Purpose of the Leverage Fund

In December 2004, the Portland Children’s Levy Allocation Committee voted to set aside $3 million over three years to create a Leverage Fund. The purpose of the Leverage Fund is to match public investments in early childhood, after school and mentoring and child abuse prevention and intervention with private investments.

These public-private partnerships maximize community impact and make more resources available to Portland’s children. Thus far, the Leverage Fund has matched $3 million from the Levy dollar for dollar with private ones for a total $6.1 million community impact.

UPDATE: In Spring 2009, the Children's Levy Allocation Committee set aside $3 million for new Leverage Fund partnerships. Work in this area will begin in Fall/Winter 2009. Please check back here for more details in the coming months; you can also join our mailing list for updates. Go to the "Contact Us" section.