National Public Education Support Fund (NPESF) is a grantmaking organization which funds left-of-center education policy advocacy and activist networking initiatives. The fund supports designing government school programs and allocating taxpayer dollars based on race, ethnicity, and other minority status, and pushes for an education system designed to generate equality of outcome. Daniel Leeds is the fund’s founder as well as the chair of the Alliance for Excellent Education, one of the projects which the NPESF was created to support, and his wife Sunita Leeds is the founder of the Enfranchisement Foundation, another left-of-center grantmaking organization. ¹

NPESF facilitates networking for left-of-center grant makers and activists. ² In addition, the fund has a campaigning and lobbying partner organization which has backed Democratic campaigns for the United States Senate and the Center for American Progress Action Fund, an advocacy group associated a leading left-of-center think tank. ³ Major financial backers of NPESF have included the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which have made multiple grants totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars to the fund. ^{4 5}

The leadership of NPESF has extensive connections to the left-of-center grantmaking world, especially the Hewlett Foundation, and several worked for the Clinton administration in the 1990s. ⁶ Additionally, the fund has collaborated with the Biden administration several times to promote its Department of Education spending initiatives. ^{7 8}

Activities

National Public Education Support Fund maintains that the demographics of the education system must be shifted to favor minority populations. This extends to the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The fund’s chief executive officer, Frank Gettridge, has stated that “sometimes the goal is to make it about race, because race is the most divisive thing in America.” He has also supported making STEM more “culturally and environmentally relevant.” ⁹

NPESF maintains four networks of grant makers and activists, which collaborate on different efforts as part of a broader push for greater government involvement in and taxpayer funding of liberal education reform. Grantmakers for Thriving Youth and the Education Funder Strategy Group bring together donors and philanthropic organizations, while the Data Funders Collaborative supports research designed to advance the fund’s agenda. ¹⁰ The Partnership for the Future of Learning, a general policy advocacy and grant maker networking project with a special focus on race-related issues, started out as an NPESF effort but transitioned into a standalone organization starting in 2021. ¹¹

In the lead-up to the 2020 election season, NPESF joined a coalition of prominent left-of-center advocacy groups, including the Center for American Progress and the NAACP, which pushed Democratic Party candidates to take stronger positions on liberal education reform. ¹²

In Spring 2022, NPESF collaborated with the Biden administration Department of Education to promote education funding in the American Rescue Plan, a spending package passed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, especially as relates to public education. The event included education figures, government officials, and at least one Member of Congress. ¹³ The event also promoted $220 million in further government and private funding for efforts to help students recover from negative effects caused to their educational development by pandemic-related lockdowns. Most of the funding ($160 million) came from the federal government for five-year grants; almost $60 million came from left-of-center foundations. ¹⁴

The NPESF has collaborated with dozens of the leading grant making organizations within the institutional left, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the philanthropic arm of the National Education Association, the country’s largest labor union for school employees. ¹⁵

Campaign Arm

National Public Education Action Fund is the political affiliate of the NPESF. It has supported the Democratic Party-aligned Senate Majority PAC, the left-of-center polling and strategy firm Project New America, and the Center for American Progress Action Fund, the lobbying arm of the Center for American Progress. ¹⁶

Leadership

Daniel Leeds is the founder of the National Public Education Support Fund and now sits on the fund’s board of directors. He and his wife Sunita Leeds are the co-chairs of the Enfranchisement Foundation, which backs left-of-center economic, social, and gender causes. Leeds also runs a private investment firm. ¹⁷ The Leeds family fortune comes from the technical trade journal publisher CMP Media, which the family sold in 1999 for at least $920 million. Daniel Leeds’s parents Gerald and Lilo Leeds were the company’s founders. ¹⁸

Frank Gettridge is the president and chief executive officer of NPESF. He was previously a program officer at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, one of the largest grant making organizations in the United States and a leading contributor to left-of-center race activist causes since the early 1990s. He has also participated in fellowship programs with the National Head Start Association, an initiative of the Department of Health and Human Services, and with the Children’s Defense Fund, a leading activist group pushing for the growth of the welfare state. ¹⁹

Kent McGuire is the chairman of the NPESF board of directors. He is also the program director of education at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, one of the leading grant making organizations in the United States. McGuire was also the assistant secretary of the Department of Education during the last few years of the Clinton administration. ²⁰

Barbara Chow is the treasurer of NPESF. She is also the director of the education program at the Heising-Simons Foundation, a California-based grant making organization run by prominent Democratic Party donors Liz Simons and her husband Mark Heising. Prior to this, she directed the education program of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which now donates to NPESF and now employs Kent McGuire, the NPESF board chair, as the education program director. Chow also worked in the Clinton administration as a deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council and a special assistant for legislative affairs to President Bill Clinton. ^{21 22}

Bob Wise is a member of the NPESF board of directors. A Democrat, Wise was the Governor of West Virginia for more than two decades. He went on to become the president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, a project of NPESF founder Daniel Leeds. He also served in the West Virginia State Senate and the United States House of Representatives. ²³

Financials

In 2021, National Public Education Support Fund generated more than $5.4 million in total revenue and ended the year with just under $4.3 million in net assets. The fund first exceeded $2 million in revenue in 2015. ²⁴ That year, it received large contributions from several major grantmaking organizations: these included the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which awarded it grants totaling $200,000 and $197,200 respectively. ^{25 26}

1. Who We Are.” National Public Education Support Fund. Accessed May 25, 2023. https://www.npesf.org/who-we-are/
2. “Partnership for the Future of Learning.” National Public Education Support Fund. Accessed May 25, 2023. https://www.npesf.org/networks/partnership-for-the-future-of-learning/
3. “National Public Education Action Fund.” CampaignMoney. Accessed May 25, 2023. https://www.campaignmoney.com/political/527/national-public-education-action-fund-527.asp
4. “Committed Grants.” Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Accessed May 25, 2023. https://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/committed-grants?q=National%20Public%20Education%20Support%20Fund&yearAwardedEnd=2015&yearAwardedStart=2015
5. “Grants.” William & Flora Hewlett Foundation. Accessed May 25, 2023. https://hewlett.org/grants/?keyword=National%20Public%20Education%20Support%20Fund&sort=relevance&years=2015&current_page=1
6. ^[1]“Who We Are.” National Public Education Support Fund. Accessed May 25, 2023. https://www.npesf.org/who-we-are/
7. “From Recovery to Thriving: How the American Rescue Plan is Supporting America’s Students.” Office of Elementary & Secondary Education. November 16, 2022. Accessed May 25, 2023. https://oese.ed.gov/from-recovery-to-thriving-how-the-american-rescue-plan-is-supporting-americas-students/
8. “U.S. Department of Education Announces Over $220 Million Dollars in Investments from Government, Private, and Public Sectors to Support Student Recovery.” U.S. Department of Education. April 27, 2022. Accessed May 25, 2023. https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-education-announces-over-220-million-dollars-investments-government-private-and-public-sectors-support-student-recovery
9. “Let’s Talk STEM With Dr. Calvin Mackie Discusses Importance of Philanthropic & Government Support for STEM Education.” AP News. September 15, 2022. Accessed May 25, 2023. https://apnews.com/article/louisiana-education-new-orleans-united-states-3b585107697a17cb0560fa87da83b72d
10. “Networks.” National Public Education Support Fund. Accessed May 25, 2023. https://www.npesf.org/networks/
11. “Partnership for the Future of Learning.” National Public Education Support Fund. Accessed May 25, 2023.https://www.npesf.org/networks/partnership-for-the-future-of-learning/
12. Jane E. West. “Senate Fails to Move Education Funding Bill: What’s Next?” EdPrepMatters. September 16, 2019. Accessed May 25, 2023. https://edprepmatters.net/2019/09/senate-fails-to-move-education-funding-bill-whats-next/
13. “From Recovery to Thriving: How the American Rescue Plan is Supporting America’s Students.” Office of Elementary & Secondary Education. November 16, 2022. Accessed May 25, 2023. https://oese.ed.gov/from-recovery-to-thriving-how-the-american-rescue-plan-is-supporting-americas-students/
14. “U.S. Department of Education announces over $220 million dollars in investments from government, private, and public sectors to support student recovery,” U.S. Department of Education. April 27, 2022. Accessed May 29, 2023. https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-education-announces-over-220-million-dollars-investments-government-private-and-public-sectors-support-student-recovery
15. “Who We Work With.” National Public Education Support Fund. Accessed May 25, 2023. https://www.npesf.org/who-we-work-with/
16. “National Public Education Action Fund.” CampaignMoney. Accessed May 25, 2023. https://www.campaignmoney.com/political/527/national-public-education-action-fund-527.asp
17. “Who We Are.” National Public Education Support Fund. Accessed May 25, 2023. https://www.npesf.org/who-we-are/
18. Paul Tharp. “Leeds Family Sells CMP Media For $920M.” New York Post. April 30, 1999. Accessed May 27, 2023. https://nypost.com/1999/04/30/leeds-family-sells-cmp-media-for-920m/
19. “Who We Are.” National Public Education Support Fund. Accessed May 25, 2023. https://www.npesf.org/who-we-are/
20. “Who We Are.” National Public Education Support Fund. Accessed May 25, 2023. https://www.npesf.org/who-we-are/
21. “Grants.” William & Flora Hewlett Foundation. Accessed May 25, 2023. https://hewlett.org/grants/?keyword=National%20Public%20Education%20Support%20Fund&sort=relevance&years=2015&current_page=1
22. “Who We Are.” National Public Education Support Fund. Accessed May 25, 2023. https://www.npesf.org/who-we-are/
23. ^[1]“Who We Are.” National Public Education Support Fund. Accessed May 25, 2023. https://www.npesf.org/who-we-are/
24. “National Public Education Support Fund.” ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. Accessed May 25, 2023. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/263015634
25. “Committed Grants.” Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Accessed May 25, 2023. https://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/committed-grants?q=National%20Public%20Education%20Support%20Fund&yearAwardedEnd=2015&yearAwardedStart=2015
26. “Grants.” William & Flora Hewlett Foundation. Accessed May 25, 2023. https://hewlett.org/grants/?keyword=National%20Public%20Education%20Support%20Fund&sort=relevance&years=2015&current_page=1