Read our full story on the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s education giving here.
Chalkbeat attempted to compile grants issued or promised in 2016 or later and classified as part of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s education giving. This includes 19 grants provided by CZI, as well as information provided by other organizations or available publicly. We aimed to exclude education-oriented grants focused on Silicon Valley, which CZI classifies separately.
What we collected includes over 50 groups and about $137 million of the $308 million CZI says it has donated to education-related causes.
It’s highly likely that not every group CZI has donated to is on this list, and we don’t how much money some groups on it received. It’s also possible that some organizations on this list received additional grants that aren’t accounted for.
Finally, we also listed a number of for-profit education companies that CZI has invested in; that’s not part of the $308 million number.
Here’s our list:
Organizations that have received grants from CZI
Reach Every Reader
Grant Amount: $30 million
Grant Reason – CZI: “We are supporting Reach Every Reader, a new initiative aimed at gaining a better understanding of how children learn to read so we can ensure that all can thrive and succeed as readers from an early age. This initiative is led by cutting-edge neuroscience and education research teams from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)’s Integrated Learning Initiative, in partnership with The Florida Center for Reading Research and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.”
College Board
Grant Amount: $13.9 million
Grant Reason – CZI: “With our support, the College Board has expanded access for more than 500,000 students to unique, personalized learning opportunities – including customized SAT practice through Khan Academy, Advanced Placement computer science courses and peer advising through the National College Advising Corps.”
LEAP Innovations
Grant Amount: $10 million
Grant Reason – CZI:“We’re supporting these organizations [LEAP and Chicago Public Schools] to help meet the growing demand from Chicago schools looking to introduce or expand personalized learning instructional models.”
Teach For America
Grant Amount: $10 million
Grant Reason – CZI: “This grant has supported the development of an organization-wide learning strategy, building capacity for rapid learning within the regional affiliate network, and accelerating TFA’s work on increasing the diversity, equity, and inclusion of the educator pipeline.”
EducationSuperHighway
Grant Amount: $8 million
Grant Reason – CZI: “We have supported the work of this organization to help increase the internet connectivity of classrooms across America.”
Turnaround for Children
Grant Amount: $7 million
Grant Reason – CZI: “Our grant assists Turnaround for Children with bringing new knowledge to the field about how to effectively implement and integrate tools to help achieve personalization of learning for all students.”
New Profit
Grant Amount: $6,511,962 Grant Reason – New Profit spokesperson: “For our efforts to support more diverse entrepreneurs in education, we received $500K from CZI in 2017. For our Personalized Learning initiative, which seeks to build capacity and evidence in the nascent field, we received $6,011,962 from CZI in 2017.” New Schools Venture Fund
Grant Amount: $5 million +
SAGA Innovations
Grant Amount: $5 million Grant Reason – CZI: “Our support is helping SAGA refine and expand their evidence-based program on intensive tutoring for students who are behind and increasing effectiveness and lowering cost for delivery.” Pahara Institute
Grant Amount: $4.3 million Grant Reason – CZI: “We have supported the organization’s fellowships to provide challenging and supportive leadership programs for entrepreneurial leaders in education.” Chicago Public Schools
Grant Amount: $4 million Grant Reason – CZI: “We’re supporting these organizations [LEAP and Chicago Public Schools] to help meet the growing demand from Chicago schools looking to introduce or expand personalized learning instructional models.” Vision to Learn
Grant Amount: $3.3 million Grant Reason – CZI: “With our support, the organization has provided eyeglasses to tens of thousands of children in the San Francisco Bay area and across the country, removing a critical learning barrier for students without access to vision care. They have given out more than 110,000 glasses to date.” Chiefs for Change
Grant Amount: $3 million
Grant Reason – Chiefs for Change spokesperson: The grant was for a “transforming schools and systems workgroup.”
Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation
Grant Amount: $3 million
Grant Reason – CZI: “Grant supports the Woodrow Wilson Teaching and Learning Academy’s efforts to help people studying to be teachers to learn at their own pace, personalizing their learning experience, and connecting what they learn to evidence-based learning approaches.”
Results for America
Grant Amount: $2.9 million
Grant Reason – CZI: “We support RFA’s work to improve the use of evidence in shaping policy among state and district education agencies through their What Works Districts initiative and their State Education Leaders Evidence Fellowship program.”
Together For Students, a partnership between The Coalition for Community Schools, Communities In Schools, and StriveTogether
Grant Amount: $2,283,200
Grant Reason – Communities in Schools spokesperson: “Together for Students (formerly known as Students at the Center) is an initiative designed to advance a student-centered learning movement that unites families, educators and local partners. The grant supports: the work of 10 communities as they design localized blueprints to improve student learning experiences; the three partner organizations as they provide training and technical assistance to the 10 communities, and a February 2018 convening of 106 communities interested in applying for the project.”
Californians Dedicated to Education Foundation
Grant Amount: $2.25 million
Grant Reason – CDEF: “CDEF partnered with the California Department of Education (CDE) and technology company Declara to launch the Collaboration In Common (CiC) platform and support the state’s #GoOpen campaign. CiC provides a social network for professional learning communities that provides tools and resources to promote sharing and collaboration between educators and educational organizations across the state. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative grant will be used to support CiC and enhancements to the Declara platform to accelerate personalized learning and professional growth.”
New Teacher Center
Grant Amount: $1.7 million Grant Reason – CZI: “Our grant supports their work to develop and provide professional development support on personalized learning strategies to educators.” The Opportunity Institute
Grant Amount: $1,524,534
Grant Reason – Opportunity Institute: CZI is supporting the group’s Science of Learning and Development Initiative, which aims to “elevate the science of learning and development as a key driver of system transformation in education policy and practice, advancing deep personalization of learning and the learning experience to support all students in achieving their full potential.”
CZI is also supporting the Partners for Each and Every Child, “to build an infrastructure of interconnected work that will encourage a growing portion of the education policy community to break down barriers to advance sound educational policies, attentive to matters of equity and responsive to the needs of at-risk, under-served, and politically underrepresented students.”
Rhode Island Office of Innovation
Grant Amount: $1.5 million
Grant Reason – RI Office of Innovation spokesperson: The grant is going “to support the state’s personalized learning initiative.”
Digital Promise
Grant Amount: $1.4 million
Grant Reason – CZI: “Our grant supports their efforts to pilot and refine solutions to collaborative challenges around real-world learning through the Digital Promise League of Innovative Schools, their flagship network that represents 93 districts in 33 states.”
TNTP
Grant Amount: $1.25 million
Grant Reason – CZI: “Our grant supports TNTP’s work on understanding student engagement and supporting the personalized learning efforts of partner school districts.”
Harvard Graduate School of Education and Stephanie Jones
Grant Amount: $1.1 million Grant Reason – CZI: “Our grant supports efforts to research and develop simple strategies and classroom activities for teachers to easily incorporate social-emotional learning into their classrooms.” Education Post
Grant Amount: $1 million
Grant Reason – Education Post executive director: Half of the grant went to general operating support and half went to Education Post’s California blog La Comadre.
Surge Institute
Grant Amount: $1 million
Grant Reason – CZI: “We have supported Surge’s efforts to elevate and support leaders of color.”
Lindsay Unified School District
Grant Amount: $775,000
Grant Reason – Lindsay Unified’s website: The grant is to “advance Lindsay’s Performance Based System.”
CASEL
Grant Amount: $750,000
Grant Reason – CZI: “We are supporting CASEL’s engagement of key leaders and advisors to ensure that their framework and the broad definition of social and emotional learning (SEL) reflects the latest science and best practices in the field. Findings will inform the continued development and refinement of CASEL’s suite of practical resources to support those in the field prioritizing this work.”
Common Sense Media
Grant Amount: $750,000
Grant Reason – Common Sense Media spokesperson: Two-year grant is “for our Privacy Evaluations and our overall Education programs … Common Sense rates and reviews ed tech products on the degree to which they protect student privacy and security. We publish these ratings on the Common Sense education website as a complement to our overall Ed Tech Ratings to evaluate learning quality. CZI is one of three funders of the initiative.”
International Society for Technology in Education
Grant Amount: $720,000
Grant Reason – CZI: “We are supporting this organization as it examines new strategies to incorporate learning science into professional learning for educators.”
EdSurge
Grant Amount: $700,000
Grant Reason – July post on EdSurge: Grant is for a research project meant “to explore how school communities across the country are changing to meet the needs of all learners.” The project includes “convening educators and school leaders” and “a collection of stories.”
ReSchool Colorado
Grant Amount: $700,000
Grant Reason – ReSchool Colorado spokesperson: “The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative granted $700,000 to support ReSchool’s Learner Advocate Network and out of school work. To date, we have received $350,000.”
Edutopia
Grant Amount: $500,000
Grant Reason – Edutopia spokesperson: The grant is “to assist Edutopia with producing and publishing a video series for and in collaboration with the National Commission on Social Emotional and Academic Development: profiling schools with impactful approaches to social, emotional and academic development and translating research into practice.”
Council of Chief State School Officers
Grant Amount: $388,938
Grant Reason – CCSSO spokesperson: “This year, we are using this grant funding as part of our efforts to support states that are working to expand access to quality personalized, competency-based education that will lead to improved outcomes for all students, largely through the creation of innovative assessment systems.”
Achievement First Public Charter Schools
Grant Amount: $350,000
Grant Reason – Achievement First spokesperson: Grant is for AF’s Greenfield program.
Education Leaders of Color
Grant Amount: $300,000
Grant Reason – Education Leaders of Color spokesperson: Grant is to “1) identify and equip the field with values-aligned leadership, 2) align our members toward common advancement of policies and practices, and 3) provide access to resources through the Boulder Fund.”
Chalkbeat
Grant Amount: $250,000
Grant Reason – CZI: “We support Chalkbeat’s coverage of education policy and practice.”
GO Public Schools
Grant Amount: $250,000
Grant Reason – GO Public Schools spokesperson: “A couple of years ago, GO received funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to support efforts to refresh our policy agenda and explore launching in Fresno.” A report recently issued by GO acknowledges funding from CZI and others.
InnovateEDU
Grant Amount: $160,000
Grant Reason – InnovateEDU executive director: The grant was issued through the Silicon Schools Fund and used to create a “community of practice” known as Data Whiz among schools leaders and personalized learning managers.
Matthew Biel of MedStar Georgetown University Hospital
Grant Amount: $75,000
Grant Reason – CZI press release: Grant is for “piloting evidence-based approaches to promote self-care skills, stress management, and emotional wellbeing for teachers in the D.C. area.”
Center for American Progress
Grant Amount: $15,000
Grant Reason – CAP spokesperson: CZI grant is “to explore the science of learning. With their modest support and other foundation support, we held a convening to discuss options for improving education based on the latest research on how students learn best.”
Grantmakers for Education
Grant Reason: Sponsor of its annual conference. Hechinger Report
Grant Reason – Hechinger: Grant “helps support our ‘Future of Learning’ coverage.”
Learning Policy Institute
Grant Reason – LPI spokesperson: “We are part of a consortium of organizations that is working on synthesizing evidence from the sciences of learning and development and drawing out the implications for practice.”
Newark schools
Grant Reason – CZI spokesperson: “As part of our commitment to Newark’s students and educators, we provided funding to meet emerging community needs identified by the district to ensure a smooth transition to local control.”
Summit Public Schools
- Grant Reason – Summit spokesperson: “In our own schools in CA and WA we have used [CZI’s] support to:
Staff a dedicated Research & Development team to work on continuous improvement of the Summit Learning instructional approach; - Launch and operate a Teacher Residency Program, designed specifically to build a long-term, sustainable pipeline of diverse teachers prepared to lead high-quality, personalized instruction in Summit Learning classrooms
- Purchase and construct school facilities.
The funding they provide also helps enable us to deliver the Summit Learning Program, for free, to schools across the country. This includes the cost of:
- Three free professional development convenings each year for upwards of 2,500 educators in more than a dozen cities across the country
- The creation of a robust, project-based teacher-created curriculum for grades 4-12.
- A team of dedicated mentors who personally coach Summit Learning Program schools on an ongoing basis
- A dedicated professional development team which builds and facilitates adult learning experiences.”
Other CZI grantees
- Camelback Ventures
- Character Lab
- Charter School Growth Fund
- Latinos for Education
- New Leaders
- New Classrooms
- Project Evident
Companies that have received investments from CZI
- Age of Learning
- BYJU’s – The Learning App
- RaiseMe
- Ellevation
- Panorama Education
- Sawyer
- Brightwheel
- Varsity Tutors
- MasteryConnect
- VolleyLabs
Correction: A previous subheadline incorrectly identified organizations that received grants from CZI as exclusively nonprofits.