View K-12 Philanthropy E-Newsletter

The Philanthropy Roundtable’s K-12 education program is our largest breakthrough group. Its mission is to help donors achieve dramatic improvements in K-12 education, especially for low-income and minority children.

Principles

We are guided by the following principles in our approach to K-12 education philanthropy:

• We are committed to whatever works in raising the academic achievement of all American children, especially low-income and minority children.
   
• We place a special emphasis on opportunities for philanthropists to achieve systemic reform through competition and parental choice, freedom and accountability for schools, excellent teachers and leaders, and high standards and expectations for students of all backgrounds.
   
• Though we do not seek to forge consensus on how best to improve K-12 education, we actively seek to help donors of diverse ideological perspectives identify common principles and objectives and to foster collaborations among them.

“The Roundtable's K -12 education work demonstrates that we can create great schools for all kids, especially the most disadvantaged.  Its meetings and education programs provide me with an opportunity to see great schools in many different communities and spend time with other foundation leaders talking about how we get the results we want from the investments we make.” 
          —Bruno V. Manno, senior associate, Walton Family Foundation

Services

To achieve our goal of helping donors achieve dramatic breakthroughs in K-12 education, we:

• Organize and host public conferences for philanthropists across the nation, which highlight excellence in K-12 giving and provide opportunities for new and existing donors to exchange ideas and strategies with each other and with national experts;
   
• Organize private, customized seminars for high-net-worth donors to help them determine how they can make the greatest impact in their K-12 giving; and
   
• Commission, produce, and disseminate the best publications on highly effective K-12 giving.
   

Rebecca Stewart is director of our K-12 education Breakthrough Group. You may reach her at rstewart@PhilanthropyRoundtable.org.