Fund for Educational Excellence
The Fund for Educational Excellence is a Baltimore-based non-profit organization that supports public education through its fundraising and collaboration with Baltimore City Public Schools, convening of education stakeholders, and serving as a fiscal sponsor to non-profit organizations. The Fund acts as an independent ambassador, drawing upon its understanding of education needs in Baltimore City, as well as strong relationships with the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, to ensure the best possible education for our city’s public school students. The organization provides stewardship for over $20 million in private philanthropic support for programming targeted towards Baltimore City students.
The Community School
The Community School is a state-certified, non-public school that provides individualized academics and mentoring for high school students who require an alternative educational route. The Community School educates up to twenty-two students a year, providing significant mentoring in a small environment to help their students achieve success personally and academically. In addition to a rigorous, yet individualized, college preparatory curriculum, The Community School offers mentoring around personal habits, skills, and responsibility.
Baltimore’s Promise, Fiscally Sponsored by Fund for Educational Excellence
The Grads2Careers initiative seeks to establish a pathway for City Schools graduates who are not enrolled in four-year colleges or universities into well paying, high-demand, and high-growth occupations in the city and region. Phase I saw the 18-21 year old population served by Grads2Careers meeting the targets of 70% enrollment, 70% completion, and 70% or more participants being placed in job or enrolling in college. On a systems level, the initiative seeks to build capacity at the Mayor’s Office of Employment Development, City Schools, and with occupational skills-training providers as these various entities work together to better serve the 18-21 year old population seeking to enter the workforce directly after high school.
Baltimore Corps
The Baltimore Corps Mayoral Fellowship Program provides fifteen undergraduate seniors and graduate students a ten-week, full time, internship in high priority City Hall offices/agencies, working on Executive-level projects under key directors. In addition to their work assignments, participants attend weekly luncheons with pertinent speakers, do community service projects, and enjoy planned social events around the City. The ultimate goal of the Mayoral Fellowship is to encourage talented individuals, with an interest in public service to seek permanent positions within City government.
Teach For America-Baltimore
Teach For America’s organizational mission is to find, develop, and support equity-oriented leaders, to transform education and expand opportunity for children, starting in the classroom. Teach For America Baltimore utilizes a strategy of recruiting a diverse group of leaders from across the nation to commit at least two years of teaching to high needs classrooms. For the 2020-2021 school year, Teach For America seeks to strategically recruit and place 83-92 diverse corps members in difficult to staff teaching positions in low-income schools, alongside providing ongoing support to nearly 1300 alumni leaders working in various roles including principals, non-profit leaders, or other positions with the capacity to impact education throughout the city.