Grants for K-12 Schools

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: To submit a request, please select the store you would like to request assistance from. You may only submit a request to one banner, any duplicate requests will be removed.

Lifting Up Our Communities

Kroger has a long history of bringing help and hope to the communities we serve. Since our earliest days, the Kroger Family of Companies has taken care of our neighbors and each other.

When founder Barney Kroger opened his doors to give day-old bread to hungry residents, Kroger’s spirit of giving began. Nearly 135 years later, Kroger is still committed to sharing the fruits of our labor in our communities. We provide food and nourishment to help people live their best lives.

The Kroger Co. Foundation

The Kroger Co. Foundation, established in 1987, places our communities at the center of what we do. With our Purpose in mind – to Feed the Human Spirit – we support nonprofit organizations focused on ending hunger, improving food security and bringing balanced meals to families who need it most.

The Kroger Foundation works to make a difference in the communities where we operate – across 35 states and the District of Columbia. We focus on supporting our communities’ needs today and finding innovative solutions to help end hunger tomorrow. Working together, we will achieve meaningful change that transforms our communities.

Each year, the Kroger family of companies invests millions of dollars in charitable support in the communities we serve. These contributions take several forms – including financial contributions and donations of gift cards and products.

• Hunger Relief
• Women's Health
• Children's Health and Wellbeing
• K-12 Education
• Advancing Diversity
• Sustaining the Environment
• Grassroots Community Programs
• Local Disaster Relief

Note: Grant-seekers that meet the criteria may submit an inquiry to mgfoundation [at] moneygram.com. Please make sure to provide a working email, contact name, link to your organization’s website, and detailed comments about the project. The Foundation team reviews each of these inquires, and if your organization is selected to move on to the next stage of consideration, you will receive an invitation via email to submit a formal Letter of Intent. If a project is approved to move forward after review of the Letter of Intent, the organization will be asked to provide a detailed project proposal. A complete grant cycle (request – review – vetting - funding) can range from 9 to 12 months.

Mission

The MoneyGram Foundation believes education is at the heart of better economic opportunities, healthier families, and individual freedom and empowerment. That's why our mission is to ensure all children around the world gain better access to educational facilities and learning resources. Everything we do goes toward inspiring minds and improving lives.

Projects We Support

Supplies

We support organizations who provide fundamental educational tools and supplies, such as books, backpacks, tablets and uniforms.

Infrastructure

We fund projects that support the growth of educational infrastructure of communities, including classrooms, digital libraries and mobile labs.

Programs

We invest in innovative curricula, teacher training and literacy initiatives that help students succeed in the classroom and beyond.

Proposals for Program Evaluations

The Foundation is currently accepting Research Project (RP) proposals and Existing Program Evaluation (EPE) proposals that have the potential to provide data that will inform how to address disparities in educational opportunities associated with race, ethnicity, and family income.

Aims

Existing Program Evaluation (EPE proposals):

• Primary aim:
  • What works: The primary aim must concern evaluating the effectiveness of programs designed to promote positive cognitive and/or achievement outcomes for children (birth through 18 years) with the goal of informing ways to close the educational opportunity gaps associated with race, ethnicity, and income.
• Secondary aims may also focus on one or more of the following:
  • What works for whom, under what conditions: Investigate variations in program effects; that is, test for moderation effects that inform whether effects are stronger for certain groups and/or under certain conditions than other groups or conditions.
  • Reasons for effects: Investigate mechanisms through which effects occur; that is, test for mediation effects that inform why the program is effective.
  • Cost-benefit analyses: Compare the total costs of the program (start-up and ongoing operational costs) with its estimated monetary benefits to determine the net cost or benefit associated with the program.

Research Project (RP) proposals:

• Primary and secondary aims:
  • The Primary and any secondary aims must concern obtaining information that will inform how to address disparities in educational opportunities associated with race, ethnicity, and/or family income.

Duration

The proposed project may span up to three years

Innovative Schools - Create a New School!

We are looking for educators who are designing new, innovative public schools launching in fall 2022. Through this annual funding opportunity, we help early-stage charter organizations launch their first and/or second school in a new network, and support new district schools with the autonomy to develop and implement innovative instructional designs. While the ideas we support will involve varying approaches, all the schools in our portfolio are committed to three design principles: an expanded definition of student success, equity and innovation. In addition, these teams aspire to serve many more students by growing their innovative school networks or expanding their impact through some other means.

What We Offer

Our goal is to accelerate a team’s progress towards designing and opening an innovative school by providing assistance in three key areas:

• Financial support: We provide a one-year grant of $215,000 to support a team’s planning year (12-14 months prior to opening a new school). Each team is also eligible to receive additional funding to support the school’s first three years of operation. 
• Community of Practice: Teams participate in an active community of practice to build relationships with and learn from peer organizations from across the country.
• Management assistance: We provide teams with relevant, timely and differentiated support. This includes access to experts in the field, coaching, and resources to meet teams where they are.