The VLF supports grass roots organizations via challenge grants, direct consultation, and program development training with public partners like The Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center.

These adults learn to read and write best through the customized one-on-one tutoring provided by the private community-based literacy organizations that the VLF supports through grants and training.

Knowing that children are 5 times more likely to drop out of high school if their parents are unemployed and lack a high school diploma, thereby perpetuating the cycle of intergenerational illiteracy,[6] the VLF has concentrated its efforts on family literacy and working with parents, starting with Toyota Family Literacy Grants in the 1990s.

[9] The VLF has disbursed over $3.4 million in challenge grants since 1987[2] to fund data collections systems, program expansion and improvement, operating costs, staff salaries, and the purchase of equipment and supplies.

In addition to the grants, the VLF provides technical support and advice and direct assistance with tutor training, board development, and strategic planning through its public partner, the Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center (VALRC).

This conference, held in Richmond, provides workshops in program management, tutor training, EL/Civics, and learning disabilities and basic literacy teaching techniques.

These four positions were consolidated into one, and today a literacy specialist, who works with both the VLF and the VALRC, ensures that training and technical services for nonprofit organizations are coordinated.

In 2002, the VLF partnered with Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Education and Center for Public Policy to form The Literacy Institute.