Iowa

Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque

Strong schools are essential to strong rural communities, which is why the Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque facilitates initiatives focused on issues of student achievement and building bridges between schools and communities. Josie Manternach, Program Officer, serves as the hub contacts for Iowa.

With affiliate foundations across the seven-county Dubuque region of northeastern Iowa, the Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque has a long history of building trusting relationships with leaders in rural communities to chart clear paths forward that address complex social challenges, from academic achievement to economic opportunity.

By bringing key stakeholders, such as local schools, in rural towns together, Josie and her team at CFGD are reaffirming and strengthening the bonds between place, people, and education. He shares that whenever the Community Foundation partners with local towns to launch a development initiative, "every single town says that their schools are an asset."

As RSC’s Iowa hub, the Community Foundation will continue to support thriving rural communities, and enhance the vitality of rural education by bridging local generosity, ingenuity, and leadership with efforts like teacher training and place-based learning. To see stories from our Iowa hub, explore below.

• Every Child Reads: Every Child Reads unites community partners to transform systems that support children’s academic and social-emotional development. Informed by the national Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, the initiative focuses on school readiness, attendance, summer learning, and access to books, while also addressing emotional well-being through collaboration with educators, parents, and civic leaders. By aligning resources, collecting local data, and fostering community investment, Every Child Reads builds a unified strategy to help every child succeed in and out of the classroom.
• Attendance Matters: The Attendance Matters project, part of the Local College Access Network (LCAN), is an initiative that aims to reduce chronic absenteeism by 4% across four northeastern Iowa counties. Focusing on school attendance as a key pillar of early reading success, the effort brings together nonprofit and educational partners to uncover and address the root causes of absenteeism. Supported by a $60,000 grant from the Bureau of Iowa College Aid, the coalition is developing a systemic model to improve student attendance regionally.
• GRAD Partnership: In 2025, the Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque joined the GRAD Partnership as an intermediary organization. CFGD works with local schools to explore and implement student success systems, aiming to bring together local teams to address attendance and increase student agency, belonging, and connectedness.