Funding news · Grant awards
Overdeck Family Foundation Awards $28.8 Million in Q3 2026 Education Grants
Overdeck reports 76 grants totalling more than $28.8 million in Q3 2026, spanning AI in education, maths, attendance, tutoring and early learning. The foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals.
K-12 Funding ·
The announcement
On October 12, 2026, Overdeck Family Foundation said it awarded 76 grants totalling over $28.8 million in the third quarter of 2026. The foundation highlighted a selection of grantees rather than listing every award; K-12 Funding has indexed the 51 grants it itemised with amounts. Several of those are multi-year commitments or later instalments of earlier grants, so they should not be added up and compared directly with the quarterly figure.
Major funded projects
The largest highlighted awards were $3 million to LENA to make its LENA Grow early-language programme easier and cheaper to implement, $3 million to Zearn for the second year of Louisiana Lift, and $2.65 million over two years to Afterschool Alliance to help states embed afterschool programmes in Portrait of a Graduate frameworks. Boys & Girls Clubs of America received $1.24 million to build future-ready outcome measures into its national quality systems.
AI and education research
AI features heavily. The Center for Universal Education at Brookings received $1.75 million over 2.5 years for a national initiative on how different uses of AI affect student learning, agency and trust. The University of Chicago Education Lab received $750,000 to study whether AI can identify which students need human-delivered interventions. RAND ($400,000) will run a randomised trial of an AI-enabled attendance platform in Rhode Island, and Playlab ($350,000) will study a 20-school AI Lab Schools cohort. New pilot grants went to AI-enabled tools including Coursemojo ($400,000) and Timely ($350,000).
Mathematics and attendance
Beyond Zearn, WestEd received $700,000 to evaluate Louisiana Lift's effect on maths achievement, ETS Research Institute $400,000 to test AI practice simulations for grade 3–5 maths teachers, and Johns Hopkins University $300,000 to finish evaluating Modern Classrooms Project. On attendance, American Institutes for Research received a $400,000 instalment for a randomised trial of TalkingPoints across 64 Pre-K and elementary schools.
Early childhood education
Early learning awards include $1 million to Collaborative Classroom for its Pre-K portfolio, $600,000 each to MDRC and the University of Michigan's Education Policy Initiative for Pre-K assessment and curriculum studies, $525,000 toward a national Kindergarten Readiness Assessment database at Stanford, and $300,000 to Khan Academy to test a Pre-K skills assessment.
What this means for K–12 schools
These are historical funding decisions, not open grants. Most recipients are nonprofits, research organisations and education companies working at scale, rather than individual schools. For school and district leaders, the list is most useful as a signal of what evidence-focused philanthropy is prioritising — AI used with evidence, high-quality instructional materials, tutoring, attendance and early learning — and as a guide to partner organisations that may already be working in those areas.
How to apply
Overdeck Family Foundation states that it does not accept unsolicited grant proposals. It announces any open calls or requests for proposals through its newsletter. Schools seeking funding for similar projects should look at currently open grants instead.
Source
Overdeck Family Foundation — Q3 2026 grants announcementOriginal summary by K-12 Funding. Application policy from Overdeck's funding approach page. Sources reviewed October 19, 2026.