Siegel Family Endowment announced over $16.3 million in grants to support organizations working at the intersection of workforce innovation, infrastructure, and effective philanthropy.
“As artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies continue to reshape our society, it’s crucial that we support organizations that look at how technology is implemented across education, work environments, and policy,” said Joshua Elder, vice president and head of grantmaking of Siegel Family Endowment. “Our latest grants reaffirm our commitment to building a more inclusive technological future by supporting comprehensive research, shaping human-centered policies, and fostering community-driven innovation to ensure these advancements benefit everyone.”
Organizations receiving grants include:
- #BlackTechFutures Research Institute
- All Tech Is Human
- AFL-CIO Technology Institute
- DevTech Research Group at Boston College
- Braven
- Candid
- Capital B
- Center for American Progress
- Center for Democracy & Technology
- Chalkbeat
- Code the Dream
- Communitas America
- Connect Humanity
- Creative Commons
- Data & Society Research Institute
- Digital Promise Global
- Economic Policy Institute
- Education Week
- eLab
- For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST)
- Foundation for Civic AI
- Govern For America
- Grove Impact
- Innovation for Equity
- JustFund
- Khan Academy
- Last Mile Education Fund
- Media Economies Design Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder
- MIT Work of the Future Initiative
- New Public
- Public Interest Technology Infrastructure Fund
- Public Interest Technology Universities Network Fund
- NYC Workforce Development Fund
- New York Hall of Science
- NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics
- Project Evident
- redefinED atlanta
- Responsible Innovation Labs (RIL)
- Aspen Digital, a Program of the Aspen Institute
- STEMteachersNYC
- Marshall Street at Summit Public Schools
- The Bell
- The Governance Lab
- The Hechinger Report
- Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
- The Tech Interactive
- Upwardly Global
- Urban Arts
- The Washington Center for Equitable Growth
- Work it Out Wombats!
Scaling the Understanding of AI’s Impact on the Workforce
To deepen our understanding of how AI and emerging technologies are transforming work, Siegel Family Endowment is supporting research and programs that examine the hiring, management, and monitoring of workers, as well as the overall worker experience. The Washington Center for Equitable Growth will fund individual researchers to examine how AI might impact workers and their working environment. MIT’s Work of the Future Initiative continues its groundbreaking research on technological change in the workplace and its special focus on generative AI. Additionally, the AFL-CIO Technology Institute is developing new approaches to leverage worker expertise to improve AI-driven workplace technology.
Siegel is also supporting the Economic Policy Institute, Center for American Progress, and Data & Society to advance understanding around evidence-based policies that can shape AI’s impact on the workforce, worker data rights, and more. Siegel’s support to Upwardly Global compliments this work by expanding an innovative pilot that leverages responsible AI to ensure job seekers from all backgrounds have access to skill-aligned work and opportunities to thrive in a rapidly evolving economy.
Advancing the Public Interest Technology Infrastructure
With this support, Siegel is leading the way in building the infrastructure for a public interest technology ecosystem—one that creates the conditions for technologists to thrive and innovate for societal good. This includes a grant to support the Public Interest Technology University Network (PIT-UN) to build, diversify, and strengthen vital talent pipelines, including support for Regional Hub Fellowships and PIT career fairs. It includes supporting the launch of Foundation for Civic Knowledge (a sponsored project of Res Publica US, Inc.), which will put rare, expensive GPU resources into the hands of mission-driven organizations, providing a critical boost to nonprofit partners. Additional investments in organizations like All Tech Is Human, Govern for America, TechCongress, Code the Dream, and the #BlackTechFutures Research Institute are building robust pathways into and networks within the public interest technology ecosystem, spanning both public and private sectors.
Efforts to explore the digital infrastructure that society relies upon and reimagine the way communities own their digital experiences are being led by organizations including New_ Public, Media Economies Design Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder, Center for Democracy & Technology, Aspen Digital, NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics, and Creative Commons. Their work focuses on helping communities take control of their digital experiences, ensuring everyone has fair access to technology, and finding ways to make the online space more trustworthy and welcoming for all.
Strengthening Philanthropic Impact
As part of its effective philanthropy efforts, Siegel is supporting initiatives that leverage technology to strengthen the overall nonprofit ecosystem and facilitate knowledge sharing among its peers. Their support in JustFund is streamlining grantmaking processes, while Candid is improving demographic data collection in the sector. Project Evident is enhancing the social sector’s ability to scale impact through the integration of emerging technologies, and The GovLab’s Data4Philanthropy initiative is building out a new “science of questions” and developing innovative approaches to the use of data across the sector.
