Education
1 winning strategy
Verified wins
$50K – $500K typical award

Spencer Foundation Grants: How to Win Funding

The Spencer Foundation is the United States' premier private philanthropy dedicated exclusively to educational research.

Funder guideAll winning strategiesUpdated 2026-10-04

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Winning strategies for Spencer Foundation

1 strategy contributed by grant writers who won funding here, all verified wins. Each summary is free — the full tactic unlocks with an account.

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$350,000 won
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Spencer Foundation: the research-practice partnership model

The Spencer Foundation funds education research, particularly research-practice partnerships. Frame your proposal as generating usable knowledge, not just as evaluating a program.

The Spencer Foundation funds education research that advances understanding of education practice and policy. If your proposal is 'we will evaluate our program,' that is evaluation, not research, and Spencer will decline it. If it is 'we will study how X works in Y context to generate knowledge that others can use,' that is research. The research-practice partnership (RPP) model: Spencer prioritizes RPPs — long-term collaborations between researchers and practitioners.…

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Dr. Amanda Foster, Co-Principal Investigator 36
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