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Increasing Literacy
Basic literacy is an important component of self-sufficiency. Unfortunately, Western New York finds itself in the midst of a crisis of illiteracy which is a major contributing factor toward our ranking of third-poorest city in the United States.
To address this epidemic, the Community Foundation convened a funders collaborative to focus funding and support. Made up of the Community Foundation, The John R. Oishei Foundation and the Margaret L. Wendt Foundation, this funders collaborative facilitated the creation of Read to Succeed Buffalo (RTSB). Incubated at the Community Foundation, RTSB received its own 501(C)3 status in 2009.
Through RTSB, 52 organizations have come together to increase their impact by working collaboratively on a problem that finds one in three Buffalo residents functionally illiterate. This work was recognized early on with a $4.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education and more recently with support from the Josephine Goodyear Foundation and the Peter and Elizabeth C. Tower Foundation.
