KDK-Harman Foundation

 "We at KDK-Harman Foundation believe that our collective mission of ensuring that every child has the right to obtain an excellent education is the civil and human rights issue of our time."

Dear Friends,

2010 marks the fifth-year anniversary of the KDK-Harman Foundation’s grantmaking, and yet it seems only yesterday that we started on this exciting journey. I must admit that in our first year of grantmaking, our task seemed a bit overwhelming. After all, what role could a small family foundation with a one million dollar grants budget play in contributing to breaking the cycle of poverty through education in Central Texas? In fact, WAS there a role for a small family foundation to engage in this complicated work, especially when the most visible foundations working in this space were some of the biggest foundations on the planet—Gates, Ford, Dell, etc.?

Those first few years, we mostly asked a lot of questions and committed ourselves to doing a lot of learning. The board and staff attended many conferences and interviewed a lot of experts, mostly in our growing network of best-in-class nonprofit partners. We also employed a grantmaking strategy that was open and broad in order to learn all we could about the different areas of education along the continuum—from Pre-K to adult education, both in school and out-of-school, in a variety of areas such as family literacy, math, creative writing, science, and workforce development. We instituted an open LOI process and worked hard to build strong relationships with our grantees in order to exchange ideas and learn from one another, and we also emphasized learning in our grantmaking process that we tried to build in from the beginning of the grant—from the application all the way through the final evaluation. We canvassed the complexity of educational issues—exchanging ideas and experiences with fellow education grantmakers across the nation and staying abreast of research findings on proven strategies that make significant impact on student achievement.

We also recognized that although we were small, we had other capacities that we could bring to bear to advance our mission besides financial, including our human capital and our unique position in the community to convene thought partners together to tackle the tough challenges. Our work in consulting and capacity building, as well as our efforts in advocacy and collaboration through Central Texas Education Funders has played an instrumental role in allowing us to fulfill our mission, none of which have required many grant dollars.

All along the way, we were constantly inspired by our grantees’ commitment and passion for the cause, and equally, if not more so, the success stories of the clients our grantees work so hard to serve. What has struck us the most over these five years are two things: (1) the creativity and innovation that our grantees employ to find solutions to our society’s most pressing education challenges; and (2) the determination and commitment that the families served by our grantees possess to ensure that their children are given all possible opportunities to be successful in careers and in life.
 

Now that we have celebrated our five-year anniversary, we feel that we are at a point in our tenure as an education grantmaker where we can begin to be more strategic in identifying critical issues in education and understanding what works, while also keeping in mind that these areas of focus are in strong mission alignment with the Foundation’s vision. Although we are narrowing our grantmaking focus in 2011 to three strategic initiatives: (1) projects that focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math and integrating technology into teaching and learning, (2) optimizing out-of-school time, and (3) systems-level change and collaboration, we will continue to place utmost emphasis on grantee effectiveness. After all, we are only as successful as our grantees, and we will continue to depend on our grantee partners to lead us toward our shared vision of a quality education for every child in Central Texas. Looking back over the last five years, we want to thank everyone who has contributed to our learning and our work, and we look forward with great anticipation to 2011 and beyond.

 ~ Janet Harman, Founder and President, KDK-Harman Foundation