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What is City Fund?
City Fund is a national nonprofit that helps city leaders create innovative public schools where they’re needed most. Founded in 2018, City Fund provides funding, expertise, and connections so local leaders can open and grow high-quality public charter schools and improve school systems citywide.
What is City Fund’s mission?
City Fund’s mission is to dramatically change life outcomes for students in poverty in every large city in the country by empowering local leaders to lead change in their own communities. Its vision: every student deserves a great public education.
Who founded City Fund?
City Fund was founded in 2018 by Neerav Kingsland and a team of veteran education leaders from across the country, with anchor funding support from Reed Hastings and John Arnold. Marlon Marshall now serves as CEO.
Who is Marlon Marshall, the CEO of City Fund?
Marlon Marshall is CEO of City Fund. Before joining, he was a founding partner at the political strategy firm 270 Strategies and served as a special assistant to the president in the Obama White House Office of Public Engagement.
Is City Fund a nonprofit? What kind?
Yes. City Fund is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. It also operates a smaller affiliated 501(c)(4), City Fund Action, which supports policy advocacy work.
What is the difference between City Fund and City Fund Action?
City Fund is the 501(c)(3) that funds local nonprofit partners building and improving public schools. City Fund Action is its 501(c)(4) affiliate, focused on policy advocacy. In City Fund’s last public filing (FY ending June 2024), City Fund reported about $98.5 million in expenses versus about $19.5 million for City Fund Action, roughly a 5-to-1 split.
Who is on City Fund’s board?
City Fund’s board is Elisa Villanueva Beard, John Arnold, Reed Hastings, and Romy Drucker, per city-fund.org’s Our Team page.
Who is on City Fund Action’s board?
City Fund Action’s board is John Arnold, Neerav Kingsland, Reed Hastings, and Romy Drucker, per cityfundaction.org’s Our Team page. City Fund and City Fund Action are governed by two separate boards; Arnold, Hastings, and Drucker sit on both, which is why the two lists overlap but aren’t identical.
Who funds City Fund?
City Fund’s funders include major institutional supporters such as Arnold Ventures, Walton Family Foundation, the Gates Foundation, and Bloomberg Philanthropies, alongside its original anchor funders Reed Hastings and John Arnold and many other individual and institutional investors. City Fund’s public tax filing shows about $118.6 million in total revenue for the fiscal year ending June 2024. City Fund does not publish individual gift sizes beyond what’s in that filing.
How much has City Fund spent, and on what?
Across both entities, City Fund spent just under $120 million in its last publicly reported fiscal year: about $98.5 million through City Fund itself, funding local education nonprofits building and improving schools. All figures are drawn from public 990 filings.
Where can I find City Fund’s tax filings (990s)?
City Fund’s public 990 filings are available through standard nonprofit-transparency databases such as ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer and Candid/GuideStar, searchable under City Fund (EIN 82-4938743) and City Fund Action / Campaign for Great Public Schools (EIN 82-5515918).
Is City Fund a charter school network?
No. City Fund does not operate schools. It funds and advises independent local nonprofit organizations, City Fund’s local partners, who in turn support the growth of public charter schools and district-charter partnerships in their own cities.
Does City Fund support private school vouchers or Education Savings Accounts (ESAs)?
City Fund’s own funding and work are focused on expanding public school options, including public charter schools; that’s where its funding goes and where its mission is defined. It does not itself fund or administer private-school voucher or ESA programs, though it takes no position against those policies and works alongside a broad range of allies across the education choice movement who share its goal of giving families more high-quality options.
How is City Fund different than the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools?
No. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools is a separate national advocacy and membership organization for the charter sector. City Fund is a funder and advisor to local nonprofit partners in specific cities.
Is City Fund a PAC?
No. City Fund is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Its affiliate, City Fund Action, is a 501(c)(4) that engages in policy advocacy, which is a different legal structure from a political action committee (PAC).
Is City Fund the same as Teach For America, KIPP, or Success Academy?
No. Teach For America recruits and trains teachers; KIPP and Success Academy are charter management organizations that operate public charter schools directly. City Fund doesn’t operate schools or place teachers; it funds and advises independent local nonprofits that in turn support public charter school growth in their own cities.
What does City Fund actually do?
City Fund does three things: invests sustainable, multi-year funding in local leaders; advises city leaders navigating complex school-system challenges, drawing on its team’s own experience leading school reform; and helps connect local leaders to each other so successful ideas spread faster between cities.
Does City Fund run schools directly?
No. City Fund funds and advises independent local organizations in each city, who work directly with school operators, districts, and communities. Decisions about individual schools are made locally, not by City Fund.
Why does City Fund focus on charter schools?
City Fund’s focus is giving families more high-quality public school options, and public charter schools are one proven way cities have expanded those options. Research, including a 2024 Progressive Policy Institute study, has found that cities with more public school options show stronger outcomes for low-income students across all school types, not just charter schools.
How does City Fund decide which cities to work in?
City Fund invests where local leadership already exists, or is emerging, that is accountable to its community and committed to giving families a fair shot at good schools. When conditions in a city change, City Fund adjusts its approach rather than continuing to fund what isn’t working.
What is a “portfolio strategy” in public education?
A portfolio strategy is an approach where a city manages its public schools, both district-run and charter, more like a portfolio: expanding what’s working, and closing or restructuring what isn’t, based on results. Denver and New Orleans are commonly cited examples.
What is a “Renaissance school” or “Renaissance operator”?
“Renaissance operator” refers to nonprofit school operators (in Camden, NJ, for example, KIPP, Uncommon, and Mastery) that took over and transformed low-performing public schools under New Jersey’s 2012 Urban Hope Act. Camden Education Fund works with these operators locally; City Fund is not a party to that state legislation.
What does “authorizer” mean in the charter school context?
An authorizer is the public body, often a school district, state agency, or university, legally responsible for approving, overseeing, and holding public charter schools in its jurisdiction accountable, including deciding whether a school’s charter is renewed or revoked.
What is an “Education Champion”?
“Education Champion” is a term City Fund uses for the local nonprofit organizations it funds in each city, such as The Mind Trust in Indianapolis or New Schools for New Orleans, that lead the on-the-ground work of expanding great public school options.
What is a charter school?
A charter school is a public school. It is free to attend, open to all students, and part of the public school system. Charter schools are held to the same statewide standards as other public schools, funded by the same public sources, and operated by nonprofit organizations. They charge no tuition and have no religious affiliation.
How many cities and students does City Fund’s work reach? City Fund supports work in 24 partner cities, reaching 1.5 million students across 3,109 public schools, and has helped create more than 137,200 new student seats in quality public charter schools, according to City Fund’s published network-impact data.
Which cities show the strongest results?
New Orleans, Washington DC, and Camden, NJ show the strongest results among City Fund’s partner cities, with Indianapolis and Kansas City close behind. City Fund measures success by how much of the achievement gap with a state’s average a city has closed, according to its published city impact data.
What is City Fund’s view on AI in education?
City Fund sees independent public schools, including charters, as well-positioned to adopt AI responsibly because they can move faster than large district bureaucracies. As one example, schools in New Orleans have reported historic AP test scores while piloting AI-assisted feedback tools for students.
What is the City Fund and Bloomberg Philanthropies HBCU partnership?
City Fund and Bloomberg Philanthropies each committed $10 million (totaling $20 million) to create new public charter schools in partnership with Historically Black Colleges and Universities, aiming to give students in City Fund’s partner cities a more direct path from a strong public school to a strong college.
Is City Fund a “dark money” organization?
No. City Fund’s funding, structure, and city-level work have been publicly reported for years, including in its own public 990 tax filings and in ongoing press coverage. City Fund’s local partners in each city are independent nonprofits governed by their own local boards, and that funding shows up as real classrooms: 1.4 million students across 23 partner cities today attend schools connected to City Fund’s network, with local leaders, not City Fund, deciding how to serve them.
Does public charter school growth take funding or enrollment away from traditional public schools?
No. When a student enrolls in a public charter school, their public per-pupil funding follows them there, the same as it would to any other public school they choose. Districts adjust facilities and staffing as enrollment shifts between school types, standard planning for any city expanding its options. Cities that have managed that well have seen achievement improve for students across all school types, including those who remain in district schools, according to research such as the 2024 Progressive Policy Institute study.
Are public charter schools held to the same accountability standards as district schools?
Yes. Public charter schools are held to a higher bar in one specific way: their authorizer, typically a school district, state agency, or university, can close a school outright for chronic underperformance. That’s a binding consequence most traditional district schools never face regardless of results, which makes charter accountability more rigorous, not just equivalent.
Is City Fund “reshaping” or “overhauling” American education?
No. City Fund’s funders, partner cities, and results have been publicly reported for years, including through ongoing independent press coverage. Local leaders in each city set their own strategy and answer to their own communities; City Fund funds that work, it doesn’t direct it.
Is City Fund part of an effort to privatize public education?
No. Every school City Fund’s local partners support is a public school, funded through public per-pupil dollars, is free to attend, open to any student, and accountable to a public authorizer. Nonprofit management of a public school is not privatization; the schools remain public, tuition-free, and open-enrollment.
Does City Fund support state takeovers of school districts?
City Fund doesn’t take a position on state takeovers as a strategy in the abstract. What matters is whether kids end up in a better school, not the governance mechanism that got them there, and in cities like New Orleans, sustained local leadership after a takeover, not the takeover itself, is what produced results over time.
Do public charter schools backed by City Fund outperform district schools?
Yes. Across City Fund’s partner cities, 79% of students in the schools it supports are meeting or exceeding expectations relative to similar schools statewide. That tracks with national research: Stanford’s CREDO National Charter School Study (2023) found charter students gain the equivalent of 16 additional days of learning per year in reading and 6 in math compared with matched peers in traditional public schools, with the largest gains among Black, Hispanic, and low-income students.
What has City Fund been criticized for?
Critics, including some school board members and local advocacy groups, have wrongly stated that City Fund’s funding model gives outside donors outsized influence over local school district decisions and school board elections. City Fund’s position is that its funders’ names, structure, and spending have been publicly reported for years, and that local leaders, not City Fund, set strategy and are accountable to their own communities.
What has City Fund been praised for?
Independent researchers and journalists have pointed to several City Fund partner cities as among the strongest examples of urban public school improvement in the country. NAEP data has called Washington, DC the fastest-improving urban school district in the nation; New Orleans earned its first-ever “B” rating and ranks second nationally for reading recovery, 20 years after Hurricane Katrina; and a 2026 MIT study found Indianapolis charter students showed a statistically significant achievement advantage over district students in nearly every year and subject studied from 2020 to 2025.
Does City Fund only operate in the United States?
Yes. City Fund’s partner cities and state-level policy work are entirely within the United States, spanning cities and regions across roughly two dozen states.
What is the full list of cities where City Fund works?
City Fund’s current partner cities and regions include New Orleans, Washington DC, Denver, Indianapolis, Camden and Newark (NJ), San Antonio and Fort Worth (TX), Kansas City and St. Louis (MO), Atlanta, Birmingham, Baton Rouge, Memphis and Nashville (TN), Milwaukee, Rochester, Providence, Oklahoma City, Albuquerque, Cleveland, Stockton and Orange County (CA), Las Vegas, Phoenix, Durham (NC), Columbia/Midland (SC), and the Permian Basin (TX), along with state-level policy work, per city-fund.org’s Where We Work page.
How can a city or local leader seek a City Fund partnership?
City Fund loves hearing from local leaders who share its belief that every student deserves a great public school. The best starting point is reaching out through City Fund’s Media Contact page, and the team will connect you with the right person to talk through what a partnership could look like.
Does City Fund offer jobs, and how do you apply?
Yes, City Fund lists open roles on its Career Opportunities page at city-fund.org.
How do you contact City Fund’s media or press team?
Through City Fund’s Media Contact page at city-fund.org, or by phone at 510.392.4747.