Stuart Foundation

OVERVIEW: The Stuart Foundation supports creativity and arts education, school finance and accountability and educator leadership predominately in California, and sometimes beyond at the discretion if it’s board.

IP TAKE: This foundation has a very targeted approach to grantmaking, so anything outside the realm of public education and the foster care system will not likely be considered, except tiny grants offered to organizations at the foundation’s discretion.

The Stuart Foundation is not accepting unsolicited proposals for funding at this time. While it’s not a fully accessible education funder, it is a highly supportive and collaborative one. It also has an extensive staff that’s approachable if you have questions for them about how they develop grantmaking and how your work might fit in.

The Stuart Foundation offers enrichment grants, general operating support, funding for capacity building, partnerships, collaboration, and even special interest grants, which offer very small grants to organizations outside of California. Typically when this funder makes grants to nonprofits outside of it’s geographic scope it does so to support Californian education. While this funder’s work predominately occurs across California, where it was founded, a recent grant for $235,000 to the Chicago Public Education Fund to “design and host a learning visit in spring 2020 suggests that there exist opportunities for national partnerships. Some grants have gone to organizations based in Washington, as well, so all hope is not lost if your work occurs outside of California — as long as your work tightly aligns with Stuart’s mission. That said, chances for giving outside of California are still slim.

This funder specifically focuses on supporting BIPOC and low-income students, so if your work doesn’t directly benefit these groups, this may not be the right fit for your work. However, the current president of the Stuart Foundation, Sophie Fanelli, has also remarked upon how the influence of the Dobbs decision may ultimately effect vulnerable students, so perhaps there may be some overlapping development in funding down the road related to mental health, as in the past. This funder’s grantmaking has increased during the COVID-19 era, so it remains to be seen how grantmaking will develop down the road and if their work will overlap with health protections as they relate to student access to education and college opportunities.

The Stuart Foundation tends to support larger education nonprofits and education research organizations rather than grassroots organizations, but this is not a hard and fast rule — know competition is fierce here.

This is a very hands-on education funder that engages in a wide array of activities that occur beyond grantmaking. For instance, it seeks to accelerate conversations about innovations in learning and to build relationships through common ground. It also appreciates partnering with “like-minded philanthropies in order to understand their work and amplify our own,” so don’t hesitate to pitch this funder with a well-considered, research-backed pitch for partnership if your work and visions align. Lastly, the foundation likes school site visits to better understand how the work they do impacts the communities they serve.

PROFILE: Established in 1985 upon the merger of three family trusts, the Stuart Foundation is the foundation of Elbridge Stuart. Stuart was an industrialist who co-founded the Carnation Company and created Carnation’s evaporated milk. It is a San Francisco-based private foundation that makes grants in both California and Washington to address issues affecting children, youth, families, the foster care system and public schools. The Stuart Foundation is deeply dedicated to it’s mission to improve “life outcomes for young people through education.” In this vein, the foundation makes grants through an equity lens for creativity and arts education, school finance and accountability and educator leadership.

Grants for K-12 Education and Higher Education

Stuart's K-16 grantmaking strategies center on increasing equity and inclusion across all of it’s education related work, so approaching education projects through a racial equity lens that seeks to address systemic racism in systems of education will be key here.

The Stuart Foundation’s grants for education are unique in that the foundation believes that the “public schools that serve youth underpin vibrant communities, inclusive economies and a functioning democracy.” The foundation sees the interconnection between these commitments as important keys to supporting education development. In doing so, the Stuart Foundation makes grants that invest in research-centered work that can scale.

In it’s desire to make education systems more equitable, the Stuart Foundation values partnering with “researchers and technical assistance providers who build knowledge and capacity; community and policy advocates who influence and shape priorities and policies and help hold systems accountable; and networks that bridge research, policy and practice and support effective implementation.” In other words, your nonprofit work can take many forms — be it advocacy, policy, research or related focus areas.

Another crucial element of Stuart’s grantmaking strategy focuses on bolstering Foster Youth Education, which focuses on “child welfare grantmaking resulting in policy and practice reforms and improved outcomes for youth in foster care.” In this space, the Stuart Foundation likes to fund “organizations that support and serve foster youth in K-16 systems to improve their educational experiences and outcomes and ensure that policy makers prioritize their welfare.” Past foster youth education grantees include the National Center for Youth Law, which focused their project on improving the education outcomes for students going through the foster care and juvenile justice systems, as well as John Burton Advocates for Youth, a long-time partner of the Stuart Foundation.

In the past, the foundation has been particularly interested in funding programs for school leadership development and the use of youth and parent-serving organizations. It also has funded organizations that are focused on student-centered learning, professional and social capital and state-level alignment. The foundation looks to support organizations that promote student access to the arts, close achievement gaps, foster care youth, education research and policy, fund whole child education, and improve the quality of teachers and principals.

Past support has gone to the Teaching Channel in Alameda, the San Francisco Unified School District, and First Place for Youth. Los Angeles-based grantees include the 24th Street Theatre, 826LA, A Purposeful Rescue, Inc., the Advancement Project, among many other grantees.

Other Education Grantmaking Opportunities:

The Stuart Foundation also collaborates with the Dwight Stuart Youth Fund (DSYF), established in 2001 and focused on Los Angeles County. The DYSF likes to partner with education nonprofit organizations that encourage youth development in its geographic area of focus, so if your work benefits students in Los Angeles county, this is an excellent, collaborative Fund to know that you should consider pitching to if your work aligns closely. DYSF is a private and separate arm of the Stuart Foundation. The two organizations merged and since, DYSF has continued it’s highly collaborative approach to direct services for underserved youth populations in Los Angeles.

Important Grants Details:

A majority of Stuart grants are between $20,000 and $200,000. View past grants on the funder’s grantees page of its website. Grantmaking prioritizes California-based organizations, but makes grants at it’s board’s discretion for organizations in other states, but these grants are very few and far in-between. The funder has commonly awarded grants with terms ranging from six months to two years.

Although this foundation once accepted unsolicited letters of inquiry, it no longer accepts uninvited proposals. Direct general questions to the foundation staff at 415-393-1551 or via online form.

PEOPLE:

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