TalkingPoints
TalkingPoints is an education-technology organization that seeks to increase parent-teacher engagement in schools. The group promotes “Universal Family Engagement.” It claims it seeks to remove barriers between parents and schools. 1 It focuses on daily absence notifications, targeted messaging; real-time dashboards; weekly messages; and multilingual communication. 2
Contents
Heejae Lim, who has worked on education reform issues internationally, founded TalkingPoints in 2015. 3
Background
TalkingPoints is a California-based education technology nonprofit with a stated goal of driving student success through strong family-school partnerships. 4 Heejae Lim, an advocate for education issues internationally, founded Talking Points, which was initially based on an app bridging the language barrier between teachers and non-English-speaking parents. 5
Talking Points says its program helps parents learn about their students’ school despite being constrained by time and resources. It allows teachers to use TalkingPoints to send relevant, useful, and actionable information to families.” 6
As of 2026, TalkingPoints claimed to have brought about more than one billion conversations, more than nine million family members, educators, and students each year, and earning the trust of 25 percent of schools and districts across the United States. 3
Some of the larger school districts TalkingPoints works with are Oakland Unified, Wake County, and the New York City Department of Education. 7
The group helps schools and districts address chronic absenteeism. 2 TalkingPoints is a partner with Attendance Works 2025 Attendance Awareness Campaign. 2
History
Heejae Lim, a Korean immigrant, founded TalkingPoints in 2015. She credited her experience growing up and seeing her mother’s involvement in school to help her advance as a student as an inspiration. 3
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, TalkingPoints offered free access for certain school districts considered to have high needs. That year, more than two million families and educators exchanged more than 100 million messages. 3
In 2021, TalkingPoints was the first nonprofit to get a GPT-3 license from OpenAI. 3
By 2023, the organization was able to support more than 100 languages. 3
Financials
Early financial supporters of the TalkingPoints include the NewSchools Venture Fund, Google, Stanford University, Walton Family Foundation, and the Milken-Penn GSE Education Business Plan Competition. 3
In 2022, MacKenzie Scott donated $10 million to TalkingPoints. 8
Goldman Sachs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund contributed $2.5 million to TalkingPoints in 2024. 9 Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, also a donor-advised fund provider, donated $500,500 in 2024. 9
Arrow Impact gave $500,000 to TalkingPoints in 2024. 9
Leadership
As of 2026, Heejae Lim was serving as the founder and CEO of TalkingPoints. Before that, she worked on public schooling in the Middle East. She was also the chief of staff to a special advisor to the Secretary of Education in the United Kingdom. She also previously was a consultant at McKinsey and Company and advised the Gates Foundation as well as Teach First UK. 10
As of 2026, Claudine Ryan was serving as the president of TalkingPoints. She spent more than two decades in the technology industry. She was formerly the chief operating officer and head of product at GreatSchools. She studied information technology at the University of Virginia and has an MBA from the University of California Los Angeles Anderson School of Business. 10
As of 2026, Dan Braga was serving as the chairman of the board of TalkingPoints. At that time, he was part of the investing team at Morningside, a venture capital and private equity firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Previously, he worked for McKinsey for 17 years. He also co-founded a private equity fund with the Zaf Group. 10