The Nellie Mae Education Foundation

We’re excited to announce that the application for the 2025 Nellie Mae Speakers Bureau is now open! If you’re an education, youth, or community leader in the New England region who’s working to advance racial equity in public education, we invite you to apply!
Learn more and apply at https://bit.ly/4dwTkSC

Next week, Nellie Mae Education Foundation President & CEO Dr. Gisele C. Shorter will be joined by Dr. Francesca Lopez, Waterbury Chair in Equity Pedagogy and Professor of Education at , and LaShawn Chatmon, founding Executive Director of , in deep conversation at ’s on the urgency of now—and what’s needed to protect and re-design our public education system to fuel a thriving and prosperous multicultural democracy.

This , we’re elevating a few grantee wins in that showcase how the incredible work these nonprofits are doing across the region can bring us closer to a public education system where all of our students have the resources, supports, and opportunities they uniquely need to be successful.

These are three organizations to keep your eye on this school year (more about their recent wins in the carousel!):

🧑🏽‍🏫 The Teachers’ Lounge seeks to drive unprecedented student outcomes by greatly diversifying the people, thoughts, and actions of the educational workforce in the Greater Boston Area and beyond. It is their mission to recruit, revitalize, and retain to create more diverse, equitable, and inclusive learning and professional environments for all.

✊🏼 Providence Youth Student Movement has built a platform to educate and amplify youth of color, Southeast Asian, and state violence survivors’ voices in building a world without policing, prisons, and borders. Founded by and for q***r Southeast Asian youth and refugees with orders of deportation, PrYSM continues to honor this history by centering the leadership of q***r youth of color and refugees in their work.

🏳️‍🌈 Outright Vermont is dedicated to supporting LGBTQ+ youth through radical hope and empowerment. Outright Vermont emphasizes the importance of youth leadership, creating inclusive spaces for growth, and building a sustainable future for LGTBQ+ youth.

“The Nellie Mae Education Foundation really seeks to make visible the invisible. We are all in service of a high quality education for every child, hard stop. There are aspects of who is least well served that often we’re not talking about, that are often invisible to folks for whom the system has served really well.”

Nellie Mae President & CEO Dr. Gisele C. Shorter and President Dr. Makeeba McCreary were on Hub Today to promote the second annual happening in Martha’s Vineyard on August 4. Thank you Rossi and Sansone for having us on!

You can watch the whole interview here: https://www.nbcboston.com/entertainment/hub-today/what-to-know-about-the-new-commonwealth-funds-disruption-dialogue-event/3438507/

Learn more about Disruption Dialogue and register here: https://newcommonwealthfund.org/disruption-dialogue-2024/

Disruption Dialogue 2024 - New Commonwealth Fund In early August, NCF convenes Massachusetts’ most influential Black leaders in the arts, business, academia, philanthropy, and public affairs to take part in urgent conversations on the fight for racial equity and solutions for the road ahead.

Many of the nation’s top philanthropic foundations including RWJFoundation, Annie E. Casey Foundation, McKnight Foundation, Prudential Center, New Commonwealth Fund, The Nellie Mae Education Foundation, Comcast, and Omidyar-Network are cosponsoring a summit for 200 of their peers to share replicable strategies that have united people across political and social divides and raised billions for social causes by appealing to aspirations rather than to pity or fear. Hosted by nonprofit leadership network, BMe Community, the Next Narrative Summit aims to showcase why modern philanthropic initiatives that use cognitive and social psychology create far greater Power, Opportunity, and Community to transform lives and systems than their traditional peers.

Registration is by invite only and limited to a select group of grant strategists, grantmakers, and their internal or external communications strategists. To find out more info or register your interest please visit bmecommunity.org/nns!

Members of the Danbury Collective Advisory Council had the amazing opportunity to attend this year’s Nellie Mae Advancing Community School Partnerships Conference on March 22, hosted by The Nellie Mae Education Foundation and The Center for Educational Equity!

The team joined their peers from several education-focused partnerships across New England and participated in inspiring workshops where they learned about centering youth and families for educational equity, intergenerational leadership, and strengthening community/school partnerships. We are grateful to be part of this community of practice through our funder Nellie Mae Education Foundation and thanks to our Advisory Council members who joined from Danbury Public Schools and CIFC Health!

As back-to-school season launches, the Nellie Mae Education Foundation and HealHaus are continuing our partnership together in providing 100 deserving K-12 public school educators and administrators (principals, counselors, teachers, etc.), in New England, with HealHaus online memberships. will gain access to classes and workshops live online 7 days a week including , , sound baths, and so much more.

Learn more: https://zurl.co/AKLz

Last week, Epoch Times and Fox News Digital reached out about our grantee, Bangor High School’s use of Centering Joy: Celebrating LGBTQIA + Youth and their Allies open Rapid Response grant. Nellie Mae was requested to provide comment on our grant dollars being utilized to pay a specific guest speaker for talking about their experience growing up gay as well as the content on their public social account.

Read our full response here: https://zurl.co/giiD