Schools & Education

How can my giving create educational opportunities and foster success in struggling neighborhoods and communities?

Educational attainment is perhaps the greatest influence on a child’s and a community’s long-term success.  While every American child is entitled to a publicly funded education, schools in low-income communities face unique challenges and often lag behind their more affluent counterparts.  Equity in educational opportunities can close the achievement gap between affluent and poorer students. 

The opportunity is compelling.

The public school system in the United States, however, can seem bewilderingly large and complex.  Finding the best place to use your resources to maximum effect requires preparation, reflection, and thought.

The following principles for effective education grantmaking, developed by Grantmakers for Education, provide an excellent starting point for getting the most out of funds you invest to improve schools and education. 

1. Discipline and Focus: Carefully plan and target your grants, resisting the temptation to branch out into many different areas.
2. Knowledge: Seek information and ideas from diverse sources on the topics that interest you most, increasing your ability to make wise choices. 
3. Link Resources to Results: Clarify how you expect your grants to lead to the changes you wish to see.
4. Effective Grantees:  Schools and organizations may lack adequate capacity to reach significant numbers of students, and supporting strategies to strengthen your grant recipients can be particularly effective.
5. Engage Partners: Work with the individuals, institutions, and communities connected to an issue to encourage broad ownership of the solutions you seek to foster.
6. Leverage, Influence, and Collaboration: Work with others to mobilize and deploy as many resources as possible on your particular issue.
7. Persistence: The most important problems in schools are often the most intractable and will take time to solve.  Be patient and prepared to commit adequate time.  
8. Innovation and Constant Learning: Create ways to capture learning from the projects you support and share the new knowledge with others.

Grantmakers for Education  is a national network of over 200 foundations, corporate giving programs, and individual donors interested in achieving results in education.  This membership organization sponsors conferences, provides relevant information, and facilitates knowledge about best practices and excellence in education.  It has compiled an excellent list of resources that provide the aspiring grantmaker with background data, expertise, and context on key education issues. 

Even small grants can have significant impact if you take some time to learn about the issues and stay mindful of the giving principles listed above. 

As you get started, it will prove most important to keep discipline and focus, become familiar with the issues that interest you most, and be persistent.

Public education is a complicated government enterprise.  To get a handle on how the system works and who funds what, you may want to consult CGR's Education Primer.   The Primer provides some key background on governance, funding, and the current policy issues facing the field. 

To learn how your giving can support different approaches to improving educational opportunities for poor individuals and families, read on.

Learn More About Schools & Education

• Public Education Primer
  
• Early education
  
• Classroom excellence
  
• New and transformed schools
  
• Leadership and governance
  
• Out-of-school time
  

Measure the Results

• Measure Impacts