The Literacy Institute, a partnership between the Virginia Literacy Foundation and Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Education and Center for Public Policy, was formed in 2002 to ensure that Virginia’s public policy makers are kept aware of the problem of illiteracy in the Commonwealth and to directly combat that problem through research and development projects. With its partners’ combined pedagogical and public policy expertise, the Institute has enjoyed great success in its fundraising efforts, which focus on state and federal grants and contracts to oversee research in literacy-related fields. The Institute is in a unique position to craft an agenda for adult literacy that will make an impact on policy makers at both the state and federal levels.