Grants for Teachers Continuing Education

NOTE: Letters of inquiry are accepted on a rolling basis; there are no deadlines. Please note that we do not seek, and rarely fund, unsolicited grant applications.

Our Goal

American public education prepares all students with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions they need to be active participants in a robust democracy and to be successful in the global economy.  

Read more about the Education Program.

Focus Areas

New Designs to Advance Learning

Our grantmaking funds school- and classroom-based innovations to better support student learning and holistic youth development, with an emphasis on meeting each student’s unique needs, ensuring deep mastery of content and skills, and improving academic outcomes.

Schools today are charged with preparing students to thrive in an increasingly complex world. This extends beyond supporting academic success and includes equipping young people to actively engage in our democracy and workforce. In order to meet this challenge, schools of the future will need to be places where learning is deeply personalized, instruction is focused on mastery of core skills, competencies, and knowledge, and holistic youth development is woven into the student experience. Our investments support schools, school districts, charter management organizations, and other school support organizations in catalyzing and implementing these changes. 

Pathways to Postsecondary Success

We invest to reimagine pathways to educational and economic opportunity for high school graduates. This includes initiatives to improve college access and completion, particularly for low-income and first-generation students, as well as efforts to better align K–12 learning, higher education, and careers.

Given the changing nature of the economy, it is more imperative than ever for students to attain some postsecondary education to thrive in the global economy. This requires American education to collaborate with the labor market in the design of better pathways to opportunity for all students beyond high school graduation. By providing a diversity of options and flexibility necessary to accommodate the range of student needs and ambitions after high school, we can improve outcomes for all students, especially those who have faced historic barriers to opportunity. To meet that need, our grantmaking supports initiatives to improve postsecondary access and completion, and to expand the range of postsecondary pathways available to students, and to ensure that K–12 and higher education collaborate with the labor market to prepare young people for the future of work.

Leadership and Teaching to Advance Learning

We work to ensure that all students benefit from content-rich, standards-aligned instruction by funding efforts to strengthen teaching and school leadership, including the development of high-quality instructional materials and curriculum-based professional learning.

Educators today are tasked with holding all students to high academic standards in mathematics, English language arts/literacy, and science, requiring an increase in both the rigor of instruction and the level of student engagement in order to achieve those expectations. As a result, teachers adapt teaching to meet students’ diverse needs while helping them master the academic content, skills, and habits of mind required for success in school and life. To help educators meet these challenges, the Corporation invests in the development of high-quality instructional materials and curriculum-based professional learning for teachers and instructional leaders. It also supports a wide range of initiatives to advance the knowledge, skills, and practices that educators need to support student success, including clinically rich teacher preparation, coaching and mentoring, and ongoing professional development for teachers and school leaders.

Public Understanding

Our grantmaking aims to build a shared understanding about the changes needed to ensure that all students excel in school and life, including efforts to foster collaboration among families, educators, community leaders, and students as true partners in achieving that vision.

Research shows that students thrive when families have a meaningful role in their education and schools are stronger when they have close ties to their communities. But not all children experience the benefits of strong community and family engagement at their schools. At the same time, the perspectives of families and educators are often neglected when school reforms are being developed and implemented, which can lead to frustrations that compromise the success of those initiatives. Our grantmaking aims to reverse those trends by bringing together families, communities, students, educators, policymakers, and the public in support of an equitable and educational system and high-quality learning experiences for all. These efforts include initiatives to elevate the concerns and priorities of families and educators, empowering them to shape educational policy and practice. We also fund programs to bridge the gap between home and school. This work ensures that all families have access to the information and best practices they need to navigate and support their children’s education and that they are able to act as effective advocates for change. Because we believe an informed public is vital to ensuring educational equity, we also support media organizations to encourage national and local conversations about issues that matter most to families and educators.

Integration, Learning, and Innovation

Our grantmaking is designed to ensure that everyone invested in improving our nation’s schools works together more effectively to design and implement improvement strategies within complex systems. This includes efforts to reduce fragmentation, foster collaboration, and build cultures of continuous learning, as well as sharing lessons learned with the field.

School systems in the United States are exceedingly complex, encompassing great diversity and competing demands. New initiatives are often introduced without engaging the people who will be most affected by them or considering how changes in one area might have ripple effects in others. As a result, the field of education has often struggled to put promising ideas into practice, slowing the pace of progress for students. Two central challenges have been the tendency to design and implement improvement strategies in isolation, and the limited or ineffective sharing of knowledge across the field. The Corporation seeks to change these patterns by catalyzing integrated approaches that are better suited to improving complex social systems. Our grantmaking also supports initiatives to help people in schools, districts, and states learn from one other and from their own work, paying particular attention to creating a collective vision, designing and managing change effectively and inclusively, and fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement.

Note: If you have thoroughly reviewed the Foundation’s priorities and grantmaking activity on the website and you believe your organization is a good match for our mission, you can fill out an information form here. Please be aware that the Foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals or formal letters of inquiry and rarely makes grants to organizations that we first learn about through the information form—so we urge you to carefully review your fit with our organization’s priorities before investing time in filling out our information form. Full applications may be submitted by invitation only.

Laird Norton Family Foundation

The Laird Norton Family Foundation (LNFF) is a private family foundation in Seattle, Washington, with a mission to 1) honor and reflect the family’s shared values through giving and 2) engage the family in philanthropy as a platform for strengthening family connections. 

The Laird Norton Family

The Laird and Norton families, related to each other from their pioneer origins in Pennsylvania, settled in Winona, Minnesota, in the mid-1850s. There, William Harris Laird and his cousins, Matthew G. Norton and James Laird Norton, formed the Laird Norton Company.

The pioneer logging and lumberyard operation was the first of several family-owned companies, first in the Midwest, later in the Pacific Northwest, and finally all over the West, including Alaska. Today, Laird Norton Company, LLC is still a privately owned and operated family business, committed to contributing value to its family and community.

A seventh-generation family, the Laird Norton family now includes approximately 500 living family members. Family members live throughout the world and occupy a wide array of professions. We come together every year to share skills and interests, and strengthen our connection to each other and our shared history.

Programs

Arts in Education

Goals and Strategies

The goal of the Arts in Education program is to increase arts education and to improve pre-K through grade 12 student learning through the arts. Funding will be directed toward programs that seek to enhance students’ educational outcomes rather than to simply increase participation in, or appreciation for, the arts.

Approach

The Arts in Education program will consider funding programs that:

Why Take This Approach?

There is clear evidence to suggest that arts-integrated curricula and/or arts-rich environments are beneficial to student learning. Although we value the arts as a stand-alone experience, programs are most successful when:

• They have the support of an entire district and in-school leadership
• Teacher professional development is included in the program
• Partnerships with high-quality arts organizations are created and nourished
• Arts lessons are aligned with other student learning goals, and
• Student progress is effectively monitored

Guidelines

With the above lessons in mind, we have established the following guiding principles. ​

• K-12 public schools (or pre-K programs that receive public funding) must already have traction in arts programs (i.e. some arts education has already been established in the school, policies are in place to support arts in education, principals want a more robust arts program, and schools have support from parent groups (PTAs) to strengthen their arts programs). 
• Programs must focus on positively impacting students’ learning.  
• Programs must focus on students “doing” art, as opposed to observing art. Programs should enhance comprehensive, sequential delivery of arts instruction and can include all arts: performing, music, visual, theater, literary (poetry & writing), folk, media, and emerging art fields. 
• Applicants should be able to demonstrate their program has been designed and is managed with an understanding of cultural competencies appropriate to their student demographic. 

Climate Change

Goals and Strategies

Climate change poses a significant global threat, one which we are addressing by striving to ensure an equitable, resilient, habitable, and enjoyable world for current and future generations. While our work is focused on climate change, we believe in the value of ecosystems services and in the stability and resiliency of healthy natural systems. We also believe it is essential that the cost of externalities be incorporated into lifestyle, policy, and business considerations.

Approach

As a small funder addressing an enormous issue, we aim to make grants that offer potential for leverage and scalability — as well as “opportunistic” grants where our ability to move quickly may positively impact a project’s outcome. We are particularly interested in policy and research work, demonstration projects, and finding ways to address critical gaps. We are also interested in expanding our own learning (we are not experts, nor do we aspire to be).

Why Take This Approach?

We believe in persistence and prefer to invest in ongoing work with a long-term focus. Although our grants operate on a one-year cycle, we take a partnership approach to our grantmaking and prefer to support organizations and projects that take a long-term view and can demonstrate progress toward goals each year. We are also interested in projects that have the potential to be self-sustaining in the long run.

Guidelines

Currently, our grantmaking is focused on efforts to hasten the demise of coal, and on work that increases the abilities of the forests, agricultural lands, and estuaries of the Pacific Northwest to sequester carbon. We are looking to support leverageable, measurable work focused on:

• Regenerative biological systems that influence the carbon cycle (“biocarbon”)
• ​Reducing dependency on fossil fuels, and promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency.  

Human Services

Goals and Strategies

The goal of the Human Services program is to support, empower, uplift, and create opportunities for long-term success and a brighter future for unaccompanied youth and young adults (age 12-24) who are in crisis, have experienced trauma, or are aging out of the foster care system. We want to support these youth and young adults in their journey from surviving to thriving.

Approach

We will consider funding organizations or programs that provide support for youth/young adults suffering from trauma, mental illness, or addiction, with priority given to homeless youth and those impacted by the foster care system. While the full spectrum of services for youth in crisis is essential, we expect to do the bulk of our grantmaking in two areas:

Why Take This Approach?

We believe treatment and support for mental health issues and trauma can help prevent homelessness and addiction later in life. We also believe supporting youth/young adults as they transition out of foster care and into independent living increases their odds for a positive future.

Guidelines

Organizations must meet at least one of the following criteria in order to be considered:

• Have leaders and/or staff that are representative of the community they serve. We believe that the best programs will have mentors and leaders that truly understand and can identify with those they serve (e.g., staff that have been homeless or in foster care or are open about their own mental health, trauma, or addiction struggles). We value organizations or programs that emphasize connection to and even emanate from the communities they seek to serve; those that embrace the mantra "nothing about us without us” in all aspects of their work.
• Organizations or programs that include or connect to wrap-around services for youth/young adults. For example: organizations that identify and connect youth to community resources, offer job/skills training and/or provide case management. We value organizations that partner with others in the community to ensure all of a young person’s needs are met.

Sapling Fund

Goals and Strategies

The Laird Norton family continually promotes the advancement of intellectual growth, business experience, and philanthropic focus in order to ensure the excellence of its youngest generations. Through the Sapling Fund, young Laird Norton family members (ages 14–21) come together to learn about grantmaking, the nonprofit sector, and family philanthropy. The Sapling Fund provides young family members a chance to identify and support causes that resonate with them, and endows future family leaders with a sense of fiscal and social responsibility.

Approach

Sapling Fund grants are guided by a “for kids, from kids” philosophy. Grants support programs and organizations that cater specifically to youth and specific priorities change each year as new cohorts of Sapling members collectively identify shared priorities for the year’s grantmaking.

Why Take This Approach?

Sapling Fund committee members gain valuable experience by organizing an annual campaign to raise money for their grantmaking activities through contributions from Laird Norton family members. The annual budget supports three to five grant awards each year and an all-family service project organized by members of the committee.

Watershed Stewardship

Goals and Strategies

Watersheds have social, ecological, and economic significance. The goal of the Watershed Stewardship program is to create enabling conditions for long-term social and ecological health and resilience in places of importance to the Laird Norton Family.

Approach

We take a long-term view on healthy watersheds and invest in organizational capacity with an eye to future resilience. We encourage our partners to focus not on single-species recovery or restoration to historical conditions as a primary end-goal, but to also consider the potential value of significantly altered — but functioning — ecosystems as we continue to face the impacts of climate change and other natural and human-caused changes into the future.

​We seek to add value not just by making financial investments in organizations advancing place-based ecological and social outcomes, but also by building relationships in watershed communities, spending time listening and gaining experience in the watersheds in which we invest, and fostering partnerships, convenings, and additional investment from other funders.

Why Take This Approach?

We believe the wellbeing of the people who live in a place must be considered alongside ecological goals; understanding the diverse interests and values of a watershed’s human inhabitants is an important component of long-term success. ​

Guidelines

Organizations or programs we partner with should:

• Possess the organizational capacity and skills to be well-positioned to secure much more significant funding for projects than we would ever be able to provide.
• Be open to the Foundation removing barriers to entry for public funding and get projects to a shovel ready position.
• Provide us with opportunities to invest in their abilities to develop strong governance structures, collaborate, mediate, facilitate, tackle sticky challenges, get paperwork in order, maintain momentum on big projects, and otherwise lay the groundwork for success.

While we don’t specifically commit to a set term of investment in any watershed, we believe that investing in a place long enough to really understand the work is important, and we believe that sustained and flexible funding enables greater long-term success for our partners. Although we make grants on a one-year cycle, we take a partnership approach to our grantmaking and hold a long-term view on the work being done in the watersheds we prioritize, but we do move on when we no longer have a necessary role to play.

Children's Initiative

Program Goal

The goal of the Children's Initiative is to support direct service programs that promote resilience, stability, and pyscho-social health for youth ages 14-21 who have been traumatized by Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).

Program Requirements

In order to be considered, programs must meet all of the following requirements. Programs that do not meet requirements will not be considered for a grant.

• Directly serve youth who have been significantly traumatized by Adverse Childhood Experiences. At this time, the Weyerhaeuser Family Foundation limits the definition of ACEs to the following:
• Emotional, physical or sexual abuse
• Emotional or physical neglect
• Mother treated violently
• Substance abuse in the household
• Mental illness in the household
• Separation or divorce
• Incarceration of a household member
• Be a new program for the organization, or a new therapeutic component to an existing program, currently in development or within its first year (from the date of application submission) of implementation.
• Offer age-appropriate therapeutic interventions, activities, or services that promote resilience, stability, and psycho-social health in traumatized youth.
• Provide services that go beyond crisis intervention and the establishment of initial safety. Short-term shelter-based or crisis-oriented programs will not be funded.
• Include a plan for evaluating program effectiveness, with metrics that demonstrate the impact of the program in helping participating youth and at least one significant adult, such as a parent, primary caregiver or other adult with whom the youth has a meaningful and ideally long-term relationship.
• Enhance the relationship between the youth and at least one significant adult, such as a parent, primary caregiver or other adult with whom the youth has a meaningful and ideally long-term relationship.
• Use trauma informed practices and policies, and demonstrate a commitment to ongoing trauma training for involved staff.

Multi-Year Funding

The Foundation intends to support new programs for up to three years. While the Foundation will not commit funds for the second or third year without an annual review, it is the Foundation's intent to continue funding successful programs. Because programs will not be funded for more than three years, you are encouraged to plan for the long-term sustainability of the program.

Organizations requesting second- or third-year funding for programs approved the previous year must continue to submit an abbreviated Stage 1 Application by March 1. Organizations seeking second- or third-year funding and have submitted a Stage 1 Application, will automatically be requested to submit a Stage 2 Application. Organizations seeking third-year funding must also have submitted a grant report for the first year of funding by the required due date stated in the Grant Agreement to be considered for funding.

NOTE: The Foundation annually alternates its new grantmaking between its Mental Health, AIDS and Environmental program areas. 

This grant page is for Mental Health & AIDS Program areas.

See the Environmental Program grant page here. 

The Ittleson Foundation 

Since 1932, The Ittleson Foundation has been serving the needs of the underprivileged and providing resources for organizations. The Foundation recognizes not-for-profit organizations, dedicated to bettering the United States, and as such, we provide funds for new initiatives and model projects that have the potential to greatly enhance public policy and the lives of fellow citizens. The Foundation's areas of particular interest are: mental health, AIDS, and the environment.

Mental Health

Since 1932 Mental Health has been a major focus at the Ittleson Foundation. The Foundation continues its commitment to bringing its “venture capital” approach to philanthropy to this area. In addition to our historic commitment to addressing the needs of underserved populations, we are particularly interested in innovative, pilot, model and demonstration projects that are:

• fighting the stigma associated with mental illness and working to change the public’s negative perception of people who have mental illness
• utilizing new knowledge and current technological advances to improve programs and services for people who have mental illness
• bringing the full benefits of this new knowledge and technology to those who presently do not have access to them
• advancing preventative mental health efforts, especially those targeted to youth and adolescents, with a special focus on strategies that involve parents, teachers, and others in close contact with these populations

AIDS

AIDS remains a significant concern of the Ittleson Foundation. Our commitment to supporting cutting-edge prevention efforts remains strong. As in all our current areas of interest, innovative initiatives that involve more than one program area are encouraged.

We are particularly interested in new model, pilot, and demonstration efforts:

• addressing the needs of underserved at-risk populations and especially those programs recognizing the overlap between such programs
• responding to the challenges facing community-based AIDS service organizations and those organizations addressing systemic change
• providing meaningful school-based sex education
• making treatment information accessible, available and easily understandable to those in need of it
• addressing the psycho-social needs of those infected and affected by AIDS, especially adolescents

Our Mission

The Sorenson Legacy Foundation is a non-profit corporation established by the late biotechnology pioneer and entrepreneur James LeVoy Sorenson and his wife, education philanthropist Beverley Taylor Sorenson, for the purpose of promoting charitable, artistic, religious, educational, literary and scientific endeavors. The foundation is based in Salt Lake City, Utah and is qualified under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

The Sorenson Legacy Foundation was created to improve the lives of others and the world in which we live. The foundation supports a wide range of endeavors, from community development and education to health care, scientific and artistic pursuits.

What We Fund

Education

As a teacher, Beverley believed the arts are essential to broadening our children’s minds starting in elementary. She helped promote legislation so Utahn children would be exposed to more of the arts. She saw the arts as equal in importance in the development and success of children as sciences and math. Education continues to be a focus area for the foundation because she was a champion for the cause.

The foundation continues to support seven major universities in the development of elementary arts studies. The goal of education funding will always be to improve the breadth and depth of the art education and experiences of young students. Whether that be by supporting elementary programs or teachers who develop the talents of students.

Health Care

Having never fulfilled his dream of becoming a doctor, James devoted much of his fortune to provide better medical assistance for saving lives and alleviating pain and suffering.

Grants are awarded to facilities that work toward improving these aims as well as medical research, medical technologies, and other innovations that provide safe health care and quick recoveries.

Innovation

James was always interested in how to improve products or processes and never settled for the status quo. His 60+ patents are proof of his desire to innovate areas in order to improve quality of life and equality of experience.

Grants are awarded to organizations that share the same passion for technological advances and care for humanity. Unlike the other areas funded, grants for innovation are open to any category or sector where innovative ideas and technologies can change the lives of people for the better.

Community

Both James and Beverley Sorenson were committed to improving the lives of those in their communities. From a young age, James served others including through a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The foundation recognizes the ways to help our communities are vast. Grants are given to programs that focus on protecting and preserving the environment, assist the disenfranchised of society, and promote understanding and tolerance in our world.

Projects

Ideas include, but are not limited to, projects and programs which: 

Education

• promote the development of the arts, including art education in schools
• assist promising young artists
• support performing arts organizations
• promote education and job training

Innovation

• enhance the quality of life of all humankind
• promote the development of science, culture, and recreation
• protect and enhance the environment
• promote the development of parks and green spaces

Health Care

• promote medical research
• develop innovative medical technologies for saving lives
• alleviate pain and suffering

Community

• encourage and support the long-term preservation of families and children;
• assist the disenfranchised of society, such as abused spouses and children
• promote community development and security and adequate and affordable housing
• promote law and order generally
• provide youth with alternatives to gangs, crime, and socially nonproductive behavior
• promote world peace and unity through greater understanding and tolerance
• advance the mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

The applications are reviewed regularly and accepted through the deadline above for the current year.

About

The Robert & Toni Bader Charitable Foundation was created in 2010 to provide philanthropic support to help make the world a better place. Based in Indianapolis, Indiana, our mission is to help further Jewish ideals in the areas of education, science and the arts. 

Since our beginning, we’ve funded projects from New York to California, Michigan to Florida. We have helped teachers educate, helped children learn, helped feed the hungry, helped people earn a living, helped provide work for the unemployed, and helped find new ways to treat illness and improve quality of life. If you are engaged in any of these activities, let us hear from you.

Our logo, the Tree of Life, is a universal symbol of growth and re-growth, providing benefits to the present and future. The circle represents unity and continuity within our communities and our lives.

Guidelines

The Robert & Toni Bader Charitable Foundation (rtbcf) was created to help achieve the Jewish Ideals of improving the world through Science, Education and the Arts.

We do not have minimum or maximum grant amounts. Grants are made based on our evaluation of your project, the number of grants we are considering, and the amount of funds we have to distribute.

The foundation, as stated in its bylaws, will make contributions to qualified exempt organizations under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code for, but not limited to, the following purposes: 

• literacy
• Jewish education
• nationwide recycling programs
• alternative energy
• classical musical education
• public radio & television
• museums
• wildlife conservation
• theater
• music education
• HIV/AIDS research
• Hemophilia research
• food for the hungry