The Ellis Foundation

Mission

The Ellis Foundation is a small, public charity located in Fort Scott, KS-- and we're getting results from our charitable investments of $12,000,000 in college education.

Our country—and our local communities-- are facing a shortage of educated and trained workers.  National initiatives are scrambling to address a void of nearly 67 million skilled professionals by 2020. Our economy is increasingly dependent on a skilled workforce, but access to college isn’t the problem. The problem is college degree completion.

The Ellis Foundation is addressing  this issue, and investing in responsible, self-supporting, contributing lives. We’re gaining a reputation for administration and programming that get the job done. Our objectives are college success and degree completion-- and our students are completing their degrees at a rate twice the national average!

We work with high school counselors to identify students with the ability and drive to succeed. Many of our students come from rural communities, single-parent families, low to middle income homes, or are the first in ther families to attend college.

This year alone, we have over 600 students from over 100 high schools attending colleges and universities in 17 states.

PROGRAMS

The Ellis Approach:

 1) provides "venture capital" to  assist with college expense,

2) tracks and monitors student progress, and

3) offers support and encouragement through a proven mentoring system.