OVERVIEW: NewSchools Venture Fund is a national venture philanthropy that backs early-stage entrepreneurs and educators working to improve U.S. public education.
IP TAKE: New Schools Venture Fund calls itself a funder that “advances the field like no one else.” NewSchools is more than many national education funders. But the application numbers tell the story: This is an extremely competitive venture-philanthropy process, not a general education grant program.
The strongest candidates are founders with a focused, early-stage idea, meaningful engagement with the people who will use it and a credible plan to test the work quickly. NewSchools is willing to fund unproven approaches, but it expects those approaches to be informed by evidence and paired with capable leadership. A proposal built around an existing organization’s routine programming, a general need for operating support or a loosely defined education project is unlikely to advance.
For school founders, early relationships with families, community partners, authorizers and district leaders are essential. For other ventures, evidence of teacher, student or caregiver involvement can distinguish a promising idea from a product developed at a distance from classrooms.
NewSchools’ strategy is currently in transition. Grantseekers should review the funder’s live materials carefully when the next opportunity opens rather than relying on its previous portfolios, deadlines or priorities.
PROFILE: Based in Oakland, California, the New Schools Venture Fund (NSVF) was founded in 1998 by entrepreneur Kim Smith and venture capitalists John Doerr and Brook Byers. It seeks to “invest in the ideas and energy of education leaders and entrepreneurs who are advancing innovative solutions that expand the definition of what works.” The organization models its investment in education on practices that are common to the world of venture capital; projects and ideas are subject to rigorous research, and the most promising receive funding.
The funder’s current strategy prioritizes students who are furthest from opportunity, including students of color, students experiencing poverty and students with learning differences. Its four investment areas are Innovative Schools, Learning Solutions, Teaching Reimagined and Learning Differences. NewSchools supports new public schools, early-stage organizations and genuinely new initiatives housed within existing organizations.
NewSchools’ current three-year strategy runs through 2026. Grantseekers should expect its priorities and application procedures to evolve when it announces its next strategy.
Grants for K-12 Education
Innovative Education
The Innovative Schools program supports the creation and launch of new public schools. The funder is interested in schools that give students a strong academic foundation while also cultivating agency, relationships, practical skills and plans for life after graduation.
- Eligible applicants include founders developing:
- A first or second charter school within an emerging charter network
- A new district school with meaningful control over staffing, instruction and management
- A new tribally controlled or Bureau of Indian Education school
- In limited cases, a substantially different school model within an established charter network
- Current areas of interest include career-connected and postsecondary pathways, new approaches to educator roles, inclusive schools for students with learning differences and responsible uses of artificial intelligence. Schools may incorporate dual enrollment, industry credentials, internships, project-based learning or other approaches that connect academics to students’ future plans.
- NewSchools funds school founders during design, planning and launch, beginning as much as two years before a school opens and continuing through its early operating years. Schools must serve students full-time within the K–12 span, receive public funding and charge no tuition. District-school applicants need support from the superintendent or an authorized designee.
- NewSchools does not support ordinary redesigns of existing schools, restarts, turnarounds, schools-within-schools, pre-K-only programs or routine expansion by established charter management organizations. Private schools and other tuition-charging models are also ineligible.
- The funder occasionally introduces specialized school-development opportunities. Its 2026 cycle, for example, included an HBCU Charter School Design Fellowship for aspiring charter founders, particularly those interested in developing schools in partnership with historically Black colleges and universities. That opportunity is not currently open.
Learning Solutions
The Learning Solutions portfolio supports early-stage tools, instructional content and models intended to accelerate reading and mathematics growth for students in kindergarten through eighth grade.
- NewSchools looks for solutions that build foundational literacy, reading comprehension, numeracy and algebraic thinking. It also supports approaches that help teachers provide both grade-level and differentiated instruction and help families support learning outside the classroom.
- Artificial intelligence is an increasingly visible part of this portfolio, but NewSchools is not simply looking for more education technology. It favors tools grounded in research and instructional expertise that are accurate, useful to educators and designed to complement—not replace—relationships between students and teachers.
- Priority populations include students experiencing poverty, students of color, multilingual learners and students with learning differences. A proposal should also have relevance beyond a single classroom or school. NewSchools wants ventures that can grow, share an adaptable model or influence how other schools and organizations work.
- Strong prospects include nonprofit and mission-aligned for-profit developers of literacy curricula, math tools, tutoring models, teacher-facing instructional supports and thoughtfully designed AI applications. Recent Learning Solutions ventures include BrainScience Works, FULCRUM, CitySchools Collaborative’s generative-AI math tutoring initiative and the California Indian Museum and Cultural Center.
Effective and Sustainable Teaching
The Teaching Reimagined portfolio supports ideas that make teaching more effective, collaborative and sustainable.
- The funder focuses on three broad approaches:
- Redesigned educator roles and collaborative staffing models
- Models that bring caregivers, community members and industry experts into instructional teams
- Artificial intelligence tools co-designed with educators to strengthen instruction and reduce unproductive burdens
- NewSchools is particularly interested in solutions shaped by teachers and other people with direct knowledge of classroom conditions. The strongest proposals will improve student learning while also addressing the conditions that contribute to teacher turnover, professional isolation and burnout.
- Recent ventures include ALL in Education, Indigitize, Journify Learning, Thrive and Uppercase. Earlier grants have supported organizations such as CommunityShare, Education Evolving, Relay Graduate School of Education and the Urban Assembly.
Learning Differences
NewSchools’ Learning Differences work supports students with diagnosed and undiagnosed disabilities. Some of this grantmaking is integrated into the funder’s schools, learning-solutions and teaching portfolios. NewSchools also makes a smaller number of direct investments in opportunities that fall outside those areas.
- Current priorities include:
- Recruiting and retaining qualified special education teachers
- Professional development and instructional tools that help educators translate research into classroom practice
- School environments that promote belonging and inclusive instruction
- Experiential learning and transition supports that prepare students with learning differences for college, careers and adult life
- Recent ventures include All Means All, Emote Education, Fair Schools, Playground IEP, True Measure Collaborative and Uprooted Academy. Earlier grants have gone to the Dyslexia Alliance for Black Children, Diverse Learners Cooperative and organizations working on autism-focused school development, individualized education plans and postsecondary transitions.
Other Grantmaking
Diverse Leaders, Racial Equity and EDge appear in NewSchools’ historical venture database and on older grant records, but they are not current application programs.
The former Diverse Leaders portfolio supported efforts to diversify education leadership, strengthen organizations led by people of color and help families advocate for educational change. Racial Equity supported work addressing racial bias and systemic inequities that did not fit cleanly within other portfolios. EDge operated as a flexible category for emerging needs and opportunities, including teacher-workforce innovation, learning differences and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Much of this work has been absorbed into NewSchools’ present strategy. Leadership diversity, racial equity and community engagement now inform selection across the four current investment areas. Teacher-workforce ideas belong principally under Teaching Reimagined, while disability-related initiatives belong under Learning Differences.
The venture database also contains an “Additional Investments” category. Recent organizations listed there include Camelback Ventures and Diversity in Leadership Institute. NewSchools does not describe this as a separate, publicly accessible grant program. It appears to encompass reinvestments and selected opportunities outside the principal cohort categories.
Important Grant Details
In 2025, NewSchools announced more than $23 million in new investments and reinvestments to over 80 ventures. The new cohort was selected from approximately 1,600 applications, underscoring the competitiveness of the process. Its 2024 cohort consisted of 54 ventures receiving a combined $13.4 million, selected from more than 1,100 applicants. Those ventures operated across 29 states, and 16 worked nationally.
NewSchools’ latest available Form 990 reports about $41.8 million in revenue, $36.1 million in expenses and $69.2 million in net assets for 2024. The organization reported roughly $19.4 million in grants and similar assistance that year.
Most recent applicant-facing grants have been one-year, unrestricted awards ranging from $150,000 to $250,000. Awards to new schools can vary by development stage, and the Form 990 includes some payments above and below that range.
- NewSchools is not an invitation-only funder. It accepts unsolicited applications through a competitive annual funding opportunity, which it publicizes broadly. It does not accept general proposals year-round.
- General-track applicants should normally be ready to begin piloting within one year or be within the first two years of implementation. NewSchools generally will not support an idea that is not ready to pilot or an established program seeking routine growth and scale capital. The funder does, however, consider a genuinely new initiative housed within a larger organization.
- Community participation matters here. NewSchools says it incorporates feedback from students, families, educators and researchers into first-time investment decisions. Its diligence process may include interviews, references and follow-up questions.
- A warm introduction is not necessary and will not replace the application. Nevertheless, prospective grantees can improve their positioning by building authentic relationships with existing NewSchools ventures, public-school leaders, district officials, charter authorizers, special education networks and educators working in the proposed area. These relationships are most useful for testing the idea, forming implementation partnerships and developing credible references—not for bypassing the open process.
- NSVF provides a searchable database of projects that it has supported on its website.
PEOPLE:
Search for staff contact info and bios in PeopleFinder (paid subscribers only).
LINKS:
Last updated on