Services
None of the social or economic challenges we face can be overcome unless all members of our communities have the literacy skills they need. Every community is unique in its characteristics and strengths.
We invite you to call us and talk about the opportunities to increase literacy levels and to build an improved system through community collaboration. By working together we leverage your community’s knowledge to create innovative solutions tailored to your needs.
Phase 1 – Assess Your Community
- Determine community need for literacy activities
- Assess current services, their effectiveness and impact
- Identify resources to support current and proposed services
Phase 2 – Plan with Community Members
- Facilitate community stakeholder planning meetings
- Conduct focus groups with people involved in workforce, family, health, financial, and computer literacy activities
- Evaluate current services, needs, and resources with representatives from education, business, philanthropy, government, as well as with students and service providers
- Produce a community literacy plan
Phase 3 – Transition to a Community Literacy Coalition
- Determine organizational structure to implement community plan
- Facilitate development of Coalition’s board and staff
- Create a fund development plan
- Develop a community outreach and marketing plan
- Design a plan for evaluating the Coalition’s work
Phase 4 – Implement the Community’s Literacy Plan
- Support project development and capacity building
- Facilitate neighborhood organizing with students and their families
- Train volunteers for leadership and mentoring
- Research and develop funding proposals
- Evaluate Coalition’s work, measuring impact of the literacy initiative
Phase 5 – Sustain and Grow the Coalition
- Provide ongoing organizational coaching and mentoring to Coalition leaders
- Conduct annual technical assistance follow-up
- Evaluate changes in community that result from the Coalition’s work
- Publicize successes and demonstrated practices of excellence
Additional Services
- Hold annual national Community Literacy Conferences to create a vibrant learning collaborative
- Convene leaders of workforce, family, health, financial, and computer literacy, to share cutting edge strategies and practices
- Present findings at local, regional and national seminars/workshops
- Publish research briefs and fact sheets tailored to different segments of the literacy community
- Produce maps showing community literacy activities and results