This document is the latest Grantmakers for Education's (EdFunders) study of what's now and what's next for education philanthropy. It aims to give insight into the priorities of the education funding community, and to help funders understand their role in supporting education innovation that benefits the nation's learners. The findings in this…

What does it take to create a statewide ecosystem to support Black student success? Our 2021 case study explores the Black Student Success Initiative at the Oregon Community Foundation. The initiative uses a community-led and trust-based approach to attract funding partners, establish a grantee network, and serve as a driver for systemic change in…

How should philanthropy support young people in this perilous time in U.S. history? The confluence of a global pandemic, an economic crisis, and a nationwide call for racial justice will fundamentally alter the lives of all American learners. Change is inevitable, but whether it will widen inequity or result in systemic change that narrows…

Students are juggling multiple, competing priorities such as work pressures, parenting, debt, and degree affordability, as they seek the best educational decisions for their economic mobility and life goals. Driving questions of quality has been the recent effort of states to set and increase postsecondary attainment rates. These rates typically…

Grantmakers for Education's "Trends in Education Philanthropy: Benchmarking 2018-19" report offers insights on the current and evolving priorities of the education funding community. It can help funders to understand their role in supporting education innovation and identify future priorities that hold the greatest promise for benefiting…

When CME Group Foundation (CME) was formed in 2007 with an endowment from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Trust, its founders set out to engage in grantmaking that would improve education from cradle to career and strengthen the region's economy. During its first decade, nearly a quarter of CME's grants targeted early childhood education with an…

The Boston Foundation--one of the nation's oldest community foundations--had always been committed to equity and even played an important role during Boston's fractious school desegregation era. But the board knew it could do more and needed to do more; the future well-being of individuals, families, communities and the city as a whole demanded…

What incentive could be stronger in a community than full-tuition college scholarships for all graduates of a public school system? Could this be an answer to the question of how the nation can support children growing up in poverty so that they may access middle-class opportunities? When George Weiss, a successful young money manager, pledged to…

"Engaged Partners" focuses on the decisions made by the creators of the Achieving the Dream initiative to build a broad and diverse range of stakeholders--including funders--who would take ownership of the problem of poor student success rates in community colleges. The case study illustrates the virtues--and some pitfalls--of encouraging…

The analysis in "Benchmarking 2011" is based on data from an unduplicated sample of 184 education grantmaking organizations--approximately two-thirds of Grantmakers for Education's (GFE's) network of grantmakers--who responded to an online survey consisting of fixed-choice and open-ended questions. Because a different subset of funders…

"Benchmarking 2010" offers insights into the current priorities, practices and concerns of education grantmakers. The report is divided into five sections: (1) Mapping the Education Grantmaking Landscape; (2) 2010 Funding Priorities; (3) Strategies for Leveraging Greater Impact; (4) Identifying Significant Trends in Education Funding; and (5)…

Confronting two unhealthy approaches that surface frequently in philanthropy--the tendency for grantmakers to think they alone have all the answers and the tensions that arise when national and local funders try to work together--this case study is intended to help grantmakers think more deeply about the concept of "engaged partners," one of…

In today's climate of accountability, many grantmakers struggle to determine the impact of the activities they support. This report seeks to summarize and make available much of the information from a special member briefing Grantmakers for Education organized to help funders--especially those from foundations with modest budgets--confront this…

Through Grantmakers for Education's (GFE's) "Benchmarking 2008" research report, the researchers sought to make the act of sharing among GFE members as easy and worthwhile as possible. The researchers started with an online survey, which was completed by education grantmakers from more than 150 organizations. They analyzed their responses for…

In late 2006, the National Center on Education and the Economy released "Tough Choices or Tough Times: The Report of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce." With compelling language, the report updated and sharpened the findings of the center's influential 1990 report, "America's Choice: High Skills or Low Wages," which called…