Learning loss that occurs over the summer — the dreaded “summer slide” — can set K-12 students back in school. Conversely, research shows that quality summer learning programs can positively impact student achievement and help reduce discrepancies in learning outcomes for disadvantaged students. The programs also provide enrichment activities and summer fun for students who might not have such opportunities otherwise.
Guided by findings like these, two big funders, Bloomberg Philanthropies and Ballmer Group, have created summer learning programs over the past several years, drawing on help from the philanthropy advisory firm Building Impact Partners.
Bloomberg Philanthropies, channeling the fortune of billionaire Michael Bloomberg, launched its program, Summer Boost, in New York City in 2022, in an effort to tackle COVID learning loss. This year, Summer Boost programs will be operating in seven cities, with support from Bloomberg Philanthropies and co-funders.
The Ballmer Group, one of the country’s largest antipoverty funders, rolled out Summer Discovery last year through its southeast Michigan office, and it hopes to reach 22,000 students this summer. The Ballmer Group was created by former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and his wife, Connie. The organization operates as “both a national and regional funder,” but it has a long track record of investing in three priority places: southeast Michigan, Los Angeles County and Washington state.
Given their size and the centibillionaire fortunes behind them, both Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Ballmer Group maintain relatively small staff sizes, and working with Building Impact Partners allowed them to build ambitious summer programs without a huge expansion of organizational infrastructure. As Caitlin Hannon, Building Impact’s president, said, “The two philanthropies are similar in the sense that they try to operate leanly, given the number of resources and how much money they’re trying to get out the door — compared to say, a Gates or a Walton,” she said. “Their model is a little bit more dependent on finding partners who can help them execute things like this.
In these cases, Building Impact was that partner. “We say we’re like the circus,” Hannon said. “We come in, we build the tent, and then we take it down when we’re done. And we’ll come back if and when you need us.”
Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Summer Boost
Bloomberg Philanthropies’ summer learning program got its start in 2022. The most deadly period of the pandemic was over, but students were showing the aftereffects in the form of widespread learning loss. The Bloomberg team wanted to do something about it. They had worked with Building Impact Partners in the past and turned to the philanthropy advisor for help. “Bloomberg was saying that summer seemed like the clearest opportunity — ‘There’s this open window of time where we can try and work on catching kids up,’” Hannon recalled.
One of a growing constellation of philanthropy advisory groups operating across the sector, Building Impact Partners works with individuals, families and foundations in a variety of ways to “harness philanthropy as an engine for system change.” It advises funders on how to give money more effectively; its founder, Alex Johnson, even wrote a book on the topic. Among its other projects, in 2021, Building Impact Partners designed and launched another summer learning program — Indy Summer Learning Labs – in partnership with The Mind Trust and United Way of Central Indiana.
This summer, Summer Boost will have programs in Baltimore, Birmingham, Memphis, Nashville, New York City, San Antonio and Washington, D.C. Bloomberg Philanthropies — and Michael Bloomberg himself — favor charters over traditional public schools, and Summer Boost supports only charter students. The program focuses on English language arts and math for first- to ninth-grade students, and offers summer enrichment programs including outdoor activities, recreation, STEM projects and more.
A 2023 report evaluating Summer Boost found that students who participated showed significant academic progress: “Students gained on
average an additional ~4-5 weeks of math learning and ~3-4 weeks of ELA learning compared to their peers who did not participate in the program,” according to the analysis, and gains for English language learners were even higher.
“Reversing the unprecedented levels of learning loss from the pandemic remains an urgent challenge,” Michael Bloomberg said last year when the findings were announced. “Bloomberg Philanthropies will keep doing our part by continuing the Summer Boost initiative, which has proven effective at helping more students make up lost ground and get back on track to success.”
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Ballmer Group’s Summer Discovery
Steve and Connie Ballmer have always been interested in out-of-school time and youth development, according to Temeca Simpson, Ballmer Group’s senior portfolio manager for southeast Michigan. “Internally, we have been looking at different ways to do more in that space for a couple of years. We’ve done a number of direct grants to organizations and communities that have been great, but we’re always looking for ways to have a bigger impact,” she said. In southern California, Ballmer Group has supported the L.A. County Learning Initiative, a project of the California Community Foundation.
The Ballmer Group’s education team looked into other national summer learning models, including Indy Summer Learning Labs and Summer Boost. “We met with Caitlin [at Building Impact] to understand what it might take to do something like that here,” Simpson said.
Before creating the Ballmer program, Building Impact Partners talked to school leaders, educators, community-based organizations, parents and others in southeast Michigan. Based on that research, they tailored Summer Discovery to local needs and priorities; for example, they determined that it would offer a full versus half-day program to accommodate working parents.
“It wasn’t just a quick plug and play,” Simpson said. “[Building Impact] came up with a set of recommendations for how we could adapt Summer Boost into something really special that would work here in southeast Michigan.”
The United Way for Southeastern Michigan was brought in as a local partner for Summer Discovery. “We knew that for something like this to work, we needed a local community implementation partner who knows the organizations, knows the schools, and has a rapport with local leaders,” Simpson said.
With a commitment of close to $35 million from the Ballmer Group, Summer Discovery opened in the summer of 2024 at close to 100 sites in Michigan’s Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties. The program, which is targeted to K-8 students, offers arts, recreation and outdoor activities, as well as academics. To be eligible, schools have to serve a student population in which 50% or more qualify for free lunch. According to Ballmer materials, a majority of the children who participated in Summer Discovery during its first year were students of color, and 60% were Black. Preliminary results showed that students in the program increased proficiency in both math and English language arts. This summer, the program is set to expand to serve even more young people.
“Right before we started, we learned that Detroit public schools had offered a full day summer program some years ago, but funding ran out,” Simpson said. “That program did really well, and they wanted to continue with it, but there were just no funds to support that type of work. So there was a lot of excitement about Summer Discovery.”
Other summer program backers and ed philanthropy’s role under Trump
Most kids look forward to summer, and it can be a carefree and exciting time of adventure and opportunity — but that is often not the case for children in underserved communities, where family budgets are tight and parents may be working multiple jobs. Sixty-one percent of families that participated in Summer Discovery, for example, said their child would have stayed home or with another caregiver if the program was not an option.
Besides Bloomberg and the Ballmers, there are other funders that recognize the importance of summertime for young peoples’ wellbeing, and put money behind it. Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies, for example, prioritizes kids’ camping and swimming in its funding, and has supported efforts by Camp Fire to expand its programs to include more young people. And corporate funders, including JPMorgan Chase and insurance firm John Hancock, have supported summer jobs programs, as Liz Longley has reported.
The Wallace Foundation has also been a summer learning leader. Through its National Summer Learning Project, it helped five school districts build summer learning programs. The foundation commissioned research by RAND that found that “low-income students who attend well-designed summer learning programs at high rates reap meaningful educational benefits in math and reading.”
Programs like Summer Boost and Summer Discovery demonstrate what other research has shown: More resources can improve students’ outcomes. They also help make summer joyous for thousands of children, offering stimulation, companionship, contact with caring adults — and spaces for kids to just be kids. Unfortunately, under the Trump administration, which recently took a chainsaw to the Department of Education, districts and schools will be forced to get by on fewer resources — and disadvantaged students will be hit the hardest by the cuts. There are going to be many ways for education funders to try to repair some of the damage; supporting summer programs and other opportunities for students outside the classroom is one.
