HEAL Together
Through HEAL Together, Schott supports grassroots campaigns and organizations combating the well-resourced, anti-democratic attacks that threaten our public schools, racial justice and democracy. See the original press release of the launch of this multi-partner fund, and the latest press release to see our newest grantee partners and recent movement victories.
Philanthropy can seize this opportunity to support campaigns which organize the majorities in many places who support honest curriculum and public education.
HEAL Together invests in financial and technical assistance to grassroots community partners across 20+ states and dozens of school districts. It leverages Schott Foundation’s intermediary role and grantmaking capacity to the grassroots with NYU Metro Center’s research, tool development and trainings. This combines with Race Forward’s organizing infrastructure and campaign building to shift narrative and advance multiracial democracy.
Have K-12 Funders Stepped Up for Racial Equity and Justice Since 2020? Not According to This Report
Inside Philanthropy, Connie Matthiessen, March, 2024
Hear from HEAL Together organizers in Florida on what’s giving them hope:
NEWEST GRANTEES
Statewide grants deepen support through grassroots base building, communications strategies and coalition convening.
North Carolina: Education Justice Alliance
The Education Justice Alliance (EJA-NC) is made up of parents, students and community-based organizations in Wake County, North Carolina. EJA works for an educational system that is effective, equitable, and inclusive. They promote racial, socio-economic, and gender equity. They seek to decrease unfair suspensions, expulsions, arrest, court referrals and to improve positive approaches to discipline that meet the academic, social, and emotional needs of all students.
North Carolina: We are Down Home NC
Down Home NC is community-led and community-focused. They organize in small towns and rural places on issues that impact poor and working class people. Because they live where they organize, they know what their communities need.
Down Home intentionally organizes multiracial groups across race because to counter dog-whistles being used to divide us. It builds in communities through conversations with local residents and supports them to take leadership in addressing their community concerns, currently, rural housing, health justice and public schools. It’s a tall order, but Down Home is up to the challenge because “this is our home.”
Michigan: Michigan Education Justice Coalition (MEJC)
The Michigan Education Justice Coalition is a statewide network committed to advocating for equitable public education policies and funding to create safe and healthy learning environments.
MEJC envisions a Michigan where public schools get the support they need, strengthening communities and making them better places to live for all of us.
Georgia: Georgia Youth Justice Coalition (GYJC)
The Georgia Youth Justice Coalition is a grassroots collective of Black, brown, LGBTQ+, working class and allied students advocating for youth power and justice in our state. Since January 2021, they’ve activated youth communities, shifted the political narrative, incubated movement leaders, built power, and won meaningful policy and electoral victories across their state.
Local grants strengthen strategic campaigns and base-building in areas of growing support.
Tennessee: Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment Resource Project (SOCM)
SOCM is a 50-year-old, member-driven organization dedicated to empowering Tennesseeans in their efforts to have a greater voice in determining their own future. Throughout its history, members have taken on local, state and national campaigns to make lives better for everyday people. Their work requires long lasting groups that are rooted in relationship, and built on their own experiences.
Ohio: Honesty for Ohio Education
Honesty for Ohio Education is a nonpartisan, statewide coalition that champions honest education, the affirmation of all identities, cultures, and lived experiences, and the rights and safety of all students, families, and educators. We serve as a centralized network for education, advocacy, and community-building to protect honest education in the Ohio Statehouse, State Board of Education, and local school districts.
Born from a grassroots effort of committed Ohioans, Honesty for Ohio Education proudly represents more than 50 organizational partners and thousands of students, families, educators, and Buckeyes across the state.
Florida: P.S. 305
Migrant Equity SouthEast is a Latinx and immigrant-led 501(c)(3) organization based in South Georgia. We’re here to advocate for immigrant rights and work directly with the migrant and refugee communities of South Georgia to bring them equitable access to resources available to citizens: health resources, educational resources, political resources as well as financial aid and food assistance.
North Carolina: CREED NC
Ensuring equitable education opportunities means shifting the policy atmosphere and advocating for changes that are generational in their impact. CREED prioritizes expert, race-conscious research on North Carolina-specific education issues. It raises the collective awareness of the general public while inspiring and elevating the work of educators who are ready to alter practices and protocols to become more equitable. CREED will continue to execute a rigorous research agenda that informs the call for transformation at the structural level for students in Pre-K, K-12, and post-secondary.
Local grants support statewide and regional efforts: these emerging allied organizations and coalitions leverage local support.
Iowa: Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement
Iowa CCI members create change through grassroots organizing, educating, and mobilizing on issues that impact our communities the most. Together, we work to put people and planet first by stopping factory farms, ending racist policing and anti-immigrant legislation, and winning bold action on climate change, healthcare, and clean water for everyone.
No matter where we come from, where we live, or what we look like, we need policies and an economy that serve the public good, not corporations and the wealthy few who rig the rules in their favor.
Virginia: New Virginia Majority Education Fund (NVM)
New Virginia Majority started twelve years ago with the audacious goal of building a bloc of conscious, consistent voters to advance a new politics that is democratic, sustainable and just. We envision a Virginia that centers the needs and struggles of working class people, people of color, immigrants, women, and young people to build a real democracy rooted in racial and economic justice.
We believe that all Virginia students should have access to a high-quality education, regardless of their zip code, race, immigration status, or country of origin. This includes having fully funded schools, affordable higher education and workforce training, and safe and supportive learning environments.
South Carolina: Low Country Black Parents Association
The Low Country Black Parents Association informs, educates, and empowers black parents and guardians to successfully advocate for black student’s academic achievement.
Their vision is that education communities where black parents and guardians are actively engaged in closing the academic achievement gap for black students.
Kentucky: Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (KFTC)
Kentuckians for the Commonwealth is a statewide organization working for a new balance of power and a just society. As we work together we build our strength, individually and as a group, and we find solutions to real life problems. We use direct action to challenge – and change – unfair political, economic and social systems. Our membership is open to all people who are committed to equality, democracy and non-violent change.
Arkansas: Arkansas Public Policy Panel
Kentuckians for the Commonwealth is a statewide organization working for a new balance of power and a just society. As we work together we build our strength, individually and as a group, and we find solutions to real life problems. We use direct action to challenge – and change – unfair political, economic and social systems. Our membership is open to all people who are committed to equality, democracy and non-violent change.
Indiana: Hoosier Action Resource Center, Inc.
Hoosier Action is a homegrown, independent community organization dedicated to building power and improving the lives of everyday Hoosiers. Our members live across the state, but our deepest roots are in small town Southern Indiana, where our chapters lead the organization. We believe that by acting together, we can create an Indiana where all Hoosiers, Black, white, and brown, are able to shape the decisions that affect our lives.
Wisconsin: Kenosha Education Justice Coalition
The Kenosha coalition of parents, educators, students, and community and labor organizations works to protect and improve public education for all students so they thrive in the classroom and in their communities. They unite parents, students, educators, and community members to drive the transformation of public education, shift the public debate, and build a local movement for equity and opportunity for all.
California: Dolores Huerta Foundation
The Dolores Huerta Foundation’s Education Policy team is dedicated to empowering youth, parents, and communities in the pursuit of equitable education through grassroots organizing, training, and advocacy for fair school district budgets. In our commitment to restorative justice, aimed at improving school climates and reducing suspension and expulsion rates, particularly for at-risk students (including those who are low-income, English learners, and students with disabilities), we have taken a leadership role within the Kern Justice Education Collaborative (KEJC).
Florida: Families for Strong Public Schools
Families for Strong Public Schools believes that our children’s educational success requires listening, collaboration, and understanding at all levels. By working together as parents, teachers, families, and within government, we can create educational spaces that truly serve their primary goal: supporting and educating our children.
Florida: Central Florida Jobs with Justice
Central Florida Jobs with Justice believes that all workers should have collective bargaining rights, employment security, and a decent standard of living within an economy that works for everyone. To fight for justice, we form long-term relationships and formal partnerships between labor unions, people of faith, community organizations, and student activists based on shared values.
We bring this diverse group of people together for one simple reason: the only way we can make change is if we stand united. These lasting relationships help build the power we need to win real changes in the lives of working families and our communities. Together, we are more powerful than we could ever be alone.
Florida: Common Purpose
Common Purpose in Palm Beach County is a part of a coalition of many community groups that includes those working around education justice. We are forming an education committee of educators, families and students to engage key stakeholders in organizing around the school district campaign. We are focusing on equity issues, doing legislative organizing – creating awareness of LGBTQI attacks in legislation, historical accuracy of marginalized communities in schools and gun violence in schools.
Earlier GRANTEES
Florida Student Power Network
Florida Student Power Network is a statewide youth network that educates, engages, and empowers members to catalyze, actualize, and solidify institutional change. The Network aims to harness the power of students and youth to create tangible change in their communities and our country. It conducts and supports issue-driven campaigns, organize voters, and uses creative tactics to engage our generation and organize our collective power for justice. With a set of diverse, issue-based campaigns, the Network strive sto ignite change in several arenas, including public education.
Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment – Tennessee
SOCM is a 50-year-old, member-driven organization dedicated to empowering Tennesseeans in their efforts to have a greater voice in determining their own future. Throughout its history, members have taken on local, state and national campaigns to make lives better for everyday people. Their work requires long lasting groups that are rooted in relationship, and built on their own experiences.
SOCM believes that positive change happens when everyday people join together to tackle the critical issues that impact their lives. Structure, organization, relationships and leadership development, are key to the long-haul work of improving Tennessee communities. Through training, mentorship, and practice, SOCM members learn skills needed to build local groups, identify issues that are deeply felt in their community, understand dynamics of local and state power holders, and create campaigns to address issues together.
Hamkae Center – Virginia
Hamkae Center develops holistic programs and campaigns that are guided by community members and meet immediate needs, while building Asian American community power to make long-term systemic changes that address the root causes of these needs and center human connections. We believe that Asian Americans, low-income folks, working class people, immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, and other targeted people must work together in order to have a more just and equitable Virginia for all.
Through community organizing, public policy advocacy, civic engagement, youth leadership development, service provision, and community education, Hamkae Center works to build a future in which low- and middle-income, immigrant, people of color, and marginalized communities can fully participate in U.S. society and work together as makers of lasting change.
Johnston Parents for Equity and Anti-Racism – Iowa
This group of mothers, many of which have children in the Johnston Community School District, often take walks and spend time together since meeting online in summer of 2020. The women formed the circle to promote racial equity and support within the district. “Protecting our families is our number one goal … it is the foundation, it is the purpose, it is the drive, it is the motivation, it is the inspiration. It is all of that,” said Neely.
Georgia Youth Justice Coalition
The Georgia Youth Justice Coalition is a grassroots collective of Black, brown, LGBTQ+, working class and allied students advocating for youth power and justice in our state. Since January 2021, they’ve activated youth communities, shifted the political narrative, incubated movement leaders, built power, and won meaningful policy and electoral victories across their state.
Down Home North Carolina
Down Home is community-led and community-focused. They organize in small towns and rural places on issues that impact poor and working class people. Because they live where they organize, they know what their communities need.
Down Home intentionally organizes multiracial groups across race because to counter dog-whistles being used to divide us. It builds in communities through conversations with local residents and supports them to take leadership in addressing their community concerns, currently, rural housing, health justice and public schools. It’s a tall order, but Down Home is up to the challenge because “this is our home.”
P.S. 305 – Miami
P.S.305 aims to provide every Miami child with an education that allows them to achieve their wildest dreams. We envision a Miami where our children grow up to be leaders that use the skills and competencies honed by our education system—and the collective experiences of our people—to create a better future for our city… We also have the power of our diversity, with people from all over the world coming to make a home on our shores. By challenging ourselves to harness this unique strength, we can serve as a proof point for how schools can support the growth of our individual and collective identities.
Kentuckians for the Commonwealth
Kentuckians for the Commonwealth is a statewide organization working for a new balance of power and a just society. As we work together we build our strength, individually and as a group, and we find solutions to real life problems. We use direct action to challenge – and change – unfair political, economic and social systems. Our membership is open to all people who are committed to equality, democracy and non-violent change.
New Virginia Majority
New Virginia Majority started twelve years ago with the audacious goal of building a bloc of conscious, consistent voters to advance a new politics that is democratic, sustainable and just. We envision a Virginia that centers the needs and struggles of working class people, people of color, immigrants, women, and young people to build a real democracy rooted in racial and economic justice.
We believe that all Virginia students should have access to a high-quality education, regardless of their zip code, race, immigration status, or country of origin. This includes having fully funded schools, affordable higher education and workforce training, and safe and supportive learning environments.
Common Purpose – West Palm Beach, FL
Common Purpose in Palm Beach County is a part of a coalition of many community groups that includes those working around education justice. We are forming an education committee of educators, families and students to engage key stakeholders in organizing around the school district campaign. We are focusing on equity issues, doing legislative organizing – creating awareness of LGBTQI attacks in legislation, historical accuracy of marginalized communities in schools and gun violence in schools.
Center for Racial Equity in Education (CREED) – North Carolina
Ensuring equitable education opportunities means shifting the policy atmosphere and advocating for changes that are generational in their impact. CREED prioritizes expert, race-conscious research on North Carolina-specific education issues. It raises the collective awareness of the general public while inspiring and elevating the work of educators who are ready to alter practices and protocols to become more equitable. CREED will continue to execute a rigorous research agenda that informs the call for transformation at the structural level for students in Pre-K, K-12, and post-secondary.
Arizona Empowerment Center (ACE) – Arizona
ACE is an organization led by changemakers fighting for social, racial, and economic transformation. We are committed to human dignity, inclusion, equity, and collective growth. We work to reclaim our shared power alongside our families and community.
January 2023 Grants
Being Black in the Burbs
Kentucky Student Voice Team
We are young people co-creating more just, democratic Kentucky schools and communities as research, policy and advocacy partners.
Midwest Center for School Transformation
The Midwest Center for School Transformation (MCST) aims to transform schools through the power of collective wisdom, restorative justice, and dynamic narratives. Often, when solutions are applied by school districts or school sites, they are done so without buy-in, implementation fidelity or accountability and predictably fall prey to the political winds of resource shortages and educational trends vs improving the educational experiences for students, staff and families. MCST believes that to engage students academically the conditions must be right for learning.
Migrant Equity SouthEast – Georgia
Migrant Equity SouthEast is a Latinx and immigrant-led 501(c)(3) organization based in South Georgia. We’re here to advocate for immigrant rights and work directly with the migrant and refugee communities of South Georgia to bring them equitable access to resources available to citizens: health resources, educational resources, political resources as well as financial aid and food assistance.
2022 Grants
Education Justice Alliance – North Carolina
The Alliance (EJA-NC) is made up of parents, students and community-based organizations in Wake County, North Carolina. EJA works for an educational system that is effective, equitable, and inclusive. They promote racial, socio-economic, and gender equity. They seek to decrease unfair suspensions, expulsions, arrest, court referrals and to improve positive approaches to discipline that meet the academic, social, and emotional needs of all students.
Kenosha Education Justice Coalition – Wisconsin
The Kenosha coalition of parents, educators, students, and community and labor organizations works to protect and improve public education for all students so they thrive in the classroom and in their communities. They unite parents, students, educators, and community members to drive the transformation of public education, shift the public debate, and build a local movement for equity and opportunity for all.
Rights and Democracy Institute – Vermont and New Hampshire
The Rights & Democracy Institute (RDI) works across Vermont and New Hampshire to advance human rights and a healthy, just, and equitable future for our communities. Through grassroots organizing, transformative policy work, and supporting the development of a new generation of leaders from rural communities, particularly those that have been most impacted by harmful policies. RDI’s leadership development programs and issue-based campaigns encompass a range of organizational and movement-building work, including economic justice, education justice, racial justice, universal health care, climate justice, and childcare access.
Youth Organizers United – New Hampshire
Y.O.U., Young Organizers United, is the youth organizing wing of the Granite State Organizing Project. Y.O.U. is a group of high school youth from ethnically and racially diverse backgrounds, who are dedicated to strengthening multi-issue and multi-racial coalitions designed to overcome disparate treatment and inequitable outcomes in Manchester high schools. Y.O.U. members believe in student voice, inclusivity, and equity for all learners.
Step Up Louisiana
Southern Echo, Mississippi
Michigan Education Justice Coalition
The Michigan Education Justice Coalition is a statewide network committed to advocating for equitable public education policies and funding to create safe and healthy learning environments.
11. P.S. 305 Miami
P.S.305 aims to provide every Miami child with an education that allows them to achieve their wildest dreams. We envision a Miami where our children grow up to be leaders that use the skills and competencies honed by our education system—and the collective experiences of our people—to create a better future for our city… We also have the power of our diversity, with people from all over the world coming to make a home on our shores. By challenging ourselves to harness this unique strength, we can serve as a proof point for how schools can support the growth of our individual and collective identities.
12. Kentuckians for the Commonwealth
Kentuckians For The Commonwealth is a statewide organization working for a new balance of power and a just society. As we work together we build our strength, individually and as a group, and we find solutions to real life problems. We use direct action to challenge – and change – unfair political, economic and social systems. Our membership is open to all people who are committed to equality, democracy and non-violent change.
13. New Virginia Majority
Virginia Majority started twelve years ago with the audacious goal of building a bloc of conscious, consistent voters to advance a new politics that is democratic, sustainable and just. We envision a Virginia that centers the needs and struggles of working class people, people of color, immigrants, women, and young people to build a real democracy rooted in racial and economic justice.
We believe that all Virginia students should have access to a high-quality education, regardless of their zip code, race, immigration status, or country of origin. This includes having fully funded schools, affordable higher education and workforce training, and safe and supportive learning environments.
15. CREED, North Carolina
16. ACE/LUCHA
Living United for Change in Arizona is an organization led by changemakers fighting for social, racial, and economic transformation. We are committed to human dignity, inclusion, equity, and collective growth. We work to reclaim our shared power alongside our families and community.
Initiative Partners
The Schott Foundation for Public Education is a Black-led national public fund serving as a bridge between philanthropy and grassroots organizers to advance racial justice in public education. Schott directly funds BIPOC-led grassroots education justice coalitions across the country and strategically connects the education justice movement with other social justice efforts focused on providing an array of supports children and families need to have a fair and substantive opportunity to learn and thrive. Schott resources the largest national network of grassroots BIPOC youth and parent education equity and justice organizers – The Opportunity to Learn Network – including four national alliances, 306 local organizations, in 32 states, 54 cities actively coordinating 120,000 people and impacting over 800,000.
The NYU Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools (NYU Metro Center) is dedicated to the pursuit of academic excellence and educational justice for all students. We partner with local and state educational agencies and community organizing groups to strengthen access, opportunity, and educational quality, particularly for young people, and particularly those from historically vulnerable groups. The Center accomplishes its mission through the implementation of high-quality research, strategic assistance to schools, districts, community and youth groups, and direct services to students, teachers, parents, administrators, policymakers, and organizations committed to equity and educational improvement. Our Education Justice Research and Organizing Collaborative (EJ-ROC) builds on the long tradition of movement-driven, community-derived research by providing critical data, research, policy and strategic support to the education justice movement.
Race Forward catalyzes movement building for racial justice. In partnership with communities, organizations, and sectors, we bring systemic analysis and innovative approaches to complex race issues to build strategies and help people take effective action to advance racial justice in our policies, institutions, and culture.
Partner With Us
Talk with our Senior Development Associate, Melissa Wiggins, to learn how you can partner with Schott in this important work.