Invest in the future of Richmond,
one bold idea at a time.
We are the trusted bridge between our city’s students and the people who want to invest in their success.
The Richmond Ed Fund is a locally based nonprofit working to give RPS the resources, relationships, and runway it needs to launch and grow big, system-changing work. We partner directly with the district to identify what matters most for students, raise the dollars to make it possible, and help turn promising ideas into game-changing wins for Richmond’s learners.
Richmond Ed Fund At A Glance
Who We Are
We are RPS’s philanthropic partner, serving as an innovation engine that supports the district’s most ambitious work in literacy, learning conditions, and life beyond graduation. We bridge research, capital, and relationships to help bold ideas take root and grow.
What We Do
We partner with RPS to identify what matters most for students, raise the funding to make it possible, and help transform promising ideas into reality. We align investments with RPS’s strategic priorities, helping the district test, refine, and scale what works, with shared accountability for results.
Why We Do It
Because every young person deserves access to a school system that fully develops their potential, and because our region’s stability and success depends on it. We mobilize investments, partnerships, and ideas to help Richmond Public Schools deliver real results for students and communities.
How We Help
Our work delivers real gains in literacy, learning time, and postsecondary pathways, while building a stronger system for the long term. By helping design bold solutions, validate them with real-world results, and scale what works, we turn philanthropic investments into sustainable, district-owned impact.
Preparing young people for futures they deserve means more than better test scores.
It involves stability, quality teaching, meaningful pathways after graduation, and a community willing to invest in their lifelong success.
Where We Invest
Public Education
Economic Mobility
Public dollars are designed to operate a school system. Flexible capital can do something different: take early risks, test promising approaches, and build evidence before they scale. Through the Differentiator Fund, REF invests in ideas tied to clear student outcomes and uses what we learn to decide what should grow.
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Rich Futures builds the infrastructure between education and economic mobility. We invest where pathways break down, from career navigation and paid work-based learning to employer access, credentials, transportation, and matching, so young people can move from school into a next step that expands their economic opportunity.
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Venture + Reinvestment
Some challenges need more than a traditional grant. RVA Can helps build and finance new solutions where no adequate model exists, testing what works and using the evidence to decide what should grow, be carried forward by another organization or system, or inform the next investment.
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Richmond Public Schools at a Glance
Richmond Public Schools (RPS) serves a deeply diverse and dynamic student population while navigating persistent underinvestment and gaps in opportunity.
students
22,000
83%
Black & Hispanic students
students economically disadvantaged
students learning English
THIRD-GRADE
READING
100% by 2030
ON-TIME
GRADUATION
90% by 2030
PATHWAY TO A
LIVING WAGE
50% increase by 2031
2 in 3
1 in 5
What We’re Working to Change
