Overdeck Family Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The New York City-based Overdeck Family Foundation supports early childhood education, K-12 education and STEM initiatives.
IP TAKE: Overdeck seeks to fund organizations and projects with strong leadership and financial health and the potential to scale and broadly influence educational practice. This funder emphasizes research- and evidence-based interventions. The foundation is not accessible, but it does consider outreach from organizations that meet its funding criteria. However, funding is limited to the U.S.
PROFILE: The Overdeck Family Foundation was established in 2011 by John and Laura Overdeck and is based in New York City. John Overdeck is a billionaire who co-founded the hedge fund Two Sigma Investments. Laura Overdeck studied astrophysics at Princeton University, earned an MBA at Wharton and went on to create Bedtime Math, a successful at-home mathematics program for young children. The Overdeck Family Foundation maintains the broad goal of “providing all children the opportunity to unlock their potential” and supports in-school and out-of-school education for early childhood and K-12 students. The foundation limits its grantmaking to the U.S.
Grants for Early Childhood Education
The goal of the Overdeck Family Foundation’s Early Impact funding initiative is to help “all children enter kindergarten with the skills they need to unlock their potential.” The program prioritizes programs that help parents and caregivers engage with children in evidence-based educational practices and enrichments. Recent areas of interest include language development and “tech-enabled parent coaching programs.” Grants have also gone to programs that support the involvement of healthcare professionals in parent and caregiver support. One past grantee, ParentCorps, helps new parents learn how to create “safe, nurturing and predictable environments” for children. Another recipient, LENA, has received ongoing support for its language development coaching programs for parents, and Bright by Three received funding for its Bright by Text program, which sends concise information about positive parenting practices to parents of young children via text messaging. Other early childhood grantees include Colorado’s Nurse Family Partnership, Room to Grow, Sesame Workshop and the Parents Together Foundation.
Grants for K-12 Education
The Overdeck Family Foundation supports K-12 education via three separate initiatives: Exceptional Educators, Innovative Schools and Data for Action. Exceptional Educators grantmaking aims to “empower teachers to become exceptional educators” through high-quality teacher preparation, professional development and access to high quality educational resources. The foundation has supported Public Impact’s Opportunity Culture, which provides teams of teachers with K-12 teachers within individual schools with intensive guidance, coaching and feedback based on evidence-based best practices. Another grantee, California’s Adler Graduate School of Education, aims to train highly effective teachers through coursework and residency programs. Other grantees of this subprogram include the Baltimore-based Urban Teachers, Teach for America, Teaching Lab and New York City’s Relay Graduate School of Education.
Overdeck’s Innovative Schools funding program supports the development of “student centered” educational programs and “practices that foster an expanded definition of success.” One recent grantee, Saga Education, received funding to create a web-based version of its “high dosage tutoring intervention,” which has helped low-performing high school students make significant gains in mathematics and general academic skills. The foundation has also supported the New Schools Venture Fund, which invests in the development of charter schools and the expansion of charter school networks. Other program grantees include Valor Collegiate Academics, Khan Academy and ExpandEd Schools.
Overdeck’s Data for Action initiative supports “organizations and researchers that increase the connectivity and usability of data in order to accelerate insights that improve practice and policy for children and families.” The Urban Institute’s Center of Education Data and Policy received funding for the development of a data portal that would allow easy access and analysis of federal education data for the purpose of policy development. Another recent grantee, Stanford University’s Education Data Archive (SEDA), analyses national test score data with the goal of identifying growth patterns and variables associated with opportunity and school quality. Other grantees of this program include the MIND Research Institute, the Tides Center, Harvard University and the Coleridge Initiative.
Grants for STEM Education
The Overdeck Family Foundation’s Inspired Minds initiative supports out-of-school and online learning opportunities in the STEM disciplines, emphasizing programs that allow for broad and equitable access. Khan Academy has received support for its on-line resources, and Johns Hopkins University used funding to run its Center for Talented Youth afterschool programs. Other grantees include the National Museum of Mathematics, the University of Chicago’s Family Math Attitudes program, WNET’s educational production Cyberchase and the Newark Technology Center’s Students 2 Science Project.
Important Grant Details:
The Overdeck Family Foundation makes between $10 and $20 million in grants each year, with grants ranging anywhere from a few thousand to over $2 million. The foundation’s average grant size is about $100,000. Overdeck’s grantmaking prioritizes organizations engaged in rigorous research or the implementation of evidence-based educational interventions in its areas of interest. See the foundation’s grantees page for additional information about past grantmaking.
This funder does not accept unsolicited proposals but invites relevant organizations to share information about their work via the foundation’s contact form. Overdeck is especially interested in hearing about organizations and projects that have strong leadership and financial health and the potential to scale their programs and have broad impact on the field of education.
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