Created in 2009, the AFT Innovation Fund is a unique, nonprofit venture fund established to support and share successful union-led, collaborative reform efforts in public school systems across the United States. The Fund initially will work to identify, nurture and scale educator and union-led innovations in public education.

The AFT Innovation Fund is sponsored by the American Federation of Teachers, which represents more than 1.4 million members, including teachers and other education professionals. As an initiative of the AFT, the Fund’s reach is nationwide, with emphasis on the country’s largest urban areas.

By creating the Fund, the AFT expects to accomplish two goals for improving public education:

1. Improve student achievement in school systems with AFT affiliates by building strong 1. local teams of teachers and school staff with improved skills and strategies; and
2. Strengthen the AFT’s role as a leader and engaged partner in the nation’s education 2. reform efforts.

Specifically, the Fund will develop, test and refine three types of education innovations over an initial 10-year period (2009-2018):

• New systems and relationships that cultivate and measure effective teaching systemwide;
• Professional pathways and new compensation systems that enable educators to have varying roles, responsibilities and rewards;
• High-quality, scalable public school options that address unique needs, especially in urban schools.

These three priorities all reflect areas where union, management/school district and community leaders need new approaches for working together to improve student learning, as well as where changes to union-district contracts may need to be identified and negotiated. As such, they represent areas where the AFT can play a unique and vital role among education reform advocates and grant-makers.

The AFT Innovation Fund aims to seed up to 30 education innovations in these three areas over its initial 10-year time span, with the expectation that up to six (20 percent) will prove to be durable, breakthrough efforts that influence student achievement and can begin to be adapted in school systems around the country.

The Fund expects its successful projects to begin to show some impact on student learning and success (including grade-level achievement gains and changes in teacher practices and leadership) within three to five years of the initial funding, and to show more significant impact (including changes in student achievement as measured by multiple sources of evidence, such as student work samples, test scores, participation in advanced courses and graduation rates) within five to eight years.

The AFT will use the resources of the Fund to seed innovations in two key ways:

• Grants: The majority of the fund’s resources will be distributed as grants to affiliates via a competitive selection process, and will be used for planning and implementation activities that advance innovations in the three areas described above.
• Technical assistance: A significant portion of resources will provide technical assistance and capacity-building assistance to affiliates—both to build stronger commitment to and understanding of innovation unionwide, and to support the success of fund grantees.

While the AFT Innovation Fund’s resources will be concentrated in grant-making to affiliates, the complementary investment in technical assistance is at least as essential; what makes the fund distinctive—and more likely to succeed than past reforms—is its commitment to invest in both areas, providing support for affiliates to change their practices.

To ensure the Fund’s success, the AFT has made a sizable financial commitment of more than $1 million annually in cash and in-kind staffing and office support. It also has already raised an additional $2.3 million from major national foundations to support its work in 2009 and 2010. Over the fund’s initial 10-year lifespan, the AFT expects to raise and invest $16 million to $20 million to support innovation in education. The AFT intends for the AFT Innovation Fund to be a permanent initiative of the union.