Siegel Family Endowment Invests $14 Million in Grants to Advance Learner-Centered Education, Computing Equity, and Community-Driven Innovation

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May 14, 2026, 09:00 ET

NEW YORK, May 14, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Siegel Family Endowment, a foundation dedicated to shaping the impact of technology on society, today announced $14 million in grants to organizations working to transform how people learn, lead, and innovate. The investments span three interconnected areas: building the policy and infrastructure conditions for learner-centered education to scale; expanding access to and equity within computing education; and strengthening the broader ecosystem of organizations, tools, and leaders needed to ensure technology serves communities, not the other way around.

"The work of building future-ready learning systems doesn't happen in isolation," said Joshua Elder, Senior Vice President and Head of Grantmaking at Siegel Family Endowment. "It requires the right infrastructure, strong evidence, and connected networks. These grants reflect our commitment to investing in all three and to asking harder questions about what it really takes to make transformation last."

The organizations receiving grants include:

Building the Conditions for Learner-Centered Education to Scale

Siegel's investments focus on what it takes not just to launch innovative learning models, but to sustain and scale them. Through Education Reimagined's Learner-Centered Ecosystem Lab and the Alliance for Learning Innovation's new state technical assistance arm, Siegel is supporting efforts to build shared evidence, policy conditions, and research and development (R&D) capacity across states and systems. Complementary investments in innovation and strategy leadership at Imagine Network, regional partnerships at CommunityShare, and youth-centered research infrastructure at EdTrust are strengthening the roles and relationships needed to drive lasting systems change.

Expanding Access in Computing Education

Siegel is addressing persistent gaps in equitable access to high-quality computer science (CS) education by investing across standards, classrooms, and state systems. This includes support for the Amplifying Social Impacts of Computing Standards initiative (ASICS), a collaboration between the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA), Telos Learning, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Michigan State University to integrate ethics into K–12 CS standards; the University of Florida's CSEveryone Center for Computer Science Education's work on inclusive CS pedagogy for students with disabilities; the ECEP Alliance's efforts to equip state leaders with tools and networks to expand CS participation across K–12 systems; and GBH's Work It Out Wombats!, a television show which introduces computational thinking concepts to pre-school-aged children.

Advancing Technology Through Ecosystem Interventions

Siegel's broader investments strengthen the ecosystem shaping how technology is developed, deployed, and understood. This includes efforts to build applied technical capacity across the sector, including Decoded Futures' AI learning cohorts for nonprofits and philanthropy and Renaissance Philanthropy's work pairing education organizations with engineers to build AI tools and infrastructure, deepening practical AI expertise while generating shared insights on its use across the field. Siegel also advances the intersection of science and technology through support for Open Athena, which partners with academic institutions to build foundation models to accelerate science, and through engagement with the Science Philanthropy Alliance to strengthen field-wide leadership. Complementary efforts include support for the Last Mile Education Fund to help students complete STEM degrees and expand the talent pipeline.

Building a New Science of Inquiry

Siegel believes the path to solving complex problems starts with asking better questions. The foundation has spent years developing an inquiry-driven approach to philanthropy, structuring grantmaking around questions and iterative hypotheses rather than fixed answers. Siegel is elevating and expanding this work by launching the Questions Lab (Q-Lab), hosted at NYU's GovLab. Q-Lab will be the world's first academic initiative dedicated to making questioning a rigorous science, a discipline, and a practical skill.

About Siegel Family Endowment

Siegel Family Endowment employs an inquiry-driven approach to grantmaking, informed by the scientific method and grounded in the belief that philanthropy is uniquely positioned to address complex societal challenges. Rapid technological change has reshaped how we live, work, and learn, transforming the global economy and redefining access to opportunity—from schools and workplaces to our built environment. To meet these shifts, we support technology that serves the public interest, including the tools, skills, and systems people need to engage with and shape a rapidly evolving world. Siegel Family Endowment was founded in 2011 by David Siegel, co-founder and co-chairman of financial sciences company Two Sigma.

SOURCE Siegel Family Endowment