Overview

Using a unique venture capital approach, The Fund invests dollars and ideas in a limited number of well-managed, high-impact programs that improve school leadership. In venture capital terms, The Fund:

	Identifies high-impact programs and outstanding management teams
	Brings new ideas to the table; invests dollars and expertise
	Provides strategic management assistance to program investments
	Partners with Chicago Public Schools and city leadership
	Demands a social return on investment

The Fund carefully and efficiently invests in programs and initiatives with the potential to drive policy change and make system-wide impact. To ensure our dollars and ideas create real improvement, we won’t make an investment if CPS doesn’t sign on as a co-investor.

At the launch of The Chicago Public Education Fund in March 2000, we set out to raise $10 million and invest it in strategies and programs focused exclusively on urban school leadership. Drawing on the expertise and generosity of our investors—Chicago’s business and civic leaders—we did exactly that.

In March 2003 we surpassed our fundraising goal, investing the $10 million in a sharply focused set of programs and initiatives with broad strategic implications. Working closely with Mayor Daley, Chicago Public Schools and Chicago Teachers Union leadership to ensure systemwide impact, we’ve served as a catalyst to fundamentally change the way our urban schools recruit and develop our teachers and principals.

On April 29, 2004, we launched our $15 million Leadership Fund II, a four-year fund that has continued to focus on recruiting and developing skilled school leaders. Now we are working to deploy teams of those leaders in the schools that need them the most, to enhance the way those leaders use data to make decisions, and to reward results.

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