Grantee Profiles
Alliance for Quality Education
Bessie Tartt Wilson Children’s Foundation – Keeping The Promise
Bird Street Community Center – The Uphams Corner Youth Council
The Black Star Project
Boston-Area Youth Organizing Project (BYOP)
Boston Parents Organizing Network (BPON)
Campaign for Fiscal Equity
The CAYL Institute – Alumni Program
The CAYL Institute – Core Program
Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at the Harvard Law School
The Coalition of Schools Educating Boys of Color (COSEBOC)
Coalition for Social Justice
Communities for Public Education Reform/Public Interest Projects
Critical Exposure
Drum Major Institute for Public Policy (DMI)
Education Voters Institute: Massachusetts Education Voters Initiative
Freedom House – Project Listen
Hampshire Educational Collaborative / Wheelock College: Early Childhood Policy Coalition – Engaging Diverse Voices
Massachusetts ACORN
Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center
Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA)
The Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy
Merck Family Fund
National Women’s Law Center
New York State Conference of the N.A.A.C.P. Branches (NAACP)
PEW Charitable Trusts – Partnership for America’s Economic Success
Public Policy Action Center
Teachers as Leaders
Urban Youth Collaborative (UYC)
Young Elected Officials Network (YEO), a project of People For the American Way Foundation
The Young People’s Project, Inc.
Alliance for Quality Education
Address: 23 Elk Street, Albany, NY 12207
Contact: Bill Easton, Executive Director, (518) 432-5315, eastonbilly@aol.com
Website: http://www.aqeny.org/
Bessie Tartt Wilson Children’s Foundation – Keeping The Promise
Address: C/O Tartt’s Day Care Centers, Inc., 1010 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, MA 02118
Contact: Mary L. Reed, President, (617) 442-8383, maryl@tartts.com
Website: http://www.kidspromise.org
Bessie Tartt Wilson seeks to improve childhood development for children in early care with the greatest need. The Foundation will achieve this mission by supporting and empowering families and educators through research, advocacy and culturally rich education. This grant provided support for Keeping the Promise: Children, Welfare Reform and Early Education – a Day-Long Forum on Early Education and Care. This convening brought together members of the early education and child care community including child care providers, advocates, public officials, and for the first time, families to engage in a continuing dialogue on the state of early education and child care in the Commonwealth.
Bird Street Community Center – The Uphams Corner Youth Council
Address: 500 Columbia Road, Dorchester, MA 02125
Contact: Andrea Kaiser, Executive Director, (617) 282-6110, akaiser@birdstreet.org
Website: http://www.birdstreet.org/
The Youth Council was created to empower youth by providing them with an outlet to use their energy constructively, learn about the political forces that affect their lives, and use philanthropy as a means to address some of the issues of greatest concern to them – education, violence, and creating a better community. This grant provides support to empower the young leaders in the Uphams Corner Boston community through political education and local philanthropy to address issues including education, violence and creating a better community.
The Black Star Project
Address: 3473 South King Drive, Chicago, IL 60605
Contact: Phillip Jackson, Executive Director, (773) 285-9600, blackstar1000@americatech.net
Website: http://www.blackstarproject.org
The Black Star Project seeks to increase the involvement of fathers and other positive male role models of color in the educational lives of children. This grant provides support for the Million Father March and parent leadership development to support father involvement in children’s schools and their children’s healthy development and education.
Boston-Area Youth Organizing Project (BYOP)
Address: 565 Boylston Street, 5th Floor, Boston, MA 02116
Contact: Najma Nazy’at, Executive Director, (617) 262-1895, najma@byop.org
Website: http://www.byop.org/
BYOP is a youth led initiative where youth and adults are united by a common purpose to increase youth power and create positive social change. BYOP’s goals are to improve the lives of young people in their communities and increase the ability of young people to participate in the political processes that affect their lives. This grant provides support for youth leadership development and community organizing to strengthen student engagement and problem solving in Boston public high schools.
Boston Parents Organizing Network (BPON)
Address: 284 Amory Street, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
Contact: Myriam Ortiz, Acting Executive Director, (617) 522-2766, mortiz@bpon.org
Website: http://www.bpon.org/
BPON seeks to organize a diverse constituency of parents, students, family and other community members to support and advocate for the improvement of Boston Public Schools (BPS). This grant provides support to increase parent leadership and engagement for increased state-level investment in public education at the state, district, and school levels.
Campaign for Fiscal Equity
Address: 110 Williams St., Suite 2602, New York, NY 10038
Contact: Geri Palast, Executive Director, (212) 867-8455, gpalast@cfequity.org
Website: http://www.cfequity.org
CFE seeks to reform New York State’s school finance system to ensure adequate resources and the opportunity for a sound basic education for all students in New York City. This grant provides general support to CFE.
The CAYL Institute – Alumni Program
Address: 315 Broadway, #9, Cambridge, MA 02139
Contact: Valora Washington, President, (617) 873-0678, vwashington@cayl.org
Website: http://www.cayl.org/
The CAYL Institute – Alumni Program seeks to build public will for high quality universal early education by engaging, supporting, and sustaining a diverse group of mid-career level leaders in early care and education. This grant provides support for an alumni program for the Schott Fellowship Program as the Fellows continue to work on public policy issues and campaigns long term; past their initial Fellowship year.
The CAYL Institute – Core Program
Address: 315 Broadway, Suite 9, Cambridge, MA 02139
Contact: Valora Washington, Exec. Director, (617) 873-0678, vwashington@cayl.org
Website: http://www.cayl.org/
The CAYL Institute – Core Program seeks to build public will for high quality universal early education by engaging, supporting, and sustaining a diverse group of mid-career level leaders in early care and education. This grant provides support for the Schott Fellowship which prepares mid and senior-level professionals (primarily women and people of color) who are committed to working in communities of color to understand and improve early childhood public policy.
Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at the Harvard Law School
Address: 125 Mt. Auburn Street, 3rd floor Cambridge, MA 02138
Contact: Johanna Wald, Director of Strategic Planning, (617) 495-8087, jwald@law.harvard.edu
Website: http://www.charleshamiltonhouston.org/Home.aspx
CHHIRJ seeks to address the structural and systemic racism that continue to plague the nation’s law, policies, institutions and interactions by bringing together students, faculty, practitioners, civil rights and business leaders, community advocates, litigators, and policymakers in a variety of forums, conferences and meetings. This grant provides support for research under the initiative entitled “Redirecting the School to Prison Pipeline.” The goal of the initiative is to address the issues of drop-out/ push out that is directly related to the suspension and/ or expulsion of minority students in MA public schools.
The Coalition of Schools Educating Boys of Color (COSEBOC)
Address: 14 Priscilla Way Lynn, MA 01904
Contact: Ron Walker, Executive Director, (781) 775-9461, info@coseboc.org
Website: http://www.coseboc.org/
COSEBOC seeks to enable all students to be lifelong learners, productive workers, and thoughtful members of our families and global communities. This grant provides support for the annual “Gathering of Leaders” conference and research on best practices for educating boys of color, especially Black boys.
Coalition for Social Justice
Address: 56 N. Main Street, Suite 403, Fall River, MA 02720
Contact: Debra Fastino, Organizer/Co-Director, (508) 982-3108, dfastino@aol.com
Website: http://www.csjorganize.org/
Coalition for Social Justice seeks to build a grassroots peoples’ movement to fight for economic and social justice in Southeastern Massachusetts. This grant provides support to organize a public education campaign in communities of color in southeastern MA related to the tax repeal referendum.
Communities for Public Education Reform/Public Interest Projects
Address: c/o Public Interest Projects (PIP), 80 Broad St., Suite 1600, New York, NY 10004
Contact: Michele Lord, (212) 764-1508
Website: http://www.publicinterestprojects.org
CPER/PIP is a donor collaborative that seeks to have education organizing – including research, policy and model program development – be viewed by funders and the public as one of many essential strategies for creating a public education system of high quality, equitable schools. This grant provides national support for the collaborative.
Critical Exposure
Address: 1816 12th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20009
Contact: Adam Levener, Co-Director, (202) 258-6626, alevner@yahoo.com
Website: http://www.criticalexposure.org
Critical Exposure seeks to teach youth how to use the power of photography and their own voices to become effective advocates for school reform and social change. This grant provides support for Critical Exposure to begin expansion of their current work with middle and high school students, documenting through photographs the current state of the cities’ public schools, the cities’ current dropout crisis, and the impact of school under funding, into New York and Massachusetts.
Drum Major Institute for Public Policy (DMI)
Address: 40 Exchange Place, Suite 2001, New York, NY 10005
Contact: Andrea Batista Schlesinger, Executive Director, (212) 274-5700, abs@drummajorinstitute.org
Website: http://www.drummajorinstitute.org
DMI drives ideas, research model policies, and even young talent into the hands of those on the frontlines of the progressive movement. This grant provides support for the DMI Scholars Summer Institute which fosters the development of diverse leaders in public policy reform.
Education Voters Institute: Massachusetts Education Voters Initiative
Address: 11 Dupont Circle, N.W., Suite 201, Washington, DC 20036
Contact: Beth Sullivan, President, (202) 232-3371, bsullivan@edvoters.org
Website: http://www.edvotersinstitute.org/
Education Voters Institute seeks to identify, inform, and motivate people who are about education to advocate for excellent public education systems. This grant provides support for the MA Education Voters campaign to organize voters around public education issues.
Freedom House – Project Listen
Address: 14 Crawford Street, Boston, MA 02121
Contact: Gail Snowden, Chief Executive Officer, (617) 445-3700, gsnowden@freedomhouse.com
Website: http://www.freedomhouse.com/
Freedom House seeks to organize a diverse constituency of parents, students, family and other community members to support and advocate for the improvement of Boston Public Schools (BPS). This grant provides support to strengthen youth leadership and organize parents, students, and other community members to advocate for the improvement of Boston Public Schools.
Hampshire Educational Collaborative / Wheelock College: Early Childhood Policy Coalition – Engaging Diverse Voices
Address: 97 Hawley Street, Northampton, MA 01060
Contact: Barbara Finlayson, EC Director, (413) 586-4998, bfinlayson@collaborative.org
Website: http://www.collaborative.org/
The collaboration between these three institutions is focused on supporting the building of a statewide Early Childhood Policy Coalition beginning in selected rural and communities of color. The Policy Coalition is designed to strengthen leadership capacity in selected communities to tackle issues such as early childhood and K-12 school committee decision making, local and state budget processes, tax policy, and public information campaigns. This grant is a planning grant and launches this work by providing resources to conduct research, planning activities, and full proposal development.
Massachusetts ACORN
Address: 196 Adams Street, Boston, MA 02122
Contact: Mimi Ramos, Lead Organizer, (617) 905-9939, maacorn@acorn.org; voicescanbeheardmimi@yahoo.com
Website: http://www.acorn.org/
MA ACORN seeks to empower residents in disenfranchised communities through organizing democratically run, member-owned grassroots community groups that identify and research local problems and develop neighborhood campaigns to resolve those problems. This grant provides support to organize a public education campaign in communities of color in Southeastern Massachusetts related to the state tax repeal referendum.
Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center
Address: 15 Court Square, Suite 700, Boston, MA 02108
Contact: Noah Berger, Executive Director, (617) 426-1228, nberger@massbudget.org
Website: http://www.massbudget.org
MA Budget and Policy Center seeks to conduct and disseminate independent research and analyses of state budget and tax policies, as well as economic issues that affect low- and moderate-income people in Massachusetts. This grant provides general support to MA Budget and Policy Center enabling them to provide trainings, speaking sessions, presentations and other related forms of technical assistance and support in the areas of basic budget and tax policy, in-depth budget policy, in-depth tax policy, budget trends and public education finance.
Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA)
Address: 105 Chauncy Street, 9th Floor, Boston, MA 02111
Contact: Eva Millona, Executive Director, (617) 350-5480, emillona@miracoalition.org
Website: http://www.miracoalition.org/
MIRA seeks to advocate for the rights and opportunities of immigrants and refugees across the Commonwealth. MIRA advances this mission through education and training, leadership development, organizing, policy analysis, and advocacy. This grant provides support for advocacy and leadership development for the rights and opportunities of immigrants and refugees across Massachusetts through education and training, leadership development, organizing, policy analysis, and advocacy.
The Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy
Address: University of Massachusetts, Boston, 100 Morrissey Blvd., Boston, MA 02125
Contact: Maria Idali Torres, Executive Director, (617) 287-5790, mariaidali.torres@umb.edu
Website: http://www.gaston.umb.edu/
The Gaston Institute seeks to inform policy makers about issues vital to the Commonwealth’s growing Latino community and to provide this community with information and analysis necessary for effective participation in public policy development. This grant provides support for a research project on English Language Learners in the Boston Public Schools. The 5-year longitudinal analysis will look specifically at the effects of the 2002 Referendum Question 2 which abolished transitional bilingual education as the primary program available for children requiring language support and substituted Sheltered English Emersion Programs in its place.
Merck Family Fund
Address: 303 Adams Street Milton, MA 02186
Contact: Brinda Maira, Program Officer, (617) 696-3580, bmaira@merckff.org
Website: http://www.merckff.org/
National Women’s Law Center
Address: 11 Dupont Circle, Suite 800, Washington, DC 20036
Contact: Jocelyn Samuels, (202) 588-5180, jsamuels@nwlc.org
Website: http://www.nwlc.org
NWLC seeks to protect and advance the progress of women and girls at work, in school, and in virtually every aspect of their lives. This grant provides support for a research partnership between NWLC and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) to identify challenges faced by Latinas in school, identifying promising interventions to reduce the dropout rate.
New York State Conference of the N.A.A.C.P. Branches (NAACP)
Address: 39 Broadway, 22nd Fl., New York, New York, 10006
Contact: Hazel Dukes, President, (212) 344-7474, nysnaacp@aol.com
Website: www.naacp.org
The NAACP New York State Conference has been operating for 72 years addressing issues and concerns of justice and equality. This grant provides support for public will building in communities of color across NY for increased education funding.
PEW Charitable Trusts – Partnership for America’s Economic Success
Address: 1025 F Street NW, #900, Washington, D.C. 20004
Contact: Sara Watson, Senior Program Officer, State Policy Initiatives, swatson@pewtrusts.org
Website: http://www.pewtrusts.org
Partnership for America’s Economic Success – PAES (formerly known as the Invest in Kids Partnership) is a collaborative effort of leaders in business, economics, and philanthropy to make the successful development of all our children the top priority of the United States. This grant provides support for national efforts to raise awareness through economic-based research of the importance of investing in early childhood education as a national economic imperative.
Public Policy Action Center
Address: 30 Winter Street, Boston, MA 02108
Contact: Judy Meredith, Executive Director, (617) 275-2923, judy@realclout.org
Website: http://www.realclout.org
The Public Policy Action Center is dedicated to civic education and civic participation, and making education and training available to the general public, non-profit organizations, and other relating to federal, state, and local tax and budget policy. This grant provides support for education and training to community-based organizations in communities of color in Massachusetts on tax and budget policy issues.
Teachers as Leaders
Address: The City College of The City University of New York, 160 Convent Avenue at 138th Street, North Academic Center, Room 4/153, New York, NY 10031
Contact: Elliott Dawes, Director, (212) 650-8294, Elliott.Dawes@mail.cuny.edu
Website: http://www.cuny.edu/bmi
Teachers as Leaders seeks to increase opportunities for teaching as a career, advancing educational opportunities for the least advantaged in NYC. This grant provides general support to the Teachers as Leaders program, a project of the Black Male Initiative at the City University of New York (CUNY).
Urban Youth Collaborative (UYC)
Address: c/o Annenberg Institute for School Reform: Community Involvement Program (AISR-CIP)
233 Broadway, Suite 720, New York, NY 10279
Contact: Marisol Zacarias, interim coordinator, (212) 328-9290, urbanyouthcollaborative@gmail.com
Website: http://www.urbanyouthcollaborative.org/
UYC seeks to create a youth-centered voice to education reform in New York City. This grant provides support for the UYC to work with researchers at the City University of New York to survey approximately 5000 high school-aged youth in New York City on their experiences in the areas of education, health, safety and juvenile justice.
Young Elected Officials Network (YEO), a project of People For the American Way Foundation
Address: 1550 Melvin Street Tallahassee, FL 32301
Contact: Andrew Gillum, Executive Director, (850) 877-0307, agillum@pfaw.org
Website: http://www.YEONetwork.org
The Young Elected Officials (YEO) Network seeks to unite and support progressive elected leaders who share a passion for building communities that reflect values of freedom, fairness and opportunity. This grant provides support for the Education Justice Policy academy aimed at informing young elected officials across the country on relevant education policy issues.
The Young People’s Project, Inc.
Address: 99 Bishop Allen Drive, Cambridge, MA 02139
Contact: Chad Milner, Site Director, (617) 354-8991, cmilner@typp.org
Website: http://www.typp.org/
The Young People’s Project seeks to train and organize high school and college students to work with their younger peers, their families and communities, to build demand for math literacy and high quality public school education. This grant was provided to support this work.