Center Education Foundation
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Public school districts are underfunded from tax dollars largely due to the cost of a wide variety of mandates from state and federal legislation. Tight budgets restrict teachers from providing all of the enriching educational experiences that they would like to create for their students. The Center School District in South Kansas City Missouri has all of these challenges. In addition, high poverty rates among our student families create significant challenges for students and teachers, with students bringing lots of trauma based emotions to the classroom.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Teacher Grant Program
We provide grants to teachers in the Center School District to allow them to provide experiences for their students that enhance learning and academic achievement. Teachers apply for grants via a standard form. Applications are reviewed by a Board sub-committee and then approved by the Board of Directors.
Ending Student Homelessness
Around 200 students in the Center School District are considered homeless by the definition of the federal McKinney-Vento standard. In 2019, a community collaborative was formed under the leadership of Serve the World Charities to focus resources to help families develop the skills and resources to succeed in permanent housing. Using a Collective Impact model, the program provides access to a wide variety of support services as well as intensive one-on-one case management to identify and overcome the family's barriers to success.
Where we work
External reviews

Our Sustainable Development Goals
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Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
The primary goal of the Center Education Foundation is to provide resources that enable teachers to maximize the positive impact that they have on student learning, helping students prepare to be successful in post-secondary education and, ultimately, in well-paying, high demand careers.
The goal is to help teachers overcome the resource gap between funds from public sources and the need for rich and high impact learning experiences.
In addition, our goal is to provide resources and work with community organizations that address the social and emotional needs of students to help them be ready to learn when they are at school. This can include helping to address issues of persistent poverty, housing instability, and family and community dynamics that impact student mental health.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
When the Center Education Foundation was created in 1999, we quickly realized that the single best way to impact student learning in the Center School District was to support the work of classroom teachers. Our primary strategy since that time has been to provide funds through a competitive grant program that teachers can request to enhance student learning opportunities.
As the Foundation has grown, our ability to help teachers has also improved. We currently award over $50,000 per year with 40-50 grants covering a wide range of academic areas. The ages served by grants range from birth to high school seniors. Academic areas addressed including technology, art, science, math, social studies, literacy, school libraries, physical education, travel experiences, music, behavior, and safety net supports.
All grant recipients are required to provide feedback to the Foundation on how the funds were expended and how the program impacted student learning.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
The Foundation consists of a volunteer board of alumni and community leaders who raise funds and administer the grant program. An Executive Director provides the day to day support for the Foundation's activities. Funds are raised through a variety of community sources, including corporate partners, alumni, individual donors, and Center staff who donate through a payroll deduction program.
The grant review process is conducted by a volunteer group of educators who do an initial screening of requests and make recommendations to the Foundation Board. The Board makes the final funding decisions. Funds are given to the School District to be disbursed to support the teachers per normal district financial procedures.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Over the past three years, we have awarded over $170,000 in classroom grants to Center teachers.
As we move forward, we expect to continue to expand our impact by developing new sources of revenue so that we can approve more of the grant requests that are submitted.
In addition, we are expanding our mission to work with a community-based program called Impact Center to address some of the outside needs of our students and their families. The immediate goal of Impact Center is to end homelessness for Center students by providing a wide variety of support resources to help homeless families get into and stay in dignified, permanent housing. Longer term, we expect this group to also address the larger problem of housing instability for our families.
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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Center Education Foundation
Board of directorsas of 05/06/2022
Mr. William Gotfredson
Aaron Racine
Monaco, Sanders, Racine, Powell & Reidy
Kathi Shaw
Kathleen Shaw, CPA
Lisa Hardwick
Missouri Court of Appeals
Ted Beckett
Beckett & Hensley
Martha Capehart
Retired
Alan Farris
Landmark National Bank
John Grossnickle
UMB Bank
John Parker
Q10 Capital Advisors
Selina Rios
City Year
Reggie Stockman
Stockman Law Firm
Cathy Stoetzer
Husch, Blackwell
Rick Sanford
Platinum Realty
Larry Mattson
Retired
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Sexual orientation
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Disability
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