Leverage Fund Partnerships

The Leverage Fund matches Levy dollars with other funding sources, both public and private, to maximize community impact and make more resources available for Portland's children.

In June 2010 the Allocation Committee Friday approved $2.5 million in Leverage Fund "Challenge Grant" investments to nine programs. Challenge Grants require that grantees match the Levy grant dollar for dollar.  

In Fall 2010, the Allocation Committee OK'd a $100,000 Leverage Fund "Collaboration Grant" to Portland State University. Collaboration Grants are funder-initiated partnerships in any of PCL's five funding areas.

 PREVIOUS LEVY PARTNERSHIPS:

Bridges to Housing/Portland Children's Levy ($500,000) with the Gates Foundation ($500,000) and Meyer Memorial Trust ($500,000) a total investment of $1.5 million -- ENDED 6/30/10

Portland's neediest children will have access to childcare through subsidies for 52 families currently in Bridges to Housing. The Levy dollars also allow the program to leverage local resources and provide case management services for an additional 30 to 35 families. Bridges to Housing is a local, four-county effort to alleviate family homelessness in the Portland area. Other collaborators include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Meyer Memorial Trust.

Peninsula Children's Center/Portland Children's Levy ($500,000) with United Way of the Columbia-Willamette ($570,000) and the Maybelle Clark Macdonald Fund ($50,000): for a total investment of $1.1 million -- ENDED 6/30/09

Portland's low-income families will benefit from a three-year grant totaling $1.1 million providing childcare tuition assistance and other services at Peninsula Children's Center to help ensure a healthy start in life for some of the city's youngest and poorest residents. This grant will expand Head Start-like services to all the families Peninsula serves throughout North and Northeast Portland, the majority of whom are low income. The funding will help cover tuition costs for about 80 children at Peninsula annually for the next three years through June 2009. A host of other services offered to children and their families include:

• Early childhood development specialists providing on-site and home-based parent education as well as referrals for additional services.
• Family advocacy assistance to help families obtain basic necessities such as housing, food, employment and support services for children.
• Pediatric nurse services meeting children's developmental needs.
• Hearing and speech specialists from the Hearing and Speech Institute to provide screenings as well as direct services. Another component of the grant includes a partnership with Morrison Child and Family Services to offer childhood mental health services and parenting classes at Peninsula's main campus and its before- and after-school sites.

Saturday Academy/Portland Children's Levy ($250,000) with Paul Allen Family Foundation ($200,000) and local couple (50,000): for a total investment of $500,000 -- ENDED 6/30/09

Support from the Portland Children’s Levy, the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and David and Christine Vernier totaling $500,000 will go to Saturday Academy to enrich the educations of kids in after-school programs. Specifically, the grants will allow the organization to hire more teachers and deliver after-school classes in low-income schools over the next three years.The Levy grant of $250,000 from its Leverage Fund was matched with $200,000 from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and $50,000 from David and Christine Vernier, a Portland couple and owners of Vernier Software & Technology, a Beaverton-based company that produces and distributes science software and hardware for education. The grant will allow Saturday Academy to serve nearly 2,500 additional low-income Portland students beginning this fall and through Winter 2009. The classes for students in grades four through eight include robotics, computer game design, forensics and other topics in science, math, technology, writing, humanities and the arts.

Multnomah County Library Foundation's Raising a Reader Program/Portland Children's Levy with Meyer Memorial Trust: $750,000 each for a total investment of $1.5 million -- ENDED 6/30/09

The Portland Children’s Levy and Meyer Memorial Trust provided matching $750,000 grants to The Library Foundation. The $1.5 million total award will support a range of children's literacy programs at Multnomah County Library that encourage reading from infancy through elementary school with a strong focus on family literacy and shared reading. The funding targets proven effective programs already in place at the Library that will be expanded to reach more children and families at risk for low literacy. The money from the Levy grant will fund the expansion of the Raising a Reader (RAR) program. RAR is a take-home book program that provides children with books directly from places they visit everyday: childcare centers, Head Start classrooms and nonprofit community centers. The Meyer Memorial Trust grant is a three-year challenge grant to be used to fund a variety of early childhood literacy programs.

Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Portland's Nightscape Teen Program/Portland Children's Levy with the Schnitzer Care Foundation: $375,000 each for a total investment of $750,000 -- ENDED 6/30/09

The Schnitzer Care Foundation has provided $375,000 toward the building of a new Boys and Girls Club in North Portland at the New Columbia housing site. The Portland Children’s Levy provided $150,000 toward operating after-school programs at the new location when construction is completed from July 2006 through June 2008, and $225,000 toward the Nightscape Teen program at the Blazers and Wattles Boys and Girls Clubs from October 2005 through June 2008. The Nightscape Teen program provides constructive activities for teenagers during evening and weekend hours including classes and guest speakers on a variety of topics.

Start Making a Reader Today (SMART)/Portland Children's Levy with the Gates Foundation: $320,000 each for a total investment of $640,000 -- ENDED 6/30/08

The Portland Children’s Levy and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation each provided matching grants of $320,000 to fund Start Making A Reader Today (SMART) at 20 elementary schools that serve Portland's lowest-income neighborhoods. The combined investment of $640,000 will fund SMART at these schools for two years, from July 2006 through June 2008. This public-private partnership brings support to schools where the majority of students are from low-income households. Research shows that students from low-income families generally have fewer language experiences as young children and often need extra help to catch up to their peers.

Juvenile Rights Project's Schoolworks Program/Children's Investment Fund with Meyer Memorial Trust: $325,000 each for a total investment of $650,000 -- ENDED 6/30/08

The grants from the Portland Children’s Levy and Meyer Memorial Trust will support additional attorney and social work staff to assure physical, mental and disability-related needs are met in the program and expand it by extending the age range of children served from the current 8 to 15 years of age to 5 to 18 years of age. Currently, 220 to 230 children are annually served by SchoolWorks. An additional 130 will receive services each year with the new funding that starts in July 2006 and runs through June 2009. SchoolWorks began in 2002 and is modeled after TeamChild, a Seattle-based program. SchoolWorks advocates for the education rights of children in foster care and youth in the juvenile justice system with the goal of improving their likelihood of succeeding in school. The children receive educational advocacy and social service coordination to ensure they are enrolled in and regularly attend school as well as receive any special education services they may need.