Thank You, Edward E. Ford Foundation

We have some news.

The MTC was just awarded the $2 million Collaborative Innovation Grant from the Edward E. Ford Foundation, and we could not be more proud, humbled or resolved. As Scott Looney and Patricia Russell wrote in a letter to the MTC’s member schools, “With the support this grant provides and the endorsement it constitutes, the MTC just received a big gust of wind in our sails.”

The $2 million from the Foundation will match the $2 million the founding schools have pledged to raise for the Mastery Transcript’s technology platform.

We cannot adequately express our gratitude to EE Ford Foundation and its Executive Director, John Gulla. For those who may not be familiar with the Foundation, in its almost 60 year history, it has made grants totaling more than $120 million to more than 800 different schools and associations. The Foundation’s mission is in part “to challenge and inspire [independent schools] to leverage their unique talents, expertise and resources …by encouraging collaboration with other institutions.”

The Mastery Transcript is a bold concept that the Board of the Foundation understands at a remarkably deep level. “In terms of communicating student progress and achievement, the standard high school transcript is as limited as it is widely used,” Gulla says. “The MTC hopes to change how teachers teach and fundamentally to alter the relationship between preparation for college and college admission for the betterment of students. The EE Ford Foundation is pleased to be able to support their work with this grant.”

We will have a lot more to say about this moment in the next days, but for now, we simply want to say, “Thank you.”

“The support of the EE Ford Foundation will enable us to take our concept to reality on a timeline to serve more students more quickly,” Looney says. “We are honored to be a recipient of this Collaborative Innovation Grant.”