Looking Back and Moving Forward

The mark of a new year can feel momentous. Whether you bring it in quietly or with fanfare, during a break away from work or while catching up or preparing after a busy year-end in the office, a new year may be an inflection point, a moment of reflection to reset and get ready, and a time to seed ideas about how to chart a course forward when change, challenge and opportunity are on the horizon. We hope that for you, the occasion of the new year brought with it the time, space and energy you needed to feel fulfilled and well.

In our conversations over recent months with members and other colleagues in education and philanthropy about what 2025 brings, expressions of anticipation predominate – some combination of excitement, uncertainty, curiosity, anxiety, hope and optimism. And though we may not know yet how changes in public governance and leadership at the national, state and local levels may play out, we hear a ready commitment from many to roll your sleeves up and be part of the movement for a robust, effective and expansive education sector and knowledgeable, connected and equity-minded philanthropy that champions the quality of learning and creative and capable leadership we imagine is needed for positive and profound solidarity and social progress.

At Grantmakers for Education, we share your anticipation and are ready to serve as an essential resource and trusted partner to you, your team and the broader community of education funders and partners. We will help organize and empower you in centering and enacting a steadfast commitment to principled leadership, clarifying the sense of collective purpose, and increasing our sector's depth, breadth and effectiveness to enrich, safeguard and strengthen classrooms and communities you support and serve. Alongside our colleagues and partners within and beyond our network, we will help you navigate new and dynamic contexts, double down on advancing the public promise of education, advance a well-resourced and equitably funded education ecosystem, and protect the public, private and nonprofit ecosystem so learners may blossom and prosper in their classrooms and communities, in education spaces and systems that facilitate deep and broad opportunities for achievement, mobility, fulfillment and human flourishing.

Like you, we know this is not the work of a single moment but rather of generations and movements. It is not the responsibility of a single funder but instead a constellation of well-connected colleagues and collaborators. That said, we also know that individual and organizational beliefs and behaviors matter. Grantmakers for Education attends to the various spaces of activity and spheres of influence and impact, so here’s what you can expect from us over the days, weeks and months to come. We will:

• Remain anchored by our guiding principles and priorities – to sustain and ignite philanthropy's attention to education, serve as a space of discourse that centers a set of values but welcomes a variety of perspectives, foster and model civil discourse and productive dialogue, build bridges across sectors and with education leaders in a variety of spaces, and emphasize the range of capitals that the field, organizations and individual grantmakers possess.
• Encourage philanthropy’s active practice of principled leadership for bridgebuilding and breakthroughs in the highly contested terrain of education and philanthropy.
• Serve as an essential infrastructure for an organized, clear-eyed and effective field.
• Provide access to inspiring and insightful thinkers and doers who help you and other members get smart and stay up-to-date on the topics and issues facing education funders and nonprofits.
• Convene off-the-record conversations on complex questions in education and philanthropy to grapple honestly with and challenge each other on where there is shared purpose while interrogating competing interests and profound differences.
• Produce or promote resources that illustrate the state of the field and may be used in your organizations to contextualize or inform decision-making.
• Forge a web of well-connected networks that can be leveraged to envision, seed and power effective action.

Grantmakers for Education does not do this work alone. Our organization was founded 30 years ago to harness the power of partnership. We will continue this tradition in our work with you, our membership, peer philanthropy infrastructure organizations and many other partners. We expect 2025 to be monumental in education and philanthropy. For Grantmakers for Education, it will also be a milestone celebration of turning 30 – bringing the original vision and goals of the education funding community forward to meet this moment and to figure out how education funders think, work and reach together for the future of learning and leadership over the lifetime. Learn more about our anniversary here.

We kick off this anniversary year by sharing again a poem with you that carries great meaning and power for our organization this year, and are eager to partner with you and our incredible community of passionate education funders this year.