6/24/26 – (From left) Taylor Toynes (For Oak Cliff), Byron Sanders (Dallas ISD), Jason Green (CFT’s Educate Texas) and Kerri Briggs, Ph.D. (CFT’s Educate Texas)

The Communities Foundation of Texas (CFT) awarded more than $10 million to support educational advancement through grants to local nonprofits, investments in its Educate Texas initiative and scholarships for students.

Organizations receiving funding include Communities in Schools of the Dallas Region, For Oak Cliff, The Dallas Foundation, Texas 2036, CFT’s Educate Texas and United to Learn.

“We view education as one of the key drivers in creating a thriving community for all,” said Wayne White, president and CEO of Communities Foundation of Texas, in a statement. “These investments are addressing challenges in new ways to equip students for success, reducing barriers and expanding economic mobility while modernizing systems and building pathways towards brighter futures.” 

The investments focus on three key areas affecting education today: chronic absenteeism, artificial intelligence in the classroom and support across the education-to-career pipeline.

Chronic absenteeism, defined as missing at least 10% of school days in a year, remains a growing challenge for schools, according to a CFT press release. To address the issue, CFT committed $2 million to a new Chronic Absenteeism Initiative aimed at improving middle school attendance in South Dallas, South Oak Cliff and Wilmer-Hutchins through coordinated community-based efforts.

The initiative will be led by For Oak Cliff through its “Go to School” campaign, which combats chronic absenteeism through teacher home visits, parent workshops and community celebrations. The nonprofit also received a $1 million grant to support the effort.

“The solution of chronic absenteeism is getting everybody to show up to school and just tell everybody ‘go to school,’” said Taylor Toynes, For Oak Cliff founder, during CFT’s Investment in Education Announcement event. “The campaign is really important for us, and we put a lot of work into it with this strategy.”

Byron Sanders, a Dallas ISD District 5 trustee, said financial hardships continue to contribute to attendance challenges for many students and families.

“Some of the economic challenges that people are still experiencing are causing a special kind of duress at home, and we’d be kidding ourselves if we didn’t acknowledge that that’s happening,” Sanders said. “We already had working children, we got more working children now.”

As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly integrated into education, Educate Texas is expanding efforts to support its responsible use in schools across the state. The initiative’s AI + Education Collaborative received a $3.7 million investment to help educators thoughtfully adopt and implement AI tools.

“When you think about most of us as learners, we don’t learn best in classrooms where we’re listening to a lecture,” said Jason Green, senior director of AI Strategy and System Alignment at Educate Texas. “We are multimodal, we are creative, we want hands on, we want classrooms. So what AI is doing is actually forcing us to reckon with a learning crisis that we’ve been avoiding for years.”

CFT also invested $1.3 million in Educate Texas’ Opportunity Youth Collaborative, which connects underemployed and undereducated young adults with educational opportunities and career pathways.

“This is about helping young adults access meaningful careers, earn a living wage and build the future they want for themselves,” said Kerry Briggs, executive director of Educate Texas, in a press release.

Additional funding includes a $600,000 grant to Communities in Schools of the Dallas Region to improve student outcomes by addressing nonacademic barriers to success. The Dallas Foundation’s Bright Futures Alliance received $500,000 to support early childhood development initiatives in Southern Dallas.

Texas 2036 received $500,000 for its Building a Stronger Future for Texas initiative, while United to Learn received $250,000 to support its Team Thrive model and Aspiring Teachers program focused on K-3 literacy intervention.

In addition to the grants, CFT awarded more than $2 million in scholarships to 415 local students to help cover tuition and other educational expenses.

“Our focus is straightforward: help more students stay on track and keep moving forward from early learning through college and career,” said Robert Kent, chief philanthropy officer at CFT. “These are the moments that shape a student’s trajectory and, in turn, their access to opportunity.”