As school choice opportunities expand across the country, families now have more educational options than before. A great example is the new federal education tax credit Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA), which will go into effect on January 1, 2027 for states that opt in. The tax credit is designed to support qualified educational expenses, such as tuition, fees and related costs, while also incentivizing private donations to nonprofit scholarship granting organizations.
Yet, for many parents, especially those balancing work, child care and other responsibilities, navigating these choices can feel overwhelming and confusing. Too often, a lack of clear, accessible guidance prevents parents from fully understanding or taking advantage of the available options. As a result, the promise of school choice too often goes unrealized for the families who could benefit most.
The National School Choice Awareness Foundation (NSCAF) was created to bridge this gap between opportunity and application by giving parents the information they need to take the next step toward a better education for their children.
“Our unique lane is to make school choice make sense for families,” said Shelby Doyle, senior vice president of policy and national partnerships for NSCAF.
Doyle oversees two year-round school choice navigation programs: Navigate School Choice and Conoce tus Opciones Escolares.
“We are the only national organization solely focused on getting parents engaged and making them aware of their options in K-12 school choice,” Doyle said.
The Navigate School Choice Network is a nationwide coalition of state and local organizations that work with families to provide information about school choice options available to them. Conoce tus Opciones Escolares helps parents of the fastest-growing student population—Hispanic students—fully participate in the new world of school choice options and set their children up for a successful life.
“K–12 school choice has the potential to change the futures of millions of children across America. But that promise will fall short of reality unless parents know that school choice policies exist and feel comfortable using them. We show parents how school choice can change their children’s lives, and then we guide them through each step of the search process,” said Doyle.
NSCAF is a private operating foundation that advances K–12 school choice and empowers parents to discover and navigate education options for their children. NSCAF’s programs are deployed in collaboration with their organization, the National School Choice Resource Center. Shared programs include Navigate School Choice, Conocetus Opciones Escolares and National School Choice Week, which is January 25-31 this year.
Philanthropy Roundtable spoke with Shelby Doyle to learn more about the ways they are serving families across the country.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: What specific gap in the education reform or school choice landscape does your organization fill?
Doyle: In the last 12 months, 31% of parents have actively searched for a new school for their child but given up without enrolling their children anywhere new.
We think about how parents experience school choice in practical terms and make participating in it, no matter whether they choose a district, charter, magnet, private, online, at home or microschooling option, easier and more likely to be successful. From providing logistical and promotional support for thousands of annual awareness events to building platforms that allow state nonprofits to syndicate our content and navigation tools on their websites at no cost, collaboration is essential to all we do.
To better equip parents, we created the Navigate School Choice Network bringing together more than 40 state and local organizations that support families through the process of using school choice to pool resources, increase efficiency and learn from other states.
We also recently created the schools near me tool, a school search experience built by the movement itself, populated with a more comprehensive list of schools than anywhere else, thanks to our long-term relationships with the 60,000 schools who have celebrated NSCW over the last 15 years. We are then able to offer this tool to other organizations across the country to make their own work more helpful to families.
Q: What’s the current scale of school choice navigation happening right now nationwide?
Doyle: School choice navigation is quickly becoming a nationwide movement. Tens of thousands of families every year are now actively guided through their available options, and this number is rapidly growing. Within our own Navigate Network, 22 partners directly supported more than 86,000 families this year, with a median reach of around 550 families per organization and averages closer to 3,900. With 47 total partners active in the network, the average translates into a potential reach of more than 180,000 families.
Over the last 12 months, 3.4 million people have visited our websites to learn about school choice and search for schools using our proprietary tools. In January 2025, 57% of parents of school-aged children reported seeing information about NSCW, and parents who saw NSCW-related news were two times more likely to consider new schools for their children.
With deliberate investment, this ecosystem could guide well over a million families each year to the right educational environment for their children.
Q: How does private philanthropy enhance the ability to scale or deepen your impact?
Doyle: Without private philanthropy, our programs would not exist. In 2011, Tracy Gleason––the CEO of the Gleason Family Foundation (GFF)––saw an urgent need to bridge school choice policies with the parents they were designed to serve and created NSCW. As our CEO, Andrew Campanella, described in a recent article, Tracy and GFF have generously championed our purposefully distinct work ever since.
In 2023, we launched the National School Choice Resource Center, a 501(c)(3) public charity, to make it easier for philanthropists to engage in this work and support our programs. We have been grateful for the support of Stand Together Trust, the Walton Family Foundation, the John William Pope Foundation and others––especially as we have built out our new navigation programs.
Q: Are there specific programs or initiatives currently in need of donor investment?
Doyle: We are currently working on three new and urgent initiatives, for which we seek to raise $500,000 in short order.
First, we are creating the nation’s most comprehensive dataset of schools and learning providers to power next-generation school search tools that are easier to use. Existing datasets rely on open-source databases that omit many private and nontraditional options supplemented by ad hoc individual listings from schools.
Second, we are building a school choice GPT, an instant-answer artificial intelligence (AI) tool trained on our trusted parent resources to help moms and dads get faster answers to their questions about school choice and take them through the process of choosing a school from start to finish. It will also build suggestions for them based on their family’s unique needs and situations. Once built, this tool will also be available for our partners to embed on their websites at no cost.
Third, we’re creating a school choice navigator certification program that’ll be accessible for parents, nonprofit staff and the public to learn how school choice works in their states and to become better equipped to assist other families through the process of choosing a school.
If you would like to learn more about the NSCAF or other school choice initiatives, please contact Pathways to Opportunity Program Director Stephen Allison.
