Known commonly as RIF, the organization, which provides free books to needy children and has been promoted in memorable public service announcements by celebrities like Carol Burnett and Shaquille O’Neal, stands to lose all of its federal funding, which accounts for roughly 75 percent of its annual revenues.
“We are looking at having to completely reinvent ourselves,” said Carol Rasco, chief executive of RIF, which has received a grant from the Department of Education every year for the last 34 years.
Under the federal budget proposed for the 2011 fiscal year, the Department of Education has proposed pooling the money it allocates to RIF, another nonprofit organization, the National Writing Project, and five of its own grant programs, and instead distributing it to state and local governments. Under that plan, RIF and the Writing Project would have to compete state by state for federal funds.
“One of the things that’s challenging about this is that the administration keeps talking about how much it wants to support innovation and program and ideas that it can help scale up,” said Sharon J. Washington, executive director of the Writing Project. “But if you