Approach

The Inspired Community Project

We provided the underwriting support to launch The Inspired Community Project (TICP), a Bronx-based organization addressing the severe shortage of early intervention services for neurodiverse children from birth to age...

Artificial Intelligence – Array Education

We are exploring the potential of AI to guide young people as early as 8th grade in the choice of a pathway to a career. Led by esteemed educators Norman...

Merit America

We provided the first funding to Merit America and have since supported its launch in New York City. Our catalytic grant led to Google creating a $100MM fund for three...

Pursuit

Despite all the talk about job growth in the tech industry in New York City, numerous barriers exist for underserved youth in this area. These include geographic areas with lower...

Student Leadership Network

Student Leadership Network’s (SLN) key program is CollegeBound Initiative (CBI), a high-touch college guidance and access program that places highly trained, full-time college counselors in partnering Title I New York...

Charter Schools

We have been a leader in funding alternative education initiatives, including charter networks such as the ones listed below and many individual charter schools in New York City and New...

Classical Charter Schools

Classical Charter Schools serves kindergarten through 8th grade students in the South Bronx and is one of the three highest-performing charter school networks in New York City. Students attending Classical...

New Visions for Public Schools

New Visions for Public Schools (NVPS) is an organization focused on system-wide improvement efforts in New York City’s public schools. New Visions is the support organization for 71 district schools...

National Institute for Student Success (Georgia State University)

The National Institute for Student Success (NISS) was established as a non-profit Institute within Georgia State University (GSU) in 2020 in response to the growing demand from institutions for help...

Peer Mentoring Initiatives

Peer mentoring is a scalable and cost-effective solution to improve the retention and graduation rates of at-risk and high-needs college students. We have supported two promising models operating on CUNY...

Overgrad

Heckscher helped Overgrad develop a customized college match tool for New York City students. Overgrad is a college and career readiness platform working to make the college application process more...

America Needs You

We were one of the earliest supporters of America Needs You (ANY), an organization that has achieved success in responding to the needs of first-generation college students and has received...

SUNY Student Emergency Fund

For the majority of underserved students in New York City who wish to attend college away from home, the State University of New York (SUNY) colleges are the most accessible...

Single Stop USA

We initiated and funded the first-of-its-kind Single Stop USA Community College Initiative to expand opportunities for low-income, high-need community college students. As a result of our founding support at Kingsborough...

Posse Foundation

We helped conceive of and provided support to Posse Foundation to create Posse Consulting, which creates an earned revenue stream for the organization’s core work. Posse Consulting has worked with...

Nudge4 Solutions Lab

We spearheaded the launch of the Nudge4 Solutions Lab by Dr. Ben Castleman of the University of Virginia to pilot low-cost and high-impact behavioral solutions to address pressing social problems,...

OneGoal

We provided the initial catalytic funding to allow OneGoal to expand to New York City. OneGoal New York is now reaching, in only six years, the same level of scale...

Global Glimpse

Our catalytic support of Global Glimpse, a travel and leadership education program founded in the San Francisco Bay Area, positioned it to generate ongoing, sustainable revenue, laying the groundwork for...

College Transfer Credits

We are making a catalytic impact on the issue of transfer credits by enabling students who transfer between City University of New York (CUNY) colleges, which well over two-thirds of...

Bottom Line

We have long supported Bottom Line’s college success program in catalytic ways, which has allowed for its steady growth; it now serves over 2,500 first-generation New York City students across...

Faith Based Education

Low-income families face limited choices if they wish to have their children educated in a faith-based school and we have long sought ways to catalyze a solution. Grantees have included:...

Leap Educational Consulting

We have played a catalytic role in helping Achievement First (AF) to replicate its K-8 math program to selected partner schools in New York City outside AF’s traditional charter network...

Navigate the Maze to Achievement

New York City’s most selective public high schools rank among the highest-performing in the country and guide students into top-tier colleges, and long-term success and stability. However, historically marginalized communities...

Instruction Partners

Curriculum reform is a particularly difficult area but we recognize that helping schools make wise curricular choices can lead to catalytic impact. Instruction Partners is a non-profit that partners with...

Coursemojo

We made a catalytic early-stage investment in Coursemojo’s tool, Mojo, which was built as a response to the daily struggle teachers face in trying to differentiate instruction for all the...

New York City Summer Meals Program

We showed New York City Government how to increase the number of free meals served to poor students. The New York City Department of Education’s Office of SchoolFood, which provides...

Take the Field

A quarter century of budget cuts had resulted in the acute deterioration of physical education and sports facilities at New York City public high schools across the five boroughs when...

Literacy Academy Collective

We underwrote the creation of the Literacy Academy Collective (LAC), led by our Heckscher Leadership Fellow Ruth Genn, to create the first New York City public K-8 public school providing...

Reading Partners

Reading Partners helps children become lifelong readers through individualized instruction that demands measurable results. A 2015 MDRC study of 1,200 students across three states found that after one year, Reading...

The Writing Revolution

We identified the potential of The Writing Revolution (TWR) to train teachers and school leaders in expository writing instruction, introducing proven strategies that enable students to improve their writing skills,...

Quill

Quill is a personalized online learning tool that helps students build writing, comprehension and grammar, and develop critical thinking skills. As students work through activities, Quill provides instant feedback and...

EarlyBird: Reading Disability Screening App

Watch this video created by EarlyBird to learn more about the product in action. CLOSE Watch this video created by EarlyBird to learn more about the product in action. The...

Springboard Collaborative

Reading proficiency is closely linked to high school graduation rates, yet over half of New York City students in grades 3 through 8 are not proficient in reading. Literacy remediation...

National Dance Institute

The National Dance Institute (NDI), founded in 1976 by New York City Ballet principal dancer Jacques d’Amboise, serves over 6,500 students in school-based programs each year through partnerships across the...

DREAM

The Foundation has been a supporter to DREAM/Harlem RBI since its founding by a group of volunteers who transformed an abandoned, garbage-strewn lot into two baseball diamonds for the youth...

Row New York

Row New York is one of the most successful outcomes-driven sports and college prep programs in New York City. We provided a catalytic grant that played a central role in...

BioBus

We provided the earliest funding to BioBus, a mobile science laboratory to help minority and low-income students from kindergarten through college discover, explore and pursue science. Since our catalytic grants,...