OVERVIEW: The Wallace Foundation supports K-12 education and the arts, as well as research on best practices and organizational effectiveness. Recent areas of specific interest have included out-of-school learning and arts organizations for people of color.
IP TAKE: What distinguishes the Wallace Foundation from other funders working in education and the arts is its active and collaborative participation in research. Funding initiatives tend to focus on one or more research questions about program or organizational effectiveness. Wallace simultaneously supports programs of interest and teams of researchers who assess the relevance and effectiveness of both funded programs and funding strategies. Urban school districts that are willing to partner with nearby universities to produce educational research, as well as arts organizations willing to share data and best practices with arts collaboratives, stand a particularly good chance here.
Wallace is a very transparent funder. While it does not have an easily accessible grants database, it frequently posts news, press releases, blogs, and annual reports about its grantmaking activity. It also offers a wealth of non-grant resources for the nonprofits it partners with, including data, publications, infographics, presentations, and collaboration resources. The foundation solicits applications through RFPs, but these tend to be very specific, so it can take years for grantseekers to find an opportunity that matches their needs. Follow Wallace on social media or sign up for email updates to keep up with the latest.
PROFILE: Established in the 1980s, the Wallace Foundation is a private foundation based in New York City with national interests. This is the foundation of DeWitt and Lila Acheson Wallace, who founded Reader’s Digest magazine in 1922. They created the foundation from the wealth amassed from their magazine and contributed to educational, artistic and cultural causes during their lifetimes. Today, the foundation’s stated mission is “to help all communities build a more vibrant and just future by fostering advances in the arts, education leadership, and youth development.” Its current grantmaking addresses the arts, school leadership and youth development.
Grants for K-12
Giving for K-12 education, including K-12 arts education, accounts for more than half of Wallace’s annual grantmaking.
The School Leadership focus area, established in 2000, aims to support public schools by improving school leadership, a strong predictor of student success according to research cited by the foundation on its insights page. Current grantmaking is conducted through the foundation’s Equity Centered Pipeline Initiative, which collaborates with eight large, urban public school districts to create “pipelines that produce school leaders who can advance educational equity and lift student learning.”
Grantees of the School Leadership program include the Columbus City School District, Fresno Unified School District, San Antonio Independent School District and District of Columbia Public Schools.
- Youth Development grantmaking targets high quality in- and out-of-school programming that enhances learning and social-emotional development. This program names four subinitiatives:
- Advancing Opportunities for Adolescents seeks to support out-of-school programs for young people who “face barriers that limit their ability to grow and thrive.” Programming that involves collaboration among community organizations is prioritized.
- Summer Learning in Texas focuses on summer academic programs based on “research-based practices.” The foundation’s main partners in this work are the Texas Education Agency and the Communities Foundation of Texas.
- The District Summer Learning Network is not a grantmaking program per se, but it assists school districts “plan and run effective summer learning programs.”
- The State Summer Learning Network, similarly, supports the work of the National Summer Learning Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to help states plan and execute quality summer learning programs.
Grantees of the Youth Development initiative include Milwaukee Succeeds, Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation of Rhode Island the Santa Fe Community Educators Network and others.
Grants for Arts and Culture, Arts Education
The Wallace Foundation’s grantmaking program for the Arts aims to diversify audiences, create opportunities for youth participation, and strengthen and amplify the work of arts organizations of color in the communities they serve.
- Current giving centers on Advancing Well-Being in the Arts and is so far working to “learn more about arts organizations founded by, with, and for communities of color.” Funding focuses on “organizational well-being” and is coupled with related research and evaluation efforts.
- Grantee partners in this work include the Arab American National Museum in Michigan, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Puerto Rico, Self Help Graphics & Art in East Los Angeles and the EastSide Arts Alliance & Cultural Center on Oakland, California.
Important Grant Details:
The Wallace Foundation’s grants can range any where from $1,000 to about $1.9 million. The majority of the awarded grants fall in the $25,000 to $250,000 range.
This funder’s work is national in scope, with many grants supporting large, urban public school districts.
Arts grants go to organizations of all sizes.
Wallace’s grantmaking prioritizes projects with a research component; the foundation is actively involved in data collection and the dissemination of findings related to their goals in the areas of K-12 education and the arts.
This funder mainly selects grantees “through the issuance of requests for proposals or other careful screening processes.” It posts detailed RFPs on its Funding Opportunities page. Eligibility, guidelines and due dates vary significantly by opportunity.
- For information about its past grantmaking, see Wallace’s individual program pages and its annual reports.
General inquiries about the grantmaking process may be submitted through the contact page, and the foundation recommends signing up for its newsletter to keep up with new funding opportunities. The Wallace Foundation’s phone number is (212) 251-9700.
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