Altera to Expand Educational Outreach and Family Engagement Programs

Wapato, WA (April 8, 2024) — Altera, an educational nonprofit program serving students and communities in rural Washington State, and the recent recipient of a grant from MacKenzie Scott’s Yield Giving organization, has announced that they will use the granted funds to strengthen and expand organizational capacity for their early childhood, post-secondary prep, before and after-school programs, and family engagement programming to rural students, communities and school districts.

Altera was one of 361 small nonprofits that were selected from a pool of 6,353 applicants providing services to underserved populations across the US. Located on the Yakama Nation reservation in the Yakima Valley in central Washington, Altera has been serving K-12 students for over two decades in more than 24 rural communities and 67 schools, in an area that stretches across the state from east to west and from the Oregon border to Canada.

Dr. Ray Riznyk, retired Central Washington University faculty member and Altera Board Chair, said of the grant: “This generous award will help us to stabilize operations, expand both our staff and our partnerships, and set a path for the future. We will implement long-term strategies to assure an additional 20 years of service to the communities of rural Washington State.”

Dr. Barbara Peterson, Altera Executive Director, concurs. “We’ve built strong connections to our rural educational communities. They work with us to develop and test programs designed to help resource-challenged communities stretch limited dollars to reach the maximum number of students. With this grant, we can share our most successful strategies for creating low-cost/high-impact solutions.”

According to Bertha Ortega, current Altera board member and former Vice President of Academic Affairs at Heritage University, “The needs of rural communities in Washington State have always been greater than the resources available to them. In addition to helping us continue our direct services to school districts, and the families, students and communities they serve, this grant enables us to explore how we might share our successful strategies to meet educational needs of immigrant and refugee families beyond our region, potentially to similar refugee families around the globe.”

Guided by their mission to foster social equity in education, Altera provides educational programs that help students and families build the skills they need to realize ambitious outcomes, now and into the future. Over the course of two decades, the small nonprofit has developed and distributed programs and materials designed for college preparation, for before- and after-school enrichment, and for home use by parents—even those with limited literacy—who want to make sure their pre-school children are Kindergarten-ready when they enter our US public school system.

Altera has written grants, provided programs, and valued partnerships with rural school districts throughout Washington State including Walla Walla, Touchet, Prescott, Richland, Prosser, Sunnyside, Grandview, Granger, Mabton, Grandview, Granger, Zillah, Wapato, White Swan, Warden, Othello, Quincy, Soap Lake, Ephrata, Wilson Creek, Lake Chelan, Manson, Bridgeport, Brewster, Omak, Okanogan, Tonasket, Oroville, Hoquiam.  Altera has partnered with Central Washington University, Washington State University, University of Washington, and Yakima College. For more information about Altera, visit  www.Altera-ed.org.

Established by MacKenzie Scott to share a financial fortune that was created through the effort of countless people, Yield Giving aims to deepen its impact and add value to its philanthropic efforts by yielding grantees more decision-making power over how they allocate the funds they receive. More information about Yield Giving can be found at www.leverforchange.org

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