The Wallace Foundation: Educational Leadership
Our Approach
The mission statement we have had since 2003 reflects our belief that knowledge, more than money, is the true coinage of lasting, beneficial change: “The Wallace Foundation supports and shares effective ideas and practices that enable institutions to expand learning and enrichment opportunities for all people.”
And the three phrases in our tagline —“Supporting ideas. Sharing solutions. Expanding opportunities.” — encapsulate our belief that as a national foundation with sizeable assets and a seasoned professional staff, we have an opportunity, and a responsibility, to go beyond money and use our resources in ways that build, capture and share information and know-how that leaders in a particular field can use to bring about beneficial changes.
The Wallace Foundation has evolved in the last several years from its beginnings some 40 years ago as a group of four family foundations that made grants in many areas, to a single foundation focused on using knowledge and ideas to create enduring change in
strengthening education leadership to improve student achievement.
Our approach is to develop and test useful ideas “on the ground,” gather credible, objective evidence on what is most effective and why, and then share that knowledge with the individuals and institutions having the courage and authority to bring those effective ideas to life in ways that bring benefits to people. There are three components to this approach:
1. Develop innovation sites: We work closely with sites (such as states, school districts, and cities as well as non-profit organizations) to help them plan and test new approaches for bringing about the change goals to which we have mutually agreed. These sites can provide us and the broader field with insights into what ideas are or are not effective and what conditions support or impede progress.
2. Develop and share knowledge: In concert with our innovation site work, we also develop and spread instructive lessons through a range of research and communications strategies that can improve practice and policy in organizations that will never get Wallace grants.
3. Achieve benefits nationally: This is the ultimate objective of all of our work. By supporting innovative site work, pursuing relevant and useful knowledge-building activities, and synthesizing and sharing credible ideas and practices, we believe that Wallace can contribute to changing the behaviors of policymakers and practitioners in our focus areas, and thereby change the practices and priorities of institutions in ways that lead to measurable benefits for people.
