SCHOTT FOUNDATION IMPACT REPORT 2026
In FY2026, as a philanthropic intermediary, the Schott Foundation brought donors together to fuel community-led campaigns that drive systemic change and improve young people’s well-being.
Partners invest in Schott to build a future in which every young person is healthy, educated, economically secure, technologically prepared, civically engaged, powerful, and thriving.
Contributor: Melissa Daar Carvajal
What these students in the video are describing is youth well-being in action. It’s what happens when schools become places where young people feel supported, connected, and able to flourish.
For years, students, families, educators and advocates across California have been organizing and winning state and local policies investing in youth well-being.
The California Youth Well-being Fund & Action Hub builds on this model to expand community-led efforts and achieve major wins like California’s recent $1B investment in community schools.
With its four inaugural funders, Schott, Stuart, Weingart Foundations, and the California Endowment, Community Schools became an early example of this approach in which the Hub invested and partnered with Partnership for the Future of Learning and the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color.
When the campaign reached a critical moment, the Hub helped connect resources, partnerships, communications support, and community leadership to help move the work forward. Together, those efforts contributed to a new $1 billion annual public investment that will help support the well-being of students and communities across California.
Community Schools are one example of what becomes possible when philanthropy invests in community-led solutions.
The Hub is helping build a new model for advancing youth well-being, one rooted in partnership, shared purpose, and the belief that communities already hold the solutions.
To find out how you can support the California Youth Well-being Fund and Action Hub, contact programs@schottfoundation.org.
Contributor: Keisa Reynolds
Over the past year, the HEAL network has focused on expanding local organizing through the Public School Strong campaign, which has strengthened state power and made waves nationally.
ICE Out, Safe Schools: Public School Strong’s Safe Schools, ICE Out campaign helps communities turn public schools into centers of safety, care, and collective defense. PSS organizers across the country, including in Durham, North Carolina, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Franklin Park, Illinois, are working to pass protective resolutions, train families to advocate before superintendents and school boards, defend student privacy, and create lasting community infrastructure that can mobilize when ICE threatens a student, parent, educator, or neighbor.
Kids Over Corporations: On May 1, 2026, public school educators were the majority of the 15,000+ attendees in a Kids Over Corporations march and rally in North Carolina’s capital. It was the largest of the 5,000+ national May Day Strong Workers Over Billionaires rallies across the country, and one of the largest political rallies in North Carolina history. This monumental moment was made possible with the leadership of HEAL partner, North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE)—with support of Public School Strong organizers and partners as well the civic engagement of families and community members across the state. Leading up to May Day, over 7,300 people across the United States pledged to take action with Public School Strong to demand our government puts kids over corporations.
In FY2026, HEAL increased subgrants to $800k to build local and state team capacity to fight for public education. The funding supported the work of the following organizations:
From left to right: Darius, Marlies Spanjaard (Director of Education Advocacy of Youth Advocacy Foundation); Precious Waldron-Lopez, Program and Campaign Officer Schott; Natalicia Tracy (Executive Director of Community Labor United); Khadijah White (Organizer + Office Manager); Vatsady Sivongxay (Executive Director of Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance – MEJA)
Contributor: Darius Bartolomei
In June, Schott held the final Technical Assistance Accelerator meetings, both virtually and in person. The Accelerator provided critical training, expertise, and support to social justice partners at a time when many organizations are struggling to survive. Through this work, Schott goes beyond dollars, investing not only in partners’ immediate efforts but also in their long-term organizational strength, capacity, and success.
Grantees reported improvements in fundraising, communications, and overall organizational growth. They also highlighted how coaching and technical assistance strengthened donor engagement strategies, fundraising planning, and board development. In addition, participants enhanced their communications capacity through support with storytelling, outreach, newsletters, and social media engagement.
The biggest takeaway was that the Accelerator’s value extended beyond meeting a specific fundraising goal or completing a communications project. Participants described having a clearer sense of where to focus their time, what priorities to pursue, and how to embed these practices into their ongoing work.
A few of the impacts noted by grantees:
Mobilizing for Love (Community Research)
Contributor: Patrick St. John
Each day, students don’t just bring their backpacks into the classroom: they bring their communities with them too. Decades of research have confirmed what young people, parents, and educators have always known: without the support children need outside the classroom, we can’t expect them to reach their full potential inside the classroom. One overarching question will define our next generation: do our cities love their children and families?
The Loving Cities Index, first launched in 2018, is a data-driven way to answer that question. Using 24 key indicators across four domains—from school funding and clean air to public park access and livable wages—the index provides an in-depth analysis of strengths and opportunities for improvement, along with a clear roadmap for the most urgent priorities. Scott’s latest report was released in in summer 2025 and covered Birmingham, AL; Boston, MA; Reno, NV; Pittsburgh, PA; Las Vegas, NV; Raleigh, NC; Richmond, VA; Sacramento, CA; Tulsa, OK; Wilmington, DE; Houston, TX; Memphis, TN; New Orleans, LA; Phoenix, AZ; and San Diego, CA.
Contributor: Roland Kennedy Jr.
Executives Alliance Fund, formerly the Executive Alliance for Boys & Men of Color, is a philanthropic pooled fund that invests in strategic campaigns, communications and narrative change, and convenings to address life expectancy and outcome challenges and opportunities for young men and boys of color.
In 2024, the Schott Foundation for Public Education assumed fiscal management of the Executives Alliance. In 2025, the foundation launched a new strategy for the Executives Alliance, EA 2.0, focused on life expectancy and outcomes; hired a new executive director; and invested in a series of grants to build a stronger data and research foundation for the new strategy.
Since January 2026, the Executives Alliance has invested in strategic campaigns and convenings:
Campaigns:
Convenings:
