What's Ahead for 2024

Nicole Rodriguez Leach, Executive Director

A new year is, for many, an inflection point. For the EdFunders team it's an opportunity to reflect on purpose, refresh or establish new intentions and chart a course toward new goals. We enter 2024 on the heels of an incredible conference and an end-of-year period filled with relationship-building and refreshing commitments to our members, to the field of education philanthropy, and to a vision of education philanthropy that intentionally fosters the conditions for equity and capabilities for all learners to develop and flourish.

Grantmakers for Education is a constellation of interconnected organizations and individuals with a common goal: to support the advancement of education systems, organizations and programs that promote learners, educators and leaders who thrive in their learning and home communities, in their workplaces and beyond. As a generative social-impact network, there is critical work to do together this year to learn dynamically, innovate, adapt and deepen our relationships. This is a year where our shared purpose will shine.

This year, Grantmakers for Education will:

• Continue to center equity and justice in our work. In this vein, we are assessing and resetting our own internal policies and processes to ensure we are leading from within. Also, with the understanding that education philanthropy has the platform to drive learning agendas, we will continue to share insights and tools for our members to consider how their strategies and practices center and strive for equity and justice in the education systems they engage. We will amplify the active stance of education grantmakers to drive social equity and justice, and ways these values are translated into philanthropic practice.
• Provide programming for deeper learning and engagement that allows our members to curate and tailor a rich and diverse set of resources and learning modalities for their needs. We will continue to offer webinars and release episodes of our podcast, and this year will host a study tour and learning summit. Finally, we’ve heard your requests and are developing an affinity group for new education grantmakers, which will kick off at the conference in October.
• Support generative and enduring relationships and collaborations among members. No one grantmaker can alone provide the adaptive and sustainable capacity needed to advance or support dynamic solutions to pressing and persistent problems in education today. We currently host six impact and learning groups, and welcome new groups among members who wish to form or lead a small forum for collaborative ideation or action. We are building new and deeper partnerships with our members and others so we may offer opportunities that inspire equity, effectiveness, leadership and connectivity across the broad education ecosystem.
• Share key insights from our membership and the field. This year, we will connect with all of our members as well as other education grantmakers to understand what is most pressing in education and in philanthropy during a time when democratic processes are routinely tested, defended and changed in the U.S. and around the world. We will ask for your input and insights through a survey and listening tour that will kick off in the coming months!

Share your ideas and stay tuned! And if you have not already, mark your calendar for the 2024 annual conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota, October 16-18.