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Vision
All New England’s Learners Prepared for Success
– educationally, economically and as engaged citizens
Mission
To stimulate transformative change of public education systems
across New England by growing a greater variety of higher quality
educational opportunities that enable all learners – especially and
essentially underserved learners– to obtain the skills, knowledge
and supports necessary to become civically engaged, economically
self-sufficient life-long learners.
History
In 1990, the Nellie Mae Corporation, a nonprofit education-financing
company, created the Fund for Education, pioneering philanthropy in
the student-loan industry. Over the next eight years, the Fund for
Education would provide $5 million in grants to support and advance
more than 300 education programs throughout New England. In 1998,
the Nellie Mae Foundation was formed; the 1999 purchase of Nellie
Mae Corporation by SLM Holding Corporation (Sallie Mae) created the
endowment for what is now the Nellie Mae Education Foundation.
Now unaffiliated with the Corporation, the Foundation is New
England’s largest public charity dedicated to improving academic
achievement for the region’s underserved communities.
From 2000 - 2007, it provided grants
and technical assistance to programs focused on improving academic
achievement in four strategic areas: Adult Literacy, College Prep,
Minority High Achievement, and Out-of-School Time Matters!
In 2008, the Foundation realigned its strategic funding priorities.
While it continued to provide grants and technical assistance for
strategies that support underserved learners, it did so with an
additional focus on building knowledge about how to dramatically
improve outcomes for the majority of New England's learners. The change in
strategic direction led to a re-examining of long-held assumptions
about the way students are educated (what they are taught, when,
where, how, and by whom).
Based on what has been learned from the Foundation’s investments and
research, decisions were made in late 2009 that have resulted in a
substantive long-term strategic focus.
The Foundation is
currently transitioning to this focus. The emerging
work represents a natural evolution of our previous investments and
will remain in service of our current mission. More information
about our new focus – including details about initiative areas and
grant availability - will be made available in early 2010.
In addition to its programmatic work, the Foundation will continue
to support programs, organizations, research, and conferences in
order to influence policy, and advance knowledge of public opinion
toward education.
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