Siegel Family Endowment

Foundations are increasingly interested in soliciting grantee feedback. But where do you begin, how do you ensure the feedback you collect is meaningful, and most importantly, how do you learn from and act on it? Join Siegel Family Endowment's Kyla Kasharian, GivingData's Roberto Cremonini, and Philanthropy.io's Mary Kadzielski (she/her)?on November 19 at 2pm ET as they discuss how to build and maintain a successful feedback mechanism. Register here: https://lnkd.in/ebcA48j4

Wrapped up SOCAP Global 2024. Was great connecting with colleagues new and old about how to activate more types of capital to create public interest, rights-respecting technology. Our Panel ?? : Katy Knight, alongside Lyel Resner, Roy E. Bahat, and Davida Herzl, discussed what role early-stage investors and philanthropy can play in transforming the funding and business models for responsible technology companies. Topics covered include: the use-ful/less-ness of the term “impact investing,” the macro-factors and time horizons that affect how and to whom financing is deployed, and that “between winning and changing the world, you have to do both.” https://lnkd.in/e8mjtkZj Key Takeaway ?? : Systems change will not be the result of any single technology or infrastructure, but of the combined interrelated efforts with a shared degree of directionality. Nation states alone can’t solve climate change. Technology alone can’t solve inequity. And nonprofits working alone can’t fix whatever broken levers create/perpetuate their existence. It takes all sectors working in the same direction to bring about more of the innovations we actually need, and a more intentional approach to allocating the world’s capital to realize it. We need to move from “isolated innovations” to “integrated innovations," as opening plenary speaker Christiana Figueres so aptly noted. Call to Action ?? : The need for imagination about how philanthropy can play a role in setting up new funds and ventures beyond the classic “MRI/PRI/mission-aligned endowment investment.” New types of creative capital allocation can clear major hurdles for women, people of color, and others from historically excluded communities who are brimming with fresh ideas and theses, but lack the privileged networks to get off the ground. Bonus ? : The paradox of “how simple it is to see complexity” and how profound the “echoes in our ecosystems” return back what we put in, spoken word shared by Ariana Lee and Kylan Denney of Youth Speaks. Siegel Family Endowment, Joshua Elder

We’re proud to have sponsored this year’s CSforALL Summit, held last week in Milwaukee! Bringing together educators, funders, and tech champions, the summit is a testament to the dedication across sectors to advance CS education for students nationwide. Our very own Executive Director and President, Katy Knight, took the stage as a keynote speaker, sharing insights on the importance of inclusive pathways in computer science. Thank you to everyone who participated in advancing our collective mission to make CS accessible to all!

At Siegel, questions are central to everything we do. Our inquiry-driven process allows each question to evolve naturally into the next, the iteration informing every aspect of what we do—from grantmaking to external engagement and beyond. Which is why we’re passionate about asking ?? better ?? questions, ones that help us and our grantees reach the core of what we seek to accomplish. Definitely check out this new Stanford Social Innovation Review article by Stefaan Verhulst, PhD, Hannah Chafetz, and Alex Fischer the captures the essence of how powerful questions can drive insight and impact. ? ??

Is Venture Capital Eating Impact's Lunch? Impact Investing has reached $1.5T in assets, yet it remains niche, bespoke—especially in the tech community where "growth at all costs" mentality still dominates. This is in spite of growing examples of companies who are best in class precisely because they move with intention and create trust, rather than "move fast and break things." What would it take to build an early-stage funding ecosystem that truly prioritizes human dignity and flourishing? How can the impact community be more intentional about driving responsible innovation? How can we support a new generation of founders who believe that responsible innovation is a way to both generate and protect value? So enjoyed moderating this conversation at #SOCAP24 with three wildly brilliant panelists, forging new examples of how we build and fund technology companies: Davida Herzl, CEO of Aclima, Inc., Roy E. Bahat, Head of Bloomberg Beta and Katy Knight, President of Siegel Family Endowment. Thanks SOCAP Global for letting us bring some creative friction.

Today’s corporate leaders face a deeply divided political landscape, rapidly shifting stakeholder demands, ongoing economic uncertainties, and myriad technological, regulatory, and environmental forces that present both risk and opportunity. Against this backdrop, we release the 2024 Americans’ Views on Business Survey that highlights the public's clear direction for corporate leaders: 1?? The majority of Americans – regardless of political party, ideology, or other demographic differences – are generally united in their expectations for corporations, particularly in areas where positive societal impact dovetails with positive business performance: paying people fairly, investing in their workforce, treating customers better, offering products or services at a fair price, minimizing harm to the environment, strengthening communities, and even making good on climate commitments. 2?? Whereas in previous years we saw greater demand for CEOs to speak out on social issues, opinion is now much more divided overall. When looking at political ideology spits, we see the percent of Americans on both sides of the aisle who believe CEOs should speak out only on issues related to their business grow between 2021 and 2024. 3?? In today’s low-trust environment, the American public is looking for more information on what companies are actually doing, not what they say they are doing. The leaders who create value for all their stakeholders, also create more value for their shareholders, for themselves, and for society at large. Our data shows this ‘win-win-win’ is not mere conjecture; it’s a fact. Explore all the insights in the full report here: https://lnkd.in/grddPeK8 #polling #stakeholdercapitalism #fairwages #fairpay #climate #CEO

Each year, JUST Capital asks Americans to prioritize what issues matter most when it comes to business behavior. And this year's central message is striking. The 2024 Americans' Views on Business provides executives a clear direction: across political and other demographic lines, executives need to get back to the basics. Focus on issues where stakeholder impact dovetails with business performance like?paying #fairwages, investing in your workforce, treating #customers better, offering products or services at a #fairprice, minimizing harm to the environment, strengthening communities, and more.?Corporate #leadership is under unprecedented pressure. Performance expectations are sky-high, scrutiny is intense, and the margins for error are basically nonexistent. Our data shows there is a ‘win-win-win’ that's not mere conjecture; it’s a fact. Explore the insights: https://lnkd.in/gCtQqJpb

Appreciate these reflections from last month's Tech Together

Check out Katy Knight's interview with Greg Toppo in the 74 Million to see how Quill.org is carefully and responsibly building AI with teacher feedback. Katy flags that we are intentionally not building a general-purpose AI system that can do anything. Instead, we are building a highly customized AI feedback system built on particular pedagogical strategies and fine-tuned with authentic teacher feedback. This bespoke approach enables Quill to be more accurate, more reliable, and less error-prone versus generic AI tools that are trying to do everything at once. Thank you Siegel Family Endowment for supporting our research & development process for building Ethical AI for students in Title-1 schools. Here's a link to the piece: https://lnkd.in/ebTAceRK

Finally, 'unsexy tech' gets its air time! I firmly believe that the most essential ed tech tools won’t solely rely on the flashiest new technology. Instead, they’ll focus on capturing specific audiences within the K-12 sector and flawlessly integrating back-end services—most likely leveraging technology that’s been around for decades. I’m so grateful to Greg Toppo and The 74 Media for this article, as it perfectly captures what I've been trying to articulate all year—a balance between optimism and critique, being both a harsh critic of ed tech and one of its biggest cheerleaders. And the fact that my mom loved it only adds to the high praise—trust me, that's saying something! And why do any of this work if I'm not making mom proud? https://lnkd.in/eDtCK2jr