead of competing for funding, they make every effort to coordinate so that limited funds can be used most efficiently. As one partnership coordinator put it, “When funding is tight, you have to partner to survive.”

The types of funds leveraged by the partnerships include:

  • Federal support, including the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 Title II, Adult Education Family Literacy Act (AEFLA), and other federal funding through the U.S. Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development, such as the Workforce Investment Act Titles I, III and IV3; Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (TANF)4; Elementary and Secondary Education Act (NCLB) of 20015; and HUD's "Neighborhood Networks" program.

  • State funds.

  • Local public funds.

  • Private foundation grants.

  • Business support.

  • Charitable contributions.

Some partnerships pool their funds to serve more adults. For example, the Cedar Riverside Adult Education Collaborative in Minneapolis combines funds from the state (client contact hours), local funders, and private foundation grants into a fund for adult education services for the neighborhood. These dollars are then allocated to English literacy programs offered by the providers in the neighborhood. The Certified Literate Community Program in Georgia blends resources from the technical college, business partners, and government sources to fund adult literacy programs. In Louisville, the 2001 Free GED Testing Campaign partnership pooled funds and other resources to enable twice as many adults to take the GED test in the second half of the year as had taken it during the first six months.

Sharing a fiscal agent is another way that some of the partners leverage funds. In North Idaho, the local community college is the fiscal agent for the Adult Education Center and several of its partners. Funds can be transferred among the partners with a simple e-mail notification. The United Way supports the Midlands Literacy Initiative by serving as its fiscal agent and by providing administrative and leadership support. In addition to supplying funds, United Way raises grant money for MLI-related activities.

PARTNERS COLLABORATE ON GRANTS
Partners collaborate on grants that result in expanded services for learners. They report that, as partners, they can often obtain funds unavailable to them as individual organizations, including federal, state, and foundation grants. For example, the Decker Center provides integrated education and social services to very low-income families as a result of the partners' success in securing grant funding. These services include GED and pre-employment training for adults, enrichment programs for young children, parent education, computer instruction, job shadowing, physical and mental health services, and other support services. Several partnerships were able to serve more learners - or a new group of learners (i.e., through family literacy programs)—when the partnership made them eligible for federal, state or foundation grant funds they could not have obtained previously.

The Juntos partnership secured grant funding to support an array of activities, including the ABE-to-College Transition program; English literacy/civic participation courses; two family literacy programs; the integration of curricular frameworks and technology into ABE instruction; and a citywide planning effort aimed at promoting excellence in education for Latinos, in particular, improving their enrollment rates at local colleges. The Cedar Riverside Collaborative won a federal family literacy grant that was awarded after the partnership conducted a locally funded family literacy pilot project. Cedar Riverside also was awarded a federal Community Technology Center grant that allows the partnership to provide computer-based instruction to pre-literate English literacy learners.

Partners may continue to seek grants individually, but they try not to compete with one another. They often advise each other of pending Requests for Proposals and help each other find funding opportunities. In Alaska, Nine Star Enterprises and the state department of Health and Human Services joined forces on a U.S. Department of Labor Welfare-to-Work grant, choosing separate areas of focus to work together most effectively. Other partnerships also split both the work and the client population to avoid competing for funds.

A few of the partnerships hold joint fund-raising activities. The Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach County and its media partners host several high-profile fund-raising and public awareness events, including a spelling bee for adult learners, an adult literacy essay contest, and a "love of literacy" luncheon. Featuring celebrity speakers, the luncheon is held to recognize corporate and individual donors who support local literacy programs. The Certified Literate Community Program partners host a yearly big-band fund-raising concert and dance that draws 600 people from as far away as Atlanta. The event is the result of a collaboration among the CLCP, a senior citizens center, a local radio station, a cable TV station, and the city of Warner Robins. This year, the band recorded a CD of the concert that is being sold to raise additional funds for the adult literacy programs in Houston County.

A LASTING PARTNERSHIP

Funding is one reason that organizations form a partnership, but it isn't necessarily what makes them survive. Started in 1989, Project ACHIEVE, a short-term job-readiness training and placement program for adults receiving public assistance, is the result of a long-term partnership between JCPSAE and the Metro Louisville Community Action Partnership (CAP). The partnership began when CAP lost federal funding for its instructors and turned to JCPSAE for help. It has evolved over the years into Project ACHIEVE. ACHIEVE offers a seven-week, skills-based job-readiness class emphasizing office technology, with the goal of placing students in jobs with growth potential. JCPSAE provides the instructors, computer lab, and software, and CAP provides the funding, recruitment, job placement, case management, and follow-up.

A memorandum of understanding between JCPSAE and CAP governs the partnership, and both have served as the fiscal agent for Project ACHIEVE over time. The partners agree that they "don't care who gets the money" as long as they can secure the funds to continue the program. They say the partnership has endured by keeping its focus clearly on community needs, adapting to changing workforce demands, and shifting funding sources as necessary to continue its work.