Trends in Education Philanthropy

 
Grantmakers for Education’s Trendsin 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 America’s learners. 

This latest report in Grantmakers for Education’s series of benchmarking studies identifies what’s now and what’s next for education philanthropy. Findings are drawn from the survey responses of Grantmakers for Education members and other education funders and presented in the context of the 10-year anniversary of the bench-marking report. 

Big Picture: Trends in Education Philanthropy 

This new benchmarking study comes at a time of seemingly rapid evolution in the priorities of education funders. Three trends stand out based on the speed with which they have come to the fore, their crosscutting focus and the scale of their current or potential impact on education philanthropy. Based on survey responses:

•Education funders have markedly increased their focus on the learning stages before and after K-12 education.While elementary and secondary education has long dominated U.S. education funding priorities and continues to do so, some of the largest gains in shares of funders and biggest anticipated increases in support reported by respondents were for early learning, postsecondary education and preparation for career and workforce. Among factors driving the growth for early learning are a growing understanding of the critical importance of preparing young learners for success prior to beginning kindergarten, as well as increased public interest and investment in early learning. For postsec- ondary education and workforce and career readiness, a central factor has been a belief in the critical importance of postsecondary education in preparing learners for a rapidly changing labor market. 
•Education funders have ramped up support for strategies embracing the whole learner, while moving away from the academic areas of focus that characterized the prior decade of education reform.A growing body of research on the impact of social and emotional intelligence and family and community supports on learners’ academic and life success has fueled funder interest in advancing strategies that support learners’ holistic development. Respondents cited social and emotional learning as the factor or trend they think has the greatest potential for a positive impact on education over the next five years.
•Education funders have lost confidence in federalgovernment leadership on and funding for education reform. Survey findings suggest that many funders have stepped away from direct engagement in the large-scale, academic-focused, national efforts to reform the education system and have migrated back to focusing on local communities. In fact, when asked to identify the factors they think will have the greatest potential negative impact on education in coming years, the single largest share of respondents cited current federal education leadership.