The whole point of Shanahan on Literacy is to encourage and support higher reading achievement. Towards that end, each year I recommend the highest rated literacy charities. I recognize that, like me, you have deep commitments to children’s reading success. That’s why it makes sense to include in our charitable giving organizations that distribute books to kids or that support their reading education in other ways, too.
Annually, I consult Charity Navigator (U.S.) and Charity Intelligence (Canada) to identify the top-rated literacy charities (4-stars in U.S., and 5-stars in Canada). What that means is that you can be sure that every one of these charities:
- Is international, national, or multi-regional in scope,
- Focuses entirely or mainly on providing books and literacy instruction to populations in need,
- Provides these services directly to children,
- Is transparent in its reporting, and
- Spends all or most of their donations fulfilling their missions rather than on paying for fund-raising and other overhead costs.
Any donations to these organizations will make good literacy things happen for lots of boys and girls.
I have no connections to any of these charities.
It’s worth reminding everyone that there are literally hundreds of local, state, and provincial charities that meet all but the first of my criteria. These are terrific agencies, but there are far too many for me to evaluate. If you seek a worthy place to make local literacy donations, I encourage you to check with Charity Navigator or Charity Intelligence.
Of course, the major purpose of this entry is to encourage financial support for these valuable institutions. However, it could be used in a couple of other ways as well.
This wonderful list not only details worthwhile charities. Many of my readers serve children from economically distressed families – the same types of kids who are the focus of these agencies. This list may be useful for identifying potential sources of support for your kids or partnerships for your schools.
I understand that some of you may not be able to make a financial contribution to these charities, but many of them seek the assistance of volunteers. That may work better for some of you.
I’m recommending these charities today, but will keep these listings on the charity page of my website through the coming year: Shanahan Charities
Barbara Bush Foundation supports reading mentoring programs for children in grades 1 through 3. Read Squad, for instance, pairs struggling young readers with teen mentors, as well as provides books and resources to be used at home to support skill development for both children and their parents. There are now 150 of these programs across 6 states, and since 2002, they have distributed more than 600,000 books and helped improve the reading skills of more than 41,000 children.
Barbershop Books is a family and community engagement model that helps libraries, school districts, city governments, and local nonprofits to implement early literacy programming in neighborhood barbershops for Black boys. This reading identity development program uses boy-approved books to create child-friendly reading spaces in barbershops. Participating barbershops receive early literacy training and branded materials, increasing access to male reading role models and out-of-school time reading opportunities.
Book Trust is a national early literacy nonprofit aimed at increasing book ownership for thousands of students to promote reading motivation and engagement. They provide books to children through more than 100 school partnerships. Over the past 25 years, they have provided more than 10 million books to more than a half million kids. Last year alone, nearly 50,000 students were able to choose almost 600,000 books.
Books for Africa. Most African children who attend school have never owned a book of their own. In many classrooms, 10-20 students share one textbook. Books For Africa supplies sea containers of books to rural school libraries, orphanages, adult literacy programs, and community resource centers (containers hold about 25k books). Founded in 1988, Books for Africa collects, sorts, ships, and distributes books to children in Africa. Books donated by publishers, schools, libraries, individuals, and organizations are sorted and packed by volunteers who carefully choose books that are age and subject appropriate. They send good books for whole classes to use. In the past year, they have provided more than 1.6 million books to children in 31 countries.
Children’s Literacy Initiative provides professional development and resources aimed at improving early literacy instruction and learning. Their efforts provide coaching for teachers, workshops and seminars, and they stock classrooms with books. They help educators serving high-need student populations to learn high-impact instructional strategies aimed at school improvement. Currently, the Initiative serves more than 250 schools in 6 states with more than 16,000 children. Over the past 12 years, CLI has helped more than 30,000 teachers deliver quality PK- 5 literacy instruction.
Curious Learning works with partners to curate, localize, and distribute free open-source apps in more than 40 languages that empower everyone to have the opportunity to learn to read. They work to empower users with the resources and tools to activate learning and engagement, from the individual child who wants to learn to read, to the parent who wants more for their children, and to the teacher striving to help many. Their technology resources have been downloaded more than 6 million times.
Ferst Readers aims at providing quality books and literacy resources for children and their families to use at home during the earliest stages of development. Their efforts focus on children in low-income communities. They provide age-appropriate books to ensure that parents have the literacy resources needed to support early learning and book sharing. By mailing a new book every month to enrolled children, birth to five, Ferst Readers is committed to providing early learning opportunities. They have distributed more than 9 million books since 1999 (more than 600,000 books each year now in 11 states)!
First Book is dedicated to ensuring that all children, regardless of their background or zip code, can succeed, by removing barriers to equitable education. They reach 6.5 million kids each year in low-income communities across North America, providing books and resources through a powerful network of more than 600,000 educators, the largest online community of its kind. By infusing high-quality resources into classrooms and programs nationwide, they help ensure that children are ready to learn.
International Book Project develops lasting partnerships with under-served communities to provide books, promote literacy, and advance economic opportunity across the country, and around the globe. The books they ship are individually curated to the requests of their partners and range from a few dozen books to sea containers of 30,000+ books for libraries and schools. Since their founding in 1966, International Book Project has shipped close to 8 million books to 168 countries.
Raising a Reader focuses on increasing and improving home shared reading routines through the development of family literacy libraries. Their program currently operates through 296 affiliates in 34 states. Over the past year they have served nearly 150,000 children and their families. This program has been proven to increase the amount of shared reading that takes place in homes across the country.
Reach Out and Read, for more than 35 years, has used pediatric checkups to help parents and children build trust, strengthen language skills, and nurture emotional health through reading. They are now in all 50 states and serve 4.6 million children through their 6,500 program sites that provide almost 8 million books each year. Their pediatric network provides families with the knowledge and tools they need to make reading a part of their daily routine.
Reading is Fundamental is the oldest of the book ownership programs. It was founded in the 1960s with the purpose of making books available to children growing up in poverty. This year alone they have distributed almost 5 million books and other literacy resources, and their efforts reach 91 percent of all elementary schools in the United States (serving 24 million children). They also support summer reading programs, and their Skybrary digital library for children ages 2 to 9.
Reading Partners helps children become lifelong readers by empowering communities to provide individualized instruction with measurable results. They do this by focusing on children from low-income communities; giving one-on-one instruction at the student's reading level; recruiting and training community volunteers to work with children; partnering with high-need elementary schools to offer free services on the school campus; and providing a way for volunteers to give a small amount of their time to make a huge difference in a child's life. Over the lifespan of this program, more than 3 million direct tutoring sessions have been delivered.
Room to Read seeks to transform the lives of millions of children in developing countries by focusing on literacy and gender equality in education. Working in collaboration with local communities, partner organizations and governments, they develop literacy skills and a habit of reading among primary school children, and support girls to complete secondary school with the relevant life skills to succeed in school and beyond. The literacy programs that they support around the world have served 52 million children in 29 countries and they have distributed more than 39 million books.
United Through Reading unites military families facing physical separation by facilitating the bonding experience of reading aloud. In more than 200 locations worldwide on land and at sea, it offers military service members the opportunity to be video-recorded reading books to the special children in their lives. More than 2 million families have used the United Through Literacy app. Services can be accessed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. When service members read to the children they love and send the video recordings and books home: family morale is boosted; separation-related stress is reduced; family reading routines are maintained; children remain connected to their service members, making family reintegration easier; and children's literacy and language skills develop.
Canadian Charities
CODE promotes every child’s right to read. It works in partnership with locally based organizations to promote local literacy education efforts around the world. In 2024. It provided literacy programs to more than 500,000 children and trained more than 14,000 teachers in more than 1,800 schools. CODE distributed almost 400,000 children’s books.
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