Our mission is to support and share effective ideas and practices that enable institutions to expand learning and enrichment opportunities for all people. To achieve this, we are focusing exclusively on three major areas:

• Strengthening educational leadership in ways that significantly improve student achievement.
• Helping selected cities make high-quality out-of-school learning opportunities available to many more children.
• Making the arts a part of many more people’s lives by working with arts organizations, schools and other providers of arts education and experience to build both present and future arts audiences.

In each of these areas, our approach is to select and invest in innovation sites willing to test promising new approaches, while commissioning and sharing independent research that could benefit the work in those sites as well as many others who are interested in pursuing similar changes but who may never receive our direct funding. The specific strategies we are using in each of these three areas are described in the Grants and Programs section of this website, as well as in the Knowledge Center.

In most cases, we identify and evaluate prospective grantees through the issuance of Requests for Proposals or other careful screening processes. While we believe this approach strengthens the effectiveness of our investments, it also means that unsolicited proposals are rarely funded.

Nevertheless, organizations wishing to send a one- to two-page letter of inquiry (please do not send videotapes or e-mail inquiries) describing the project, your organization, the estimated total for the project and the portion requiring funding, should write to:

The Wallace Foundation
General Management
5 Penn Plaza, 7th Floor
New York, NY 10001

The Foundation does not award grants for religious or fraternal organizations, international programs, conferences, historical restoration, health, medical or social service programs, environmental/conservation programs, capital campaigns, emergency funds or deficit financing, private foundations or individuals.

Whether or not your organization receives our funding, we welcome your continued interest in our work. We provide free access to a range of knowledge products containing ideas and practices that you may find useful. We hope you will visit our online Knowledge Center and sign up for our newsletter.