We believe every young person in New England should be able to access excellent, rigorous, and relevant educational experiences that support their healthy development and prepare them to thrive in school, community, and careers of the future.

Making that belief a reality lies in the power of our communities in New England. Together, we can ensure that students are seen, understood, and their unique needs are met.

This work requires deep partnership, relationship building, and intentional investments to strengthen the infrastructure that enables communities to shape their educational futures. We must align community, state, and regional actors together in service of a shared vision and shared agenda.

While the current education ecosystem operates with an entrenched, top-down approach, our grantmaking strategy works to upend that by inserting feedback loops and building power at every level to ensure community voice is reflected at all points of decision making.

At the core of our strategy is a commitment to continuous learning and evaluation, and elevating the voices of those least well-served to ensure our investments make the greatest impact. 

Our Grantmaking Strategy

We believe all young people should have access to rich, supportive, and challenging educational experiences that affirm who they are and prepare them to thrive in school, community, and the workforce.

Making that belief a reality lies in the power of our communities in New England. Together we can ensure that students are seen, understood, and their unique needs are met.

We invest in community-rooted solutions that advance our mission of championing efforts that prioritize community goals, address the long-standing barriers that prevent equal access to opportunities, redesign systems to ensure race and ethnicity don’t determine success, and advance excellent, student-centered public education for all New England youth.

At the core of our strategy is a commitment to continuous learning and evaluation and elevating the voices of those least well-served to ensure our investments make the greatest impact.

 

Approach

To connect community insight and influence with funding, policy, and practice that strengthens key connection points, we invest at three interconnected levels: 

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Community Engagement: We’ll work so that those most proximate to the challenges have the power, resources, and infrastructure to shape and advance a shared agenda, supporting communities to use qualitative and quantitative data to define root causes of student disengagement and develop plausible solutions

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State Fieldbuilding and a Knowledge and Information Ecosystem Infrastructure: We’ll support the development of a durable and responsive education justice data and knowledge ecosystem — and support state and local actors to apply knowledge and take action.

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Regional Field and Capacity Building: We’ll advance a unified vision and shared agenda, informed by community insights and data, that activates others and builds momentum for long-term systems change.