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Donate

Financial contributions of any size greatly support our mission to bring effective, research-validated programs and materials to teachers, students, parents, and community organizations in order to improve student learning. And these resources are needed now more than ever.

Your tax-deductible donation will allow us to:

provide our evidence-based programs and services in ways that will not only reduce the learning loss that students will otherwise experience as a result of COVID-19, but also improve these students’ skills in ways that will offer them long-term school and career opportunities.
donate free materials to schools, offer professional development to educators around the world, and continue to develop new educational resources.

Helps Education Fund is an incorporated 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, and all contributions are tax-deductible. Our Tax ID is 45-2046989.

Even modest, one-time donations help us to fulfill our mission.

Thank you for your support!

The impacts of COVID-19 require even stronger efforts to support children’s foundational literacy. Here’s why:

Recent estimates suggest that the average student will begin school with significantly lower levels of literacy compared to a typical school year. This will be due to a combination of summer learning loss as well as the learning loss associated with COVID and school closings in March.
Some students may fall behind an entire school year and the most significant learning loss is expected for:
- Students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds
- Students in the lower primary grades

If we do not support these students’ learning now, research suggests that the negative impacts of COVID-19 will continue to undermine their learning and opportunity for years to come.

Below are just some of the ways that Helps Education Fund responded to COVID-19 to support at-home learning for the families and students we serve:

When schools closed in March 2020 and all in-person literacy support was suspended, we immediately developed and piloted a model for virtually implementing our internationally recognized Helping Early Literacy with Practice Strategies (HELPS) reading program.
Over the summer, our staff and volunteers implemented HELPS in four different locations around the United States and we worked with even more school districts and partner organizations to plan for virtual HELPS support to take place internationally during the 2020-2021 school year.
We partnered with local and national organizations to get parents free and immediate access to our Parents & Schools Together to Enhance Learning (PASTEL) guidebook, which offers more than 60 fun, easy-to-use, and evidence-based activities that can be used by parents/caregivers at home to improve their child’s literacy skills.
We developed and offered parents and caregivers free, online informational sessions and support to assist them with using PASTEL.
Consistent with our work since Helps Education Fund was founded, we continued to promote educational equity by prioritizing our support for students and families who are historically most underserved, such as students and families of color and/or those who are economically disadvantaged.

You can support us by making a tax-deductible donation. Thank you!

Volunteer

Thank you for your interest in volunteering with us! It is because of our volunteers, folks just like you who donate their talents and time, that Helps Education Fund is able to achieve our mission of supporting educators and community organizations and improving learning outcomes for students.

We offer community service opportunities no matter where you live; there are many ways for you to support our organization and mission.

Opportunities

If you are in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Chatham County, Durham, Greensboro, or Raleigh, NC, we are looking for committed volunteers to become tutors and support a child through our HELPS One-on-One program. Other volunteer opportunities (regardless of your location) include assistance with communication and outreach, video and material development, language translation, fundraising, serving on the governing board or a committee, and more. We welcome the opportunity to work with volunteers from across NC, the US, and the world!

To become a volunteer, please complete our volunteer registration form so we can learn more about your experience, interests and preferred volunteer activities. This information will help us to match you with the opportunity that you will find most fulfilling.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg residents who want to learn more about HELPS tutoring or sign up to become a tutor can visit our HELPS tutoring in Charlotte-Mecklenburg page.

If you would like to find out about group volunteering opportunities, please contact John Begeny at john@helpseducationfund.org.

Volunteer in Charlotte-Mecklenburg

Partner with Us

It is impossible for us to do our work without the generous contributions and support of our corporate and community partners.

Corporate Partners

One of the goals of Helps Education Fund is to offer free and low cost programs and services to schools and community organizations serving students. We are able to do this because of the financial contributions of our incredible corporate partners.

We offer a variety of corporate partnership & sponsorship opportunities.

Interested in becoming a corporate partner or want to learn more? Contact Dr. John Begeny at john@helpseducationfund.org

Community Partners

Helps Education Fund’s mission is to connect research with practice and engage teachers, parents, and volunteers to improve student learning. In order to achieve this mission, we seek to create authentic collaborations with community partners such as:

schools or after-school programs that provide the sites/locations where our programs or services can be delivered
colleges, businesses, faith based organizations, individuals, etc. to assist us with recruiting volunteers who could be trained to provide one of our programs (e.g., HELPS)

Interested in becoming a community partner or want to learn more? Contact Dr. John Begeny at john@helpseducationfund.org

Helps Education Fund has a policy to not pay indirect costs. Helps Education Fund will only pay research and project expenses that are directly attributable to project outcomes and outputs as direct costs for project activities in a mutually agreed upon scope of work.

We define “direct costs” as expenses required to execute an identified project that are directly attributable and can be reasonably allocated to the project.

Program staff salaries, travel expenses, materials, and consultants required to execute a contract are examples of allowable direct costs. These costs would not be incurred outside of contracted work identified in a project's scope of work.

Examples of allowable direct costs include:

Personnel. Salaries and wages of employees working directly on a project, including fringe benefits. These costs should be substantiated by time keeping and/or an allocation methodology, and can include directly attributable and allocable project management and support, project legal or accounting functions (substantiated by timekeeping).
Travel. Travel expenses for trips directly needed to deliver the project.
Consultants. Contracted staff working directly on the project.
Equipment. Costs for equipment directly used by the project (can include purchase/replacement, operation, maintenance; to be pro-rated in case of partial use).
Sub-awards. Grants or contracts with other organizations that directly contribute to the project outcomes.

We define “indirect costs” as general overhead and administration expenses that support the entire operations of a grantee or contractor and that may be shared across projects. These expenses would be incurred regardless of whether the project is funded by Helps Education Fund and are often indicative of indirect costs. Examples include facilities expenses (e.g. rent, utilities, equipment for the grantee's headquarters, and associated information systems and support and administrative staff such as HR, general finance, accounting, IT, and legal). None of these costs are allowable expenses for projects supported by Helps Education Fund.