WHAT IS A LOCAL EDUCATION FOUNDATION

Local education foundations (LEFs) are 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations whose boards represent local community and education leaders and who are financially accountable to their communities. Each is unique in its operation, its programs and the resources it provides to its community, but all share a common commitment to improving education at the local level.

They serve as conveners with non-profit agencies to address community issues relating to education.

They link people and organizations in their communities with public schools, developing awareness and resource support.

They increase teacher morale by making direct financial grants to teachers and by recognizing their importance in the community

They broaden support for public education and local schools with greater community awareness

IMPACT OF LEFs:

In 2006, California education foundations raised more than $130 million dollars to benefit public schools and address the local needs of California's students.

LEFs sponsored programs as diverse as the communities they represented, ranging from grants to teachers, purchases of instructiuonal technology, after school enrichment, art and music to providing dental vans.

More than 35,000 community leaders served on the boards of LEFs and as volunteers, bringing new ideas and perspectives to educational issues. These leaders serve as ambassadors for local schools and spokespeople for public education. Often these community leaders go on to become school board members and elected officials.

Aggregate data on LEFs throughout the state have been difficult to obtain. However, we have collected data from approximately one fourth of California's local education foundations and have scaled this gathered data in order to develop the estimates given above. Scaling was less than proportional to the number of LEFs because the large and more established LEFs were more likely to report data.

ABOUT CCEF

Established in 1982, CCEF is a statewide nonprofit organization dedicated to improving public education by building the capacity of the 600 local education foundations in California. CCEF serves as a spokesperson for California's education foundation movement with media and local, state, and national organizations focusing on education and children. In this role, CCEF views itself as an enabler, assisting communities and schools in the development and evolution of local education foundations. CCEF promotes sharing and collaborating between education foundations and with other community-based organizations. CCEF believes that local education foundations are in a unique position to help focus community resources in support of schools. CCEF operates upon the one constant found in all the studies of public education—parent and community involvement is a key factor in improving schools.

CCEF is supported in part by grants from the following organizations: