NCFL & Family Literacy
Corporate Partners
Get to know NCFL’s current corporate partners!
Corporate partners not only fund NCFL’s work, they advise the organization on business practices and follow the results of their investment over time. To learn more about NCFL’s groundbreaking partnerships or to find out about joining these efforts, please contact Emily Kirkpatrick, NCFL vice president.
Toyota
Toyota, one of the nation’s most successful corporations, began a partnership with NCFL in 1991. In addition to a commitment of more than $35 million, Toyota has also contributed a wealth of in-kind support — including advertising, planning and management expertise — to form one of the most progressive corporate/nonprofit partnerships in the nation.
Three major programs have been developed through the Toyota partnership based on the family literacy model of parents and children learning together. These models have influenced federal and state legislation, leveraged local dollars to support family literacy and led to successful programs being replicated across the country.
Verizon
Verizon’s ongoing commitment to NCFL and families has been marked by the tremendous support of cutting-edge, technology-based solutions to the nation’s literacy challenges. NCFL is a major content developer for Thinkfinity Literacy Network, a free, online resource that provides training and information and is a core component of Verizon’s hinkfinity educational platform. Other recent NCFL/Verizon efforts include Parenting for Academic Success, a unique curriculum for English language learners, and Tech Savvy, a special awards program that recognizes programs that help parents to better guide their children’s use of technology for learning.
Better World Books
Better World Books selected NCFL as its domestic literacy partner in 2005 and has raised more than $830,000 to support NCFL’s work and more than $11 million to support literacy efforts worldwide. Better World Books is a triple-bottom-line online bookstore, working equally for people, planet and profit. Each book purchased powers a book donation to someone in need. Better World Books’ support of NCFL has provided books and workshops for families after Hurricane Katrina, donated large book donations to literacy programs and families nationwide and fueled innovative family literacy and learning programs and resources in libraries, schools and community-based organizations. In addition to their work for literacy, Better World Books diverts books from the landfill and offers carbon-balanced shipping.
The Dollar General Literacy Foundation
The Dollar General Literacy Foundation began partnering with NCFL in 2006. Most recently, the Foundation partnership supports three new initiatives: Strengthening Our Adult Readers (SOAR), another initiative meeting the needs of the American Indian population, this time focused on adult learners; the Early Literacy Initiative, developed to disseminate the soon-to-be-released groundbreaking research of the National Early Literacy Panel in practical terms for parents; and a project to provide much-needed literacy materials in Spanish for Hispanic families. Previously, the Foundation supported a project designed to provide dialogic reading training for American Indian parents and children in the Family and Child Education (FACE) Program, a Bureau of Indian Education-supported project that NCFL has been working with for nearly two decades.
Pitney Bowes
Pitney Bowes has actively supported NCFL since 2004. Currently, two projects are ongoing: an initiative to disseminate critical information to literacy teachers and programs through technology, and a planning grant to support the replication of the La Lectura en Familia program. NCFL piloted La Lectura en Familia in 2004; it is a program model that successfully addressed the specific literacy needs of Spanish-speaking families with preschool-age children. NCFL and La Lectura were featured in the new Pitney Bowes Community Investments brochure, the Fortune 500 company’s first philanthropy publication.
Southern California McDonald’s
NCFL’s partnership with the Southern California McDonald’s restaurants is fueling McDonald’s Family Mealtime Literacy Nights. This innovative new program is designed to show parents of preschoolers how they can use simple household routines and items to teach literacy, math and science.