The billionaire banker Denny Sanford is giving $100 million to National University System to expand a nationwide Social Emotional Learning program for children in preschool through sixth grade, the philanthropist announced Tuesday.
The program, called Sanford Harmony, is one of a suite of efforts known as Sanford Education Programs that the philanthropist established with an initial $1 million donation in 2013 and followed up with a $28 million gift last year.
The Sanford Harmony program offers teachers a collection of lesson plans, activity cards, storybooks, and other materials for free and uses lessons and activities to teach children how to collaborate and communicate with one another and appreciate each other’s differences. There is also a new-media component with game-based apps and other online materials.
In an emailed response to questions, Sanford said the impetus for his focus on emotional learning was his own failed personal relationships: “After my second divorce, I said to myself, Wait a second, how could this be avoided?”
He read the popular book Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus and then attended a workshop put on by the author John Gray where “800 women showed up and only 18 men.” Men are poorer communicators than women, Sanford said, yet they believe working on that problem is “girl stuff.”
His aspirations for the Harmony program are ambitious.
“The long-term goals of this program are to ultimately reduce divorce, abuse, and bullying rates and increase cooperation, collaboration, respect, and inclusion among all children,” he said.
Broad Reach
The program is in use by public and private schools throughout the country. It reaches about 1.5 million students so far, with a goal to reach 20 million children by 2023, said Michael Cunningham, National’s chancellor.
Cunningham said the program is designed to be easily adopted by teachers and used within their school’s curriculum and teaches children things like how to identify connections among thoughts, emotions, and actions. Ultimately, said Cunningham, the program aims to change the kind of dysfunction showing up in society today.
“If you look at all the things going on with school shootings, racial bias, and all kinds of disruption, all the solutions we have today are reactive approaches,” said Cunningham. “This gives kids a tool kit to build a more harmonious society.”
The gift will also create a research institute operated by National University System, a network of education-related affiliates headquartered in San Diego that offers programs online and at other campuses nationally. Academics at other institutions will conduct research annually on the program’s efforts.
Sanford, whose net worth stands at about $2.5 billion according to Forbes, has devoted significant sums to charity, appearing on the Chronicle’s annual list of the most generous donors eight times since 2005.
The results so far are promising, including reports of better acceptance and inclusion of kids with different backgrounds and learning abilities, Sanford said.
“We need to pay as much attention to children’s mental health as we do to their physical health, but cash-strapped schools don’t have the resources to do this,” he said.
