New group will congregate at upcoming Council on Foundations Annual Meeting to focus on the 93 million Americans who have limited reading, writing and math skills.
A coalition of foundations is collaborating to address the rising rate of illiteracy in the United States. Called the Literacy Funders Network (LFN) the group joins together the efforts of diverse regional and national foundations to address a problem that affects nearly one in two adults. The Community Foundation for Southern Arizona is one of 20 foundations involved in the network.
“Working together and more effectively as funders to support local literacy initiatives is vital to realizing our economic and social potential in America,” said Steve Alley, President and CEO of the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona. “With the support of funders through the LFN, literacy coalitions and providers can make significant strides in improving literacy in their backyards and across the nation.”
Low literacy rates are disproportionately higher among racial and ethnic minorities and adults with limited literacy are more likely to be unemployed, have children who have low literacy and live in poverty. In addition, illiteracy also has staggering financial implications: the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Statistics estimates $73 billion per year is spent on unnecessary health care expenses because of poor literacy and American businesses lose more than $60 billion annually in productivity due to employees’ basic skill deficiencies.
The LFN will offer participating organizations the opportunity to share best practices and research as well as create a forum for interdisciplinary dialogue in different literacy sectors such as health literacy, financial literacy, workplace literacy and family literacy. A key goal of the collaborative will be to promote and strengthen accountability and impact measurement for literacy.
“It is unconscionable that we are failing so many millions of people in our communities each year,” said Clotilde Perez-Bode Dedecker, President/CEO of the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo. “Continued inaction is not acceptable—and working together is crucial if we are to break the toxic cycle that illiteracy and poverty create and that disproportionately affect at risk communities.”
Dedecker is the founding chair and convener of the LFN and has been actively involved in supporting the Read to Succeed Buffalo initiative in Buffalo, NY. The city, the country’s third poorest, has had encouraging success in facing down the challenge of low-literacy.
“We know that literacy and poverty are connected and by addressing one of these issues we can make great strides toward accomplishing change on the other,” said Dedecker. “By forming a coalition we will be better able to share best practices and resources thereby multiplying our ability to enact real change in all of our communities.”
Already more than 20 foundations representing private, corporate and community foundations from 10 states have joined the LFN in addition to several national organizations that have consistently supported progress on the issue.
For organizations wishing to learn more about the LFN, there will be a special reception at the Council on Foundations Annual Meeting in May. Information is available at www.cof.org. The group will officially launch in June at the National Community Literacy Leadership conference in Buffalo, NY (www.LiteracyPowerline.com).
For more information about the LFN call Margaret Doughty at Literacy Powerline, (832) 721-5915. Or, call Kristine Welter at the Community Foundation
for Southern Arizona.
The Literacy Funders Network’s (LFN) mission is to increase the philanthropic community’s knowledge and understanding of literacy as a systemic issue and a tool for community change. LFN is an affinity group of the Council on Foundations.
The Community Foundation
for Southern Arizona (CFSA) was established in 1980 and is certified under the National Standards for U.S. Community Foundations. CFSA works with charitably minded individuals and organizations to strengthen Southern Arizona communities, now and for generations to come. For more information: 520.770.0800 or www.cfsoaz.org.
Download a PDF version of this release.