Trends in Education Philanthropy: Benchmarking 2018-19

Overview & Synopsis

Grantmakers for Education's "Trends in 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 benchmarking report. 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: (1) Education funders have markedly increased their focus on the learning stages before and after K-12 education; (2) 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; and (3) Education funders have lost confidence in federal government leadership on and funding for education reform. [Celine Coggins, Ana Tilton, and Rebecca Smith contributed to this report. For the 2015 report, see ED570109.]