Siegel Family Endowment was founded in 2011 to support organizations working at the intersections of learning, workforce, and infrastructure.  The endowment was founded in the belief that philanthropy is society’s “risk capital – it can help drive innovation by investing in local leaders and community-born solutions, fostering prosperous and equitable futures for all. “

The Endowment’s mission is to understand and shape the impact of technology on society. It follows an inquiry-driven grantmaking approach:

• As questions to help develop an informed hypothesis.
• Support academic and fieldwork that uncovers evidence, track sand interprets outcomes thoughtfully.
• Apply knowledge and learning to refine subsequent rounds of inquiry questions.
• Develop and refine inquiry questions that help guide the development of relationships.
• Perform landscape analysis to better understand the context for our work.

The Endowment convene stakeholders to solicit and synthesize feedback, collect and publish findings to share with partners in the field, and support work that helps uncover relevant evidence.

Grantmaking focuses in three interest areas:

• Learning - Multidimensional learning ecosystems that consider the whole learner, whole school, and whole community as a crucial path towards more equitable outcomes; how to shift systems in ways that drive equitable outcomes and create opportunities for learners and their communities.
• Workforce -AI and emerging technology that shape the nature of work and employment; how to best empower workers and communities to shape and utilize new technologies and prevent harms in the workplace.
• Infrastructure - Strong communities require just and equitable infrastructure – and just and equitable infrastructure require engaged communities; how to increase the meaningful participation and agency of communities to shape the development, deployment, use, and stewardship of the digital infrastructures upon which they rely.

The Endowment also supports research at the intersection of technology and social sciences, and that includes questions that guide its research-oriented grantmaking, External Fellows Program, and internal research. Key questions include:

• Intelligence – How can humans and machines learn, work, and build together?
• Information – How can we harness data, information, and knowledge for good, and prevent bias and disinformation?
• Design – How do we design our systems to better service our collective needs?
• Decisions – How do we make better decisions as a society?
• Innovation – What kind of ecosystems and tools best support innovative people to build community wealth?
• Development – How do we develop our potential as individuals and as a society?