The Grantmakers for Education Learning, Evaluation & Data (LEAD) Impact Group’s mission is to support GFE members to use data, research and evaluation to improve philanthropic practice, policies and strategies.
In order to make lasting progress towards the goals we share with our nonprofit and community partners, we have to be learning all the time. We strive to empower deeper engagement among GFE members and other key stakeholders to collect, interpret, value and act on educational data from cradle to career.
LEAD Impact Group is structured as a virtual learning community. Through our quarterly discussions we:
- Share learnings from our current investments, including best practices, challenges and questions for group problem-solving.
- Discuss evaluation and learning strategies to generate information and insights that help us understand how we’re doing and how to improve.
- Share tools and methodologies to increase understanding of data through visualization, storytelling and active engagement with stakeholders.
- Provide leadership for our signature Fellows program, including identifying research priorities for LEAD as well as providing the infrastructure for the broader GFE community.
Summer Research Fellows Program
Launched in 2019, the the Summer Research Fellows Program is a partnership between the LEAD impact group and the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE). The annual program’s purpose is to provide GFE members with the opportunity to have a research question answered by an educational researcher. Learn more about the program and see past research here. The 2021 application period is closed.
All GFE members are invited to join the Learning, Evaluation & Data Impact Group. Financial support from impact group members is encouraged, but not required, to help support the fellows program infrastructure. For more information, contact us at information@edfunders.org.