Funding and innovating in education isn’t easy – there are an overwhelming amount of areas that need help.
Every aspect of the educational system plays a pivotal role:
Students need well-trained, culturally responsive teachers. But they also need physical resources. And support from both school staff and their families.
Teachers need professional development opportunities, solid infrastructure, and also intrinsic motivation.
School leaders need room to lead their communities, consistent and deep involvement with their team, and access to r resources.
While no one expects any team or nonprofit to do it all, some try their hardest to meet everyone’s requirements.
And the DC Public Education Fund is one of them.
Inspiring and inclusive experiences are becoming more common in the D.C. area thanks to the work DC Public Schools (DCPS) is achieving through the DC Public Education Fund, a key player behind the city’s most transformative public education efforts.
Founded in 2007, the DC Public Education Fund serves as a unique connector between private donors and DCPS’ most ambitious goals.
It has raised more than $200 million to fund initiatives that reimagine how students learn and how educators teach, with fairness always at the center.
This blog unpacks the Ed Fund’s public-private model, highlights its partnership with the Sullivan Family Charitable Foundation (SFCF), and outlines the lasting impact these collaborations have made for multilingual learners, teachers, and families.
What the DC Public Education Fund Does and Why It Works
At its core, the DC Public Education Fund aligns high-impact philanthropic investments with DCPS’s most urgent and strategic priorities.
This includes, but isn’t limited to:
• Piloting and proving bold new ideas
• Scaling approaches that show measurable results
• Embedding innovation into long-term district strategies
• Finding unconventional solutions to common education problems
By securing early funding for programs like dual-language expansion or culturally responsive teacher training, the DC Ed Fund provides school leaders and teachers the room to experiment, assess, and then adopt what works, at scale.
Their related initiatives either look for academic acceleration, increased student belonging and safety, and/or expanding students’ pathways.
What distinguishes their model is its ability to reach historically underserved students by investing in equity-focused, community-informed initiatives.
Why the DC Public Education Fund Model Is a National Standout
The DC Ed Fund is a leading example of how philanthropy and public education can work in sync. Its strength lies in:
• Speed and Flexibility: The Fund enables rapid prototyping and scaling of promising ideas.
• Strategic Alignment: Initiatives respond to district goals.
• Lasting Results: DCPS and the DC Public Education Fund are able to combine public and private funding to maintain programs through time.
This kind of agile, aligned, and outcomes-driven approach is rare, but replicable.
How We Work Together to Fuel Multilingual Equity
The Sullivan Family Charitable Foundation works closely with the DC PEF to advance multilingual equity in DCPS. Our contributions aim to:
• Expand dual-language program access for multilingual learners: Giving students, particularly English Learners, access to rigorous instruction in both English and Spanish
• Strengthen teacher preparation: Investing in coaching, mentorship, and professional development focused on culturally responsive practices.
• Build inclusive family-school relationships: Supporting tools and training that end up improving communication with multilingual families and foster trust within the community.
• Harness teacher creativity: Through mini-grants that allow teachers to innovate practices in their classroom and beyond.
Thanks to these and other types of efforts and partnerships, Washington D.C. is a national leader in dual-language education.
On the one hand, during 2019, nearly one-third of English Learners in the district were enrolled in dual-language programs, a higher share than any other U.S. state. Additionally, in 2024, dual language and language immersion programs were among the most popular options for DC families.
On the other hand, that’s still not enough. Our work with DC PEF aims to strengthen current dual language programs so we can expand access to reach more multilingual learners.
Results That Matter: Milestones and Impact
Over the last 18 years, the DC Public Education Fund has:
• Raised over $240 million to fund school transformation across DCPS
• Completed over 54,000 seminars and 110,000 coaching sessions for educators
• Reached over 900,000 students in the district
Additionally, with their current projects, they:
• Support over 2,000 DCPS alums in their post-secondary degree pursuit
• Integrate more than 20 schools in their whole-child model implementation program
• Help fund 26 DCPS doctoral and masters students (Fall 2025)
• Provide the opportunity for over 6,000 community stakeholders to redesign high schools across the district, through ongoing coaching and professional development services as well as granting resources for specific campaigns
Among their most successful initiatives they helped design and expand you will find:
• IMPACT and IMPACTplus: A pioneering teacher evaluation process that started in 2009 and reinvented the system to set better expectations, accountability, and opportunities for educators.
• LEAP: LEAP, or LEarning together to Advance our Practice, is a professional development model that gives teachers weekly collaborative coaching and support to improve their practice.
• Cornerstones: A curriculum initiative delivering rich, shared learning experiences across subjects like math, science, social studies, art, health, world languages, and more.
• DC Education Equity Fund: During the pandemic, the DC Public Education Fund partnered with the Greater Washington Community Foundation and Education Forward DC to help secure over $2M in emergency relief and ensure devices, internet access, and basic necessities coverage.
These investments have contributed to DCPS being recognized as the fastest-improving urban district in the country.
What Comes Next for DC Public Education
As the DC Public Education Fund looks to the future, several key challenges remain:
• Sustaining innovation without relying solely on public budgets or philanthropy
• Meeting growing demand for dual-language programs
• Supporting newcomer families amid rising migration trends
• Maintaining innovative ideas through time
• Retaining a diverse, culturally responsive educator workforce
Philanthropy can continue to play a catalytic role by providing flexible capital, underwriting risk-taking, and funding the staff and systems that make equity scalable.
How Innovation and Equity Meet
In a public school system as dynamic as DCPS, meaningful change takes good ideas, but also the right partners.
The DC Public Education Fund is proving that with flexible capital, community-aligned priorities, and trusted collaboration, philanthropy can help reinvent public education.
With ongoing support from organizations like the Sullivan Family Charitable Foundation, the DC Public Education Fund continues to power inclusive, high-impact learning experiences that reflect the diversity and promise of every student they serve.
