One of the joys of funding education comes from visiting the bustling classrooms and extracurricular programs that foundation dollars support. Our purpose as donors becomes clear when we can engage with students and witness their enthusiasm firsthand. Site visits to innovative school districts also allow us to meet informally with other grant makers, trade notes, and learn from each other.
Thanks to the pandemic, these opportunities are now distant memories.
Education donors are struggling to make sense of a current reality that has diminished their role in schools. Live visits to observe and participate are rare. Federal stimulus dollars mean schools have more funding than ever. At the same time, staffing is in crisis and schools’ capacity to try new ideas is at an all-time low. All these factors widen the gap between philanthropy and schools.
Real losses accrue the more time donors spend away from school buildings. School administrators and teachers feel alone in an interminable battle to keep campuses open and safe, and that lessens their trust in those on the outside. Grant makers’ ability to spot patterns and connect people and ideas is weakened. In an era of high turnover and limited travel, it’s harder to know the two best people to introduce to solve a given problem or the right players to convene to build a strategy.
Without physical proximity to those education philanthropy serves, relationships suffer, and we are less valuable at a time when schools are contending with their greatest need.
So, what are the options? Pushing our way back into schools for site visits unfortunately isn’t one of them. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other steps we can take to bridge the proximity gap and make a significant contribution.
Safely resume in-person meetings. Early in the pandemic there was an equity-based argument for philanthropy to promote remote work. We did not want to send the message to grantees, especially those with limited access to vaccines or who were confronting vaccine hesitancy, that we were blind to their circumstances. But there is now a stronger equity argument for returning to at least some semblance of in-person life.
The chasm between those required to do their work in person and those who can work from home has grown as it becomes increasingly likely that the latter group will never return to the old ways. Those of us who work from home amassed a set of new benefits we are loath to give up, such as time saved by not commuting and money saved on clothes and lunches.
We cannot change these structural inequities overnight. We can, however, hold ourselves accountable for resuming as many in-person aspects of our work as possible in solidarity with and support of our grantees. Before 2020, many grant makers held meetings for school-district superintendents and nonprofit executives, creating the rare chance for these leaders to step away from the daily grind and connect with peers. Resuming such efforts to create connection, perhaps in smaller groups for now, will help rebuild trust.
We must stop falling back on the luxury of fearing the in-person world, knowing our grantees do not have that luxury. Just as schools are places of limited virus spread, so, too, are properly ventilated meetings of masked and vaccinated groups.
Substitute teach and encourage others in your organization to do the same. Foundation leaders and staff should join the legions of superintendents and school administrators filling in for teachers who have been sidelined by Covid-19 or quit because of deteriorating conditions.
There is no more important way right now to get inside schools and gain the kind of nuanced understanding of this moment that good grant making requires.
I substituted last month in a fifth-grade classroom in my hometown of Milton, Mass., and learned more in a day about what schools are facing than I have in two years of working on education philanthropy from home.
I have floated this idea to several foundation leaders, suggesting they commit a day or two a month to working as a substitute teacher. Most have dismissed the idea. I recognize the role’s lack of appeal, but I also believe it is the honest answer every superintendent in the United States would give right now to the question “How can I help?”
To get closer to what’s happening in schools, it isn’t enough to stand in the doorway and observe a class. To truly understand the struggles schools are facing, grant makers need to live inside the experience. If philanthropy is defined as love of one’s fellow human, providing this type of relief would certainly feel like love to nearly every teacher and administrator in America right now.
Pay for teachers and parents to participate in meetings. Education grant makers need to help tackle a host of pressing questions that have emerged during the pandemic. For example, how do we stem growing rates of teacher attrition? How do we engage parents in addressing student mental health? It’s clear that education needs to change in substantial ways, and philanthropy can play an important role in facilitating those changes through its gathering power. This includes bringing together teachers and parents to share their perspectives in meetings and focus groups.
But we can’t approach these requests for participation as we have in the past — by asking those taking part to give their time and expertise for free. Especially in this era that has asked so much of parents and teachers, those who participate in after-hours meetings must be compensated.
Schools and the people who spend their days in them are struggling mightily right now. Grant makers need to show up in this moment of crisis — and not simply by making a donation. It’s time to rethink our Covid comfort zones and the divide they have created with grantees and educators. Without taking some of the risks we are asking of them, our relevance will fade, and their distrust in what we have to offer will grow.
