Grants for K-12 Education

More than two-thirds of respondents to Grantmakers in Education’s 2023 benchmarking survey reported that they funded “educational system redesign and transformation.” Two years later, in 2025, only 46% of survey respondents identified themselves as providing support for system redesign or transformation. In both years, the funder affinity group was  careful to note that “respondents’ perspectives on what constitutes system redesign and transformation varies widely.”

A trend among education funders over the past decade has been to provide funding for family and community engagement, Grantmakers for Education reports. A majority of respondents to Grantmakers for Education’s 2025 survey reported they are “investing in social and emotional learning and/or mental health and trauma-informed care, as well as wraparound social service support for children and families.” 

This relates to another education funding trend: the “whole learner” approach, which seeks to support students not only academically but as whole human beings whose educations are affected by factors within and beyond the school walls. Funders increasingly give at the intersections of education and youth mental health, overall health, juvenile justice, and other issues. More than half of respondents to Grantmakers for Education’s 2025 survey said they “consider it highly important to address other dimensions of learners’ lives such as health, nutrition, housing and employment as part of their education strategy.” 

As Grantmakers for Education has found, collaboration remains a major trend amongst education funders, largely through participation in funder learning networks and affinity groups. Some education funders also participate in pooled funds or align their grantmaking with other funders

With federal education policy in disarray as the second Trump administration dismantles the U.S. Department of Education, private funders focused on K-12 policy and advocacy are increasingly focusing their efforts at the state and local levels, Grantmakers for Education reports. 

Uncertainty exists surrounding the near future of K-12 funding. Even before the Trump administration moved to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education in 2025, education philanthropy was already being disrupted by significant funding cuts and strategy shifts by major funders. Some of this reflects the movement from a targeted focus on schools and academics to a broader focus on other aspects of life that affect student learning. Other funders are shifting from K-12 to early childhood or higher education. But amid the uncertainty are also high levels of commitment and hope, Grantmakers for Education Executive Director Nicole Rodriguez Leach told IP’s Connie Matthiessen in late 2025. 

While federal policy aims to end equity initiatives, many education funders remain committed to education as a means to equality, even if the current political climate prompts them to describe diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in different terms. Forty-seven percent of funders who responded to Grantmakers for Education’s 2025 survey anticipated that their grantmaking priorities and/or strategies would be impacted by federal policies. The vast majority of respondents (88%) said their overall education grant budgets would stay the same or increase in the coming year. Twenty-one percent anticipated an increase of more than 10%.

History of philanthropy for K-12 education

“There was a time when wealthy donors cherished the notion that a quality education for all would ultimately vanquish poverty and other social problems,” IP’s Connie Matthiessen writes. Indeed, education has been understood as an important avenue to racial equality, gender equality, democracy, and more.

The more recent history of philanthropy for K-12 education has included testing out bold big-picture approaches such as Common Core standards and charter schools. Philanthropy heavily backed both, and then somewhat retreated or shifted to new initiatives when these failed to deliver the hoped-for transformations. Over the past decade, Grantmakers for Education has observed the aforementioned shift in funder priorities from a focus on academic standards to a focus on the “whole learner” as well as educational equity.

Gaps in funding for K-12 education 

Though funders have often named equity as a key motivation for education philanthropy, a 2024 report by the Schott Foundation found that “racial equity and racial justice remain drastically underfunded by the K-12 philanthropic sector.” That is unlikely to improve while the federal government threatens to “investigate, eliminate, and penalize” nonprofits and other organizations that have programs related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

There are also geographic gaps in education funding. Looking at the funding that does focus on racial equity and racial justice, “grants have recipients disproportionately concentrated in the Northeast, despite the fact that almost half of all K-12 students, and the majority of all students of color, are enrolled in the South,” the Schott report continues. 

Rural schools are also underfunded by philanthropy, although about 1 in 5 U.S. students attend rural schools, per the Center for Public Education.