Focus on Impact: NewSchools Venture Fund Profile

Founded in 1998 by social entrepreneur Kim Smith and venture capitalists John Doerr and Brook Byers, the first four-year venture capital fund NewSchools raised financed nine for-profit and nonprofit ventures. Most of these ventures worked as back-end support for schools, training teachers, helping families and educators become informed about schools, and developing improved curricula. Two were charter management organizations, and in 2002 their second fund, now over $50 million, went to sponsoring over a dozen similar organizations of charter schools, as well as continuing support of other great ventures like other America Forward Coalition Organization, New Leaders for New Schools. Meanwhile, “[they] also began to explore how [they] could help all public school systems become more performance-driven,” and the inspiration for the third, 2006-2010, fund was born, focusing on accountability and proven results in a few key cities, with additional support for entrepreneurs nationwide.

Today, NewSchools invests directly in education entrepreneurs using venture philanthropy models, and then provides indirect support that guides the entrepreneurs to become beacons of inspiration for systemic change. The thousands of students NewSchools entrepreneurs work directly with are nearly 70 percent low-income and 90 percent of color. Hundreds of thousands more have been helped nationwide by the results of their research and entrepreneurial networking—proven results from innovative solutions both inside and outside the system.