Charter School Growth Fund: Seed Funding

The Charter School Growth Fund is looking to support educational leaders and entrepreneurs who want to grow their high-performing public charter schools. Early-stage growth is supported through our Seed strategy, while later-stage expansion is funded through our Scale strategy.

Seed Stage

• Schools and networks growing to serve 250 to 1,000 additional students in the next two years

What We Offer: 

• Funding: We award general operating grants of between $250,000 and $750,000 to help promising leaders open their next one to three schools. Once awarded, these grants are disbursed over a two- to three-year period.
• Cohort-Based Learning: Selected Seed leaders will join a cohort of their peers who lead public charter school networks in the early stages of growth. As a community, they participate in annual events including the Portfolio Retreat and smaller convenings.
• Early-Stage Support: We support charter leaders in overcoming the common challenges facing schools and networks that are beginning to grow. The targeted support we provide includes business planning, facilities insights, and access to the best resources from the CSGF portfolio.
• Leaders of Color: We seek to significantly expand the impact of public charter schools led by entrepreneurs who have backgrounds similar to those of the students and families they serve. Within each cohort, there are unique learning, support and community-building opportunities, specifically for leaders of color.

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Who We're Looking For

We support nonprofit organizations that run some of the top public charter schools in their communities and are redefining what is possible in America’s public schools. Our portfolio members typically share the following traits:

• ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE / They have had strong academic performance for multiple years, as demonstrated by measures such as student academic growth, achievement on state tests relative to peers, sub-group performance and, when available, long-term student outcome data.
• COMMITMENT TO FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITY / They are committed to operating their schools on public funding and will not require significant philanthropy when they finish growing their networks of schools.
• AMBITION TO GROW / They typically have waiting lists and want to expand their impact by opening more schools. The “Seed” organizations we support seek to open 1-2 more schools within the next two years, while our “Scale” strategy supports leaders who plan to launch 3+ more schools over a five-year period.
• STRONG LEADERSHIP COMMITTED TO UNDERSERVED STUDENTS/ School leadership teams have the capacity to build the skills and expertise needed to accomplish their ambitious goals. They share a commitment to serving students who have limited access to high-quality public schools in their communities.

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Learn More, Get In Touch, and Get Started

Visit https://chartergrowthfund.org/apply-for-funding/ and contact seed@chartergrowthfund.org

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