NEW YORK, May 6, 2025 — Today, Siegel Family Endowment, a foundation focused on shaping the impact of technology on society, announced over $12 million in grants to forward-thinking organizations equipping people and places to thrive in a tech-driven future. Rather than viewing AI and innovation as standalone end goals, this set of grants approaches them as catalysts—opportunities to reimagine how we learn, build, and collaborate. The investments span future-ready learning environments, community-designed digital infrastructure, and evolving philanthropic models that prioritize partnership, experimentation, and impact at scale.
“We’re experiencing a remarkable period of technological transformation that calls for fresh approaches to how we prepare learners, strengthen communities, and build inclusive digital systems,” said Joshua Elder, Vice President and Head of Grantmaking at Siegel Family Endowment. “This funding cycle represents our commitment to putting people at the center of technology development, ensuring communities have meaningful opportunities to co-design the digital infrastructure they rely upon and fostering diverse talent to drive the next wave of technological progress.”
Organizations receiving grants include:
Redesigning Infrastructure to Center Learners and Communities
Siegel Family Endowment’s support for a more inclusive and responsive digital infrastructure is reflected in grants to organizations helping ensure that critical systems serve a broader range of communities. Break Through Tech at Cornell University is expanding access to high-impact technology careers for students from underrepresented backgrounds. BetaNYC will receive a two-year grant to launch its PiTech/AI workforce program and deepen its leadership in stewarding New York City’s open data ecosystem.
To foster cross-sector innovation in economic development, general operating support is going to the New Growth Innovation Network. Meanwhile, the University of Washington’s Tech Policy Lab will host a new postdoctoral Siegel Research Fellow to explore the societal impacts of emerging technologies and develop policy frameworks that reflect community values and concerns.
Advancing Student-Centered and Future-Ready Learning
A thriving future demands learning systems that are both innovative and designed with learners at the center. To help guide philanthropic capital toward such models, Siegel is supporting LearnerStudio in the development of a new education taxonomy and finance tracker that will help funders and practitioners better understand, evaluate, and invest in student-centered learning approaches.
Innovative Growth Models
Siegel’s work envisions a future where both public and private sector organizations are empowered to scale impact intentionally—rooted in the needs of the communities they serve—rather than pursuing growth for its own sake. This vision is exemplified by ICA Fund’s continued development of propagation models and organizational learning, now advancing through a new case study series exploring how innovative funding approaches can scale while preserving deep community connection. 1Up Coaching will extend its personalized career coaching model through a train-the-trainer initiative, embedding sustainable student support structures within college career services offices.
The City University of New York’s Computing Integrated Teacher Education (CITE) program will receive three years of support to fund a strategy fellow. This role will guide 15 CUNY schools of education in integrating computational thinking and digital literacies into teacher preparation programs—an effort poised to directly impact the next generation of educators and the students of New York City Public Schools, where CUNY graduates make up roughly one-third of new teachers.
Supporting Place-Based Innovation and Local Capacity
In cities across the country, community-rooted organizations are redefining what local innovation looks like. Rebuild by Design will receive general operating support as it concludes its work on climate resilience through community-centered infrastructure design. Opportunity AI, launched in partnership with Renaissance Philanthropy and Digital Harbor Foundation, will begin its first phase as an initiative that equips underserved communities with tools to navigate and shape the evolving AI economy.
In Atlanta, MakerUSA is deepening its collaboration with STE(A)M Truck, supporting a program manager role to enhance STE(A)M Truck’s leadership capacity and expanding community engagement in maker education through new strategic partnerships, outreach tools, and data infrastructure.
Together, these investments and others approved in quarter one reflect a belief that systems-level change must be built on trust, creativity, and a shared sense of responsibility—across disciplines, sectors, and communities. From public education to digital infrastructure to the evolving practice of philanthropy itself, these efforts aim to shape a more inclusive and participatory future for technology.
About Siegel Family Endowment:
Siegel Family Endowment employs an inquiry-driven approach to grantmaking that is informed by the scientific method and predicated on the belief that philanthropy is uniquely positioned to address some of the most pressing and complex issues facing society today. Our grantmaking strategy positions us to be society’s risk capital. We support high quality work that will help us derive insights to timely questions and has high potential for future scale. Our focus is on organizations doing work at the intersection of learning, workforce, and infrastructure. We aim to help build a world in which all people have the tools, skills, and context necessary to engage meaningfully in a rapidly changing society. Siegel Family Endowment was founded in 2011 by David Siegel, co-founder and co-chairman of financial sciences company Two Sigma.
SOURCE Siegel Family Endowment
