Knowledgeworks Foundation

“Business relationships certain knowledgeworks foundation board members are also members of the boards of certain knowledgeworks foundation affiliates. These overlapping board memberships constitute a business relationship as defined by the form 990 instructions.”

“Knowledgeworks foundation contracted with nelnet to administer its student lending programs.”

“Process to review the form 990 after completion by the preparer, the draft form 990 is reviewed by the accounting director and the coo/vp of finance. The final draft of the form 990 is reviewed with the audit committee. After it receives the approval of the audit committee, the final form 990 is distributed to all members of the board of directors before it is filed.”

“Organization's practice for monitoring compliance on an annual basis a conflict of interest questionnaire is completed by directors, officers and key employees and reviewed by management. Items reported are discussed with legal counsel, who advises management and the board of any required actions. The conflict of interest policy is distributed with the annual questionnaire and is also accessible on the secure director's portion of the foundation's website.”

“COMPENSATION DETERMINATION The compensation of the CEO, other officers, and key employees are set by the Compensation Committee of the Board of Directors utilizing a compensation study performed by an independent compensation consulting firm comparing similar positions in similar organizations, including review of Form 990s for other organizations. Members of the Board of Directors have in the past received reasonable compensation for their services as members of the Board of Directors. A COMPENSATION STUDY WAS LAST PERFORMED IN MAY 2021 BY SMITHPILOT”

“Documents the consolidated financial statements of knowledgeworks foundation and its subsidiaries are available on the knowledgeworks foundation website. Knowledgeworks foundation's form 990 is also available on its own website. The governing documents and conflict of interest policy are available upon request.”

“Organization's mission knowledgeworks vision is a future of learning where students of all races and ethnicities, incomes and identities pursue the kinds of learning experiences that enable them to uncover their passions and thrive in an evolving world. Knowledgeworks mission is to help our partners in states and schools work together to align policy and practice, reimagining what education can do through personalized, competency-based learning - and what it must do to prepare students for a lifetime of learning. Our work in schools across the country sparks new thinking about ways to prepare students for an uncertain future. We believe in personalized learning not only for students, but also for educators and leaders. With more than 20 years of experience exploring the future of learning, growing educator impact and working with state and federal policymakers, our passionate team partners with schools and school districts to grow a system-wide approach to sustain student-centered practices so that every child graduates ready for what's next.”

“Description of organization's mission we help our partners in states and schools work together to align policy and practice, reimagining what education can do through personalized, competency-based learning - and what it must do to prepare students for a lifetime of learning.”

“PROGRAM SERVICE ACCOMPLISHMENTS - KnowledgeWorks in Schools The Knowledgeworks in Schools team (KWIS) has worked with more than 86 school districts and state education agencies across 9 states in transforming their system from a traditional, factory model system to one that is personalized and competency-based. These school systems are diverse in size, racial demographics and socioeconomic background. FY2022, KWIS partnered with state education agencies in North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, Nevada and Arizona to help stakeholders support the growth of personalized and competency-based education statewide. Growth within North Dakota's participating school system led to the establishment of leadership teams comprised of individuals representing systems (school, state department, community-based organizations) across the state. These teams led the planning of and implementation of state-wide learning collaboratives that build sustainable professional development opportunities in North Dakota. KnowledgeWorks partnered with the Ohio Department of Education to build staff capacity to implement personalized, whole-child approaches aligned with the state's strategic plan. Thirteen regional specialists were identified in Ohio to support professional learning opportunities and coaching for teachers, principals, and district leaders. These specialists and KnowledgeWorks co-designed and established the Ohio Personalized Learning Network which will offer three primary pathways for joining the network, Explore, Launch, and Transform. In South Carolina, KWIS continued efforts with the Department of Education's Office of Personalized Learning to support a statewide network of schools and districts implementing personalized, competency-based learning. This statewide effort grew from 15 districts in 2018 to 60 school systems in FY2022 which represents a commitment from over 75% of South Carolina's districts. Having facilitated Nevada's Blue-Ribbon Commission for a Globally Prepared Nevada, Knowledgeworks provided support to the Nevada Department of Education staff as they launched a statewide personalized, competency-based learning network. KnowledgeWorks and the Department of Education met with all thirteen school systems to explore what state-wide supports would be most impactful in launching personalized, competency-based learning as well as the design of a Nevada Profile of a Graduate. KWIS worked with state-wide organizations in Arizona to launch cohorts of school systems exploring new, more equitable learning structures for students and communities across the state. In collaboration with Arizona State University, KnowledgeWorks created a new Personalized, Competency-based Learning specialization for the Mary L. Fulton Teacher's College. In FY2022, KnowledgeWorks served school systems spanning from Alaska, south to Texas, southeast to South Carolina and north to Massachusetts. These school systems are as small as a few hundred students to as a large as 320,000 students, but all are committed to redesigning the learning infrastructure to being more equitable, inclusive, and personalized for each child and family they serve.”

“Program Service Accomplishments - Policy & Advocacy In FY2022, KnowledgeWorks' Policy and Advocacy team continued to engage with state education and policy leaders across the country to identify and remove policy barriers, enabling greater flexibility and smoother transitions for districts working to implement personalized, competency-based learning. The team's work directly with states included advocacy efforts in Minnesota and Pennsylvania; continued engagements with Ohio, South Carolina, North Dakota and Nevada; and shorter-term engagements with Utah, Georgia and Kentucky. A multi-year engagement with the Ohio Department of Education was launched this year while work in Kentucky has since led to a multi-year commitment. The Policy and Advocacy team positioned itself as thought leaders with a variety of presentations, including two presentations for the Aurora Institute Symposium; two SXSW EDU presentations; several webinars; and presentations at NACEP, ECS, NASBE, CCSSO, the Foundation for Excellence in Education, CBEN and Education Reform Now. Additional thought leadership included the completion of several projects and publications, including a 50-state scan with ECS; college in high school recommendations for South Carolina, Colorado and Rhode Island; an opportunity analysis and action plan for Nevada; Transforming for Tomorrow; a series of whole child stories for Ohio; a policy flexibility memo for Ohio; and two papers on assessment and accountability. The team also laid the groundwork for new projects, including an innovation guide for South Carolina and a competency-based learning framework. Other accomplishments for the team include new efforts in policy tracking; federal policy letters and advisory roles; the launch of state-level networks in Nevada, Ohio and Kentucky with a focus on policy change aligned to personalized, competency-based learning; and being a founding member and steering committee member for the Student-Centered Assessment and Accountability Coalition.”

“Program Service Accomplishments - IMPACT & IMPROVEMENT In the continued efforts to support state work, in FY2022, KnowledgeWorks' Impact and Improvement team produced another report on the formative data collection and shared interim findings in North Dakota. The team finalized plans for the summative data portion of the study and began seeking data permissions. Also in North Dakota, the team led 19 continuous quality improvement capacity-building sessions with 30 districts leaders and data fellows. The team gathered, cleaned, and analyzed 9,267 implementation surveys from educators and students in Arizona and South Carolina. The team partnered with Yuma School District and the South Mountain Community College in Arizona to help a class of 50 students develop their stories as part of a student voice project and also worked with 12 youth with learning differences and other marginalizing factors (e.g., race, language) to create and publicly share their auto-ethnography. Towards the goal of building the knowledge base for the field, the Impact and Improvement team completed and disseminated a cross-state analysis and helped publish and broadly disseminate From State Commitment to District Implementation: Approaches and Strategies for Personalized, Competency-Based Learning with research partner Research for Action (RFA), with 335 views of our landing page, approximately 500 downloads from the RFA site, and 248 participants over two launch webinars. The team secured funding to expand and sustain Making the Case: Compelling Data, a field-facing, searchable data library for sourcing evidence and data on the positive impacts of PCBL. The Data Library had 615 views in FY2022, prior to any major outreach efforts. The Educator Competencies for Personalized, Learner-Centered Environments continued to garner attention and with little new promotion had 408 paper downloads and 1,673 views of the interactive website. The Impact and Improvement staff authored five blogs for KnowledgeWorks, Students at the Center, and Getting Smart, appeared on two podcasts, and served on the advisory board of the Christensen Institute's Canopy Project and the Highlander Institute's Research Advisory Committee.”

“PROGRAM SERVICE ACCOMPLISHMENTS - Other Services Include Strategic Foresight, grantmaking and student loan programs. Strategic Foresight - Knowledgeworks' Strategic Foresight team continued to exercise national thought leadership around the future of learning through publications, partnerships and stakeholder engagements. It published a game, IMPACT: Learning Edition, which uses futures thinking to help players imagine and think critically about changes that could impact the future of learning, along with a discussion guide and a blog series highlighting its characters. KnowledgeWorks also published its sixth anchor forecast, Imagining Liberatory Education Futures, and a related video and blog posts and hosted an introductory webinar. In addition, the team hosted a webinar series on transforming state education systems. Knowledgeworks partnered with Remake Learning and SLB Radio to produce two youth takeovers of the Remaking Tomorrow podcast. With Remake Learning, KnowledgeWorks published two related papers exploring what youth want for the future of education and how adults might help make it happen, Forging the Future of Learning: The Kids Have a Lot to Say and Forging Youth-Centered Futures: Bringing Youth Visions to Life. KnowledgeWorks also produced a suite of resources on early childhood futures for Capita and secured funding from Teach for America to co-create a paper on the future of learning. The Strategic Foresight team presented, designed and facilitated workshops and webinars exploring future possibilities and ways of shaping the future. The team delivered engagements for Allegheny Intermediate Unit 3 (PA), BTS Spark, Games for Change, The Grable Foundation, the Pennsylvania Statewide STEM Ecosystem, the Shaping Edu Pente Pitch Challenge, and Wayne RESA (MI), among others. The team also supported KnowledgeWorks efforts to help state education systems and school districts transition to personalized, competency-based learning. Grant making - The grant making program provided approximately $1.2 million in grants and contributions to 57 organizations. Student Lending Programs - Knowledgeworks served approximately 1,100 students during the fiscal year through its student lending programs.”

“Other changes in net assets unrealized gain on liability for student loan residual 586,561 amortization of discount on student loans 339,599 transfer from tax-exempt subsidiary - kwi 7,075,390 total to form 990, part xi, line 9 8,001,550”

“Description:business consultants total fees:18568”

“Description:marketing & communications total fees:143136”

“Description:payroll, comp & benefits total fees:93445”

“Description:hr, training & development total fees:360285”

“Description:technology total fees:58618”

“Description:policy & advocacy total fees:333213”

“Description:data, research & evaluation total fees:197028”

“Description:teaching & learning consult total fees:452985”

“Description:strategic foresight total fees:93901”