Educate Together is today delighted to announce that it has been awarded a million dollar grant by Salesforce.org, the philanthropic arm of Salesforce.
The grant, which is Salesforce.org’s largest European grant to date, has been awarded to the Educate Together national office on the basis of the equality-based school movement’s continued commitment to student engagement, community involvement, and equality of access at school.
The national office will use the grant funds to:
- invest in our educational research and Quality Assurance initiatives. The national office is particularly excited that the grant will allow us to develop our important ‘Quality Framework’ which we hope will further strengthen the equality, democratic and learner- centred approaches in our schools.
- further develop the organisation’s Ethical Education curriculum. The grant will allow Educate Together to promote innovative practices in schools, building the confidence of teachers in the area of Ethical Education and broaden supports and professional development programmes for teachers in Educate Together schools.
- open new Educate Together’s primary and second-level schools. The grant will support Educate Together to open new primary and second-level schools to meet the ever-growing demand.
Paul Rowe, CEO of Educate Together, commented on the Salesforce.org grant:
“The generosity of Salesforce.org will have a wonderful impact on the work of Educate Together. It will directly benefit our students, the efforts of our teachers and the many families that are seeking our model of education.”
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the grant is:
“…a really significant statement, one about the value and importance of equality-based education and of ethical education as well and will help us achieve our objectives as a Government to expand parental choice, expand diversity in education and to realise our targets of having 300 multidenominational and non-denominational schools in Ireland.”
The Educate Together national office raises much needed funds through trading, service delivery, fundraising and partnerships with likeminded organisations. This diversification of funding streams allows the national office to support the school network.
Since 2009, the Educate Together has utilised Salesforce.org’s P-10 subscriptions as our national office database. Salesforce staff also generously volunteer their time in a number of Educate Together schools. In the past, Salesforce.org has given grants to support other Irish organisations: Bridge21, Citywise Education, St. Dominic’s School in Ballyfermot and St. Peter’s School in Bray.
Salesforce.org announced the grant to Educate Together at an event in Dublin today, 18th January.
