Know Your Agency: The Spencer Foundation

OVERVIEW

 The Spencer Foundation, located in Chicago, Illinois, was founded in 1962 by Lyle M. Spencer, a sociologist. Mr. Spencer was a life-long advocate of quality education, having started Science Research Associates (SRA) in 1938. SRA was best known for its SRA Reading Laboratory Kit found in most elementary and secondary classrooms in 1957 and after. Following Mr. Spencer’s death in 1968, the Foundation received its initial endowment, and agency personnel spent the next three years charting the Foundation’s vision and mission based on their Founder’s wishes concerning support of educational research. The first grants were made in 1971, and to date the Foundation has provided over $500 million in research funding.

Approach

The Spencer Foundation takes a broad approach to the subject of education, and funds projects worldwide. Educational improvement through research is the overall Foundation mission, and research efforts within a variety of disciplines have been supported including education, anthropology, economics, history, human development, literacy, psychology, public policy, sociology, and statistics. Investigators are expected to make a strong case for the importance of the proposed project in terms of educational improvement as well as Foundation needs and interests.

Specific Interests

Grant awards made by Spencer reflect a wide variety of topics within education including achievement, leadership, assessment, civic engagement, cognition, diversity, early childhood, higher education, human development, language, math and science education, organizational theory, race/ethnicity, literacy, special education, teacher education, and teaching with technology.

AGENCY ORGANIZATION

The Foundation is led by a President and Board of Directors. Current Board membership consists of six educators, primarily within higher education, and two

members from the business community. The current President, Na’ilah Suad Nasir, was selected in 2017, and is working with the Board toward evolution of the Foundation’s grants programs to ensure supported research efforts translate into educational practice more effectively among other priorities. At this time, a number of previously established funding priorities have been suspended.

AGENCY GRANTS PROCESS

The two largest grant programs offered by the Foundation are:

·    The Lyle M. Spencer Awards – designed to support large-scale research efforts with budgets between $100,000 and $1 million; the Foundation offers this grant competition once per year, and typically funds up to 10 awards

·    Small Grants – designed to support smaller-scale and/or pilot projects with budgets of $50,000 or less; there are four deadlines a year for this program

Last year the Foundation hosted informational webinars for both of these programs to outline expectations. Note that principal investigators (PIs) are limited to one active Spencer Foundation research award at a time; current PIs may submit another grant application set to start after their current grant project ends.

FY 2017 Awards/Success Rates

The Foundation provided 186 awards in 2017 including Conference Grants, Lyle Spencer Research Awards and Small Grants. Specific to the Small Grants Program, through which the Foundation makes the majority of its awards, they generally receive over 1000 proposals and are able to fund up to 10%. (Source: Small Grants Eligibility and Process web page)

Additional Funding Mechanisms

The Spencer Foundation also offers Doctoral Dissertation and Postdoctoral Fellowships, both administered through the National Academy of Education. The Postdoctoral Fellowship Program is open to early career faculty.

Resources:

The Spencer Foundation
Know Your Agency Brief: Spencer - ORDE