Corporate partner spotlight: Dollar General Literacy Foundation
Reading Is Fundamental’s (RIF’s) longtime partnership with the Dollar General Literacy Foundation (DGLF) offers vital literacy support in communities where Dollar General employees and customers live and work by providing books and resources for children in their communities.
Building community and home libraries
Our decades long partnership partners with schools to implement RIF’s flagship program annually, Books for Ownership; creates free digital reading resources for multi-lingual learners; and engages Dollar General employees across the country to inspire a joy of reading in their backyards. Together with their families and educators, RIF and the DGLF create a culture of reading for thousands of children each year, sparking imaginations and possibilities that put them on a path to reading proficiency.
The length of our partnership with the Dollar General Literacy Foundation
Books added to home and classroom libraries nationwide.
Children reached through our strategic collaboration.
Dollar General Partnership Highlights
For more than two decades, the Dollar General Literacy Foundation has played a leading role in supporting RIF’s mission to disrupt the literacy crisis in the U.S. by inspiring the joy of reading in children. From school-based program implementations to developing reading content and resources, the efforts throughout this partnership are anchored in ensuring children in Dollar General communities and nationwide have the tools they need to learn, discover, and achieve their full potential.
Books for Ownership in 80 Elementary Schools
Starting during the 2004-2025 school year, RIF and the DGLF brought the Books for Ownership program to 30 schools across five states where Dollar General distribution centers had a presence. Setting out to reach 14,000 students the first year, today our partnership is in 80 schools, 19 states and will reach over 49,000 students in the 2026-2027 school year. The program collaboration has reached more than 734,000 students in prekindergarten through fifth grade and partners closely with school educators to integrate the program resources into their classrooms.
Free Reading Resources for Every Child
A children’s reading journey goes beyond the book and RIF and the DGLF ensure that their educators, parents, and caregivers are equipped with a robust repertoire of reading content and resources. In 2008, Dollar General was instrumental in expanding our organization’s Spanish language literacy resources. Thanks to this multi-lingual reading initiative, we partnered with 11 schools in New Mexico, creating free lending libraries for members of each school’s Spanish-speaking community.
After launching its free digital destination, Literacy Central, in 2017, the DGLF supported the development of the platform’s mobile app released in Spring 2018 at SXSW EDU. The Literacy Central Mobile App allows users to easily navigate to supplemental resources for titles – activities, games, lesson plans, etc. – in Literacy Central by scanning the ISBN bar code on the book.
Rebuilding through Reading Joy
In January 2023, the RIF and Dollar General team in Hindman, Kentucky joined forces to rebuild an elementary school library impacted by historic floods across this community. Over a three-day activation, we brought new furniture to the library, a curated library collection of more than 1,000 books, and partnered with a local artist to design a mural reflective of the school’s values and community. RIF and the DGLF will be heading to Hunt, TX in September 2026 to bring a library refresh to the Hunt community after devastating floods impacted this community last summer.
Celebrating Communities Together
RIF and the DGLF bring their collective resources together to create special moments with Dollar General employees and their communities.
In the recent school years, RIF and the DGLF have paired book celebrations with special milestones – both for the company and our partnership. In April 2022, we gathered employee volunteers in California to celebrate store performance by giving back to 11 elementary schools in their community with three volunteer events held throughout the activation. More than 28,600 books were distributed through this support and over 8,000 children selected new books to keep as their own.
In April 2025, the partnership headed down to Alachua, Florida to celebrate our 20th anniversary with three of our Books for Ownership schools who have been with us since the beginning. Three events in two days brought together Dollar General team members from local stores and distribution centers together to read aloud to students, distribute three books each to more than 1,300 students and provide a special library book collection for each school.
Our nationwide network
We operate in all 50 states, DC, and U.S. territories, offering numerous exciting ways for corporate employees and customers to volunteer and give back where they work and live.
"The Dollar General Literacy Foundation is committed to providing access and choice to high-quality books for students to build their home libraries. For nearly 20 years, we’ve been proud to partner with RIF by supporting the Books for Ownership program, bringing millions of books to students across the country."
The power of partnership
Reading Is Fundamental is grateful to our corporate partners, whose commitment to tackling the literacy crisis means that more children will become skilled readers, the foundation for discovery, growth, and opportunity. Thank you for making this important work possible.
"The Dollar General Literacy Foundation plays a pivotal role in helping RIF to reach students in the most rural communities across the country. A key component of RIF’s model is to support students, educators, and families where they are and provide resources that are reflective of their community. Our partnership with DGLF enables us to do just that. From providing thousands of literacy resources and books—including Spanish-language translated content to library renovations—together, we’re able to reach the communities that need us most."
Proud to be a top-rated U.S. nonprofit
Reading Is Fundamental, Inc., a 501(c)(3) organization (52-0976257)
Ways to partner
There are many ways your organization can get involved with RIF! Explore how your company can support children’s literacy through a custom corporate partnership.