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Ascendium Education Philanthropy is a division of Ascendium Education Group.

Media Partnerships

Our philanthropy amplifies important information across the nation, helping good ideas become systemic change for learners from low-income backgrounds.

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WHY MEDIA PARTNERSHIPS?

High-quality reporting and storytelling are vital for investigating, proposing, and disseminating systemic solutions to challenges faced by learners from low-income backgrounds. When media highlight problems alongside evidence-based solutions, successful practices have the potential to scale up. Media amplification can also encourage individual policymakers, communities, and government agencies to address critical issues in improving postsecondary education and workforce training outcomes. By framing and amplifying the issues critical to improving postsecondary education and workforce training outcomes, media partners get important information in front of those who can advocate for and make real, systemic change.

Learn more about how our media partnerships support learners from low-income backgrounds.

Exploring Innovative Financing to Strengthen Pre-Apprenticeships, Creating Rural Talent Finance Partnerships, and Establishing the Social Finance Institute

Social Finance Inc|$6,014,000|1/2024 - 12/2027
This grant supports Social Finance in piloting innovative workforce training financing models to improve labor market outcomes for learners from low-income backgrounds. Social Finance will design models leveraging outcomes-based funding structures in two areas: (1) to support learners in accessing and succeeding in pre-apprenticeships and (2) to catalyze training programs within specific industry sectors critical to rural workforce needs. Social Finance will also launch the Social Finance Institute as a hub for dissemination of insights from these and other initiatives, with a focus on informing public and private leaders about strategies to build sustainable and inclusive talent development pipelines.

Supporting Reporting on Indigenous Communities, Identity, and Postsecondary Education

Indij Public Media|$250,000|12/2024 - 11/2026
This grant supports Indij Public Media in expanding national reporting on postsecondary education and workforce training for Native learners and communities.

Reporting on Postsecondary Education and Workforce Training in Wisconsin

Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism|$400,000|10/2024 - 9/2026
This grant supports Wisconsin Watch in establishing new “Pathways to Success” reporting to cover postsecondary topics, trends, challenges, and solutions across the state.

Covering the Future of Work

WorkingNation|$140,000|9/2024 - 8/2026
This grant supports WorkingNation in expanding its reporting related to postsecondary education and workforce training, both broadly as national issues and in relation to rural communities and in carceral settings, specifically. The grant also supports focused reporting on specific workforce opportunities in cities and towns across the nation in collaboration with mayors and local leaders in those places.

Connecting the Justice-Impacted Community to Pre-entry Resources

Our Community Ltd|$230,000|9/2024 - 8/2026
This grant supports Milwaukee-based Our Community in producing and expanding its bi-monthly prison newsletter, which is distributed to more than 8,000 incarcerated individuals in Wisconsin and provides resources and information to support success after release.

Connecting the Workforce Ecosystem through the Horizons Platform

Jobs for the Future Inc|$350,000|9/2024 - 8/2026
This grant supports Jobs for the Future (JFF) in developing podcasts to be hosted on its online information and resource-sharing hub, the Horizons platform. Informed by an advisory council representing its broad, cross-sector network, JFF will develop two podcast series to explore opportunities and challenges related to connecting education and career in support of economic mobility.
View All Ascendium Grants