Gender and Educational Philanthropy : New Perspectives on Funding, Collaboration, and Assessment

When writing a book, there are always many people to thank. It's a process that cannot be done alone. In our case, we would like to thank our editor at Palgrave, Amanda Johnson, for her support of and belief in this project. She, along with the anonymous reviewers, helped to make the book much better and more tightly focused. We also are grateful to Andrea Walton for writing the foreword to the book. Andrea's work on women and philanthropy, in particular her recent book Women and Philanthropy in Education (Indiana University Press, 2005), has inspired both of us. We are appreciative of all the organizations, foundations, and individuals that participated in this project. Their wonderful work was the impetus for our bringing this project together. Lastly, we are thankful for the work that Chris Tudico did on the supplementary bibliography for the book. -Alice and Marybeth When I first began thinking of a book on gender and educational philanthropy, it was because, as an independent consultant to foundations, I attended many meetings in which the same questions were raised again and again. These were institutions that in many ways had little in common: some were small in size, some large; some local, some national; some gave large grants, some gave only minor grants; some had been in existence for a long time, while others were just making the way. They all had a commitment to looking at gender in K-12 education, but when the subject came up there was a lot of frustration because they could not decide upon or agree upon how to focus such an initiative, how to convince their board or other stakeholders that this work was important, how to define gender equity, how to target schools and/or individuals to work with, and how to "frame" what they were doing. I thus want to begin by thanking Shirley Mark at the Schott Foundation, with whom I discussed these issues many times, and who inspired me to pursue them further. On that note, I'd also like to thank Margaret Hempel at the Ms. Foundation for Women, with whom I also spoke quite a bit about gender and educational philanthropy, and pointed me to Ms's publications, which were compelling and groundbreaking. Of course I want to thank my coauthor Marybeth Gasman with whom it has been my greatest pleasure to work. To this day it astounds me how much we think alike despite the fact that we come from two very different areas of education learning. Marybeth has taught me a great deal about both philanthropy and the world of publishing. She is both dynamic and reliable, a leading intellectual and a compassionate person. I thank her greatly. I would like to thank friends and colleagues-Rachel Allender, Shirley Brown, and Joan Shapiro. Finally, I would like to thank my family. My mother Lois Ginsberg has cornered the market on generosity. My two sons Nicholas (7) and Andrew (11) remind me daily why it is important to genuinely include boys in our investigations of gender. Finally, to my husband Sam, I can only say that, as with my previous book, this book could never have been written without him. As we approach our twentieth anniversary, I find my love for him growing stronger each day and only hope that I can support him as much as he has supported me. Indeed, I dedicate this book to my husband with everlasting gratitude. -Alice Ginsberg When Alice approached me in 2004 with the idea of coediting a book on gender and philanthropy, I was intrigued. Although most of my research is related to philanthropy, I had done little related to gender. My work primarily focuses on African American education. Editing this book with Alice has proved to be a wonderful learning experience, one in which I have greatly expanded my knowledge of the larger field of philanthropy. I am grateful to Alice for bringing me into this project. She is a terrific scholar who is committed to making positive change in our nation's schools and in the lives of boys and girls. I would like to personally thank Andrea Walton for her support of my career and for her contributions to the field of philanthropy. I am also indebted to my research assistants at the University of Pennsylvania who support my ideas on a regular basis. Thank you to Front Matter....Pages i-xvi Introduction....Pages 1-14 Front Matter....Pages 15-15 Talking about Gender Equity and Education: A FrameWorks Message Memo....Pages 17-32 Gender Matters: Funding Effective Programs for Women and Girls....Pages 33-66 Grantmaking with a Gender Lens....Pages 67-87 Bringing Funders Together to Talk about Girls: A Roundtable Discussion....Pages 89-107 Saving Black Boys....Pages 109-116 Including Boys in Our Conversation about Gender and Justice....Pages 117-131 Supporting Boys’ Resilience: A Dialogue with Researchers, Practitioners, and the Media....Pages 133-154 Front Matter....Pages 155-155 Power and Possibilities: Collaborative Fund for Youth-Led Social Change....Pages 157-175 Young Women for Change....Pages 177-186 Collaborations for Gender Equity in the Context of Policy and System-Wide Change: An Interview with the Editors....Pages 187-190 Sisters Empowering Sisters and a Case Study: Girl World....Pages 191-201 Gender Equity in Urban Education: New Relationships between Funding and Evaluation....Pages 203-233 Back Matter....Pages 235-261 This book explores the complex questions facing funding agencies and foundations as they grapple to understand and define gender equity in education. As a collection of writings, many of which are written by the foundations themselves, the book engages the reader in the different approaches funders use to define gender equity, target limited resources, and create collaborative relationships that will ultimately make schools more equitable and engaging for boys and girls of a variety of cultural backgrounds This book explores the complex questions facing funding agencies and foundations as they grapple to understand and define gender equity in education. It covers different approaches funders use to define gender equity, target limited resources, and create collaborative relationships that will ultimately make schools equitable and engaging for all.