Carnegie Corporation of New York is a major American philanthropic organization that supports higher education in Africa. For over two decades, its mission has centered around deepening and expanding the continent’s advanced academic communities, networks, and universities. It also focuses on promoting policies that inform the growing higher education sector, aiming to transform it into a cornerstone for knowledge-based economies with research-active academics trained relevant to the African context.
The grant program aims to support initiatives that reimagine and improve American public education across several focus areas. These include fostering school and classroom innovations that offer personalized, mastery-focused learning experiences; enhancing high school graduates' pathways to postsecondary success in alignment with economic opportunities; strengthening teaching quality and school leadership to ensure content-rich, standards-aligned instruction; and building a shared understanding of necessary educational changes among families, educators, and communities. The program also prioritizes fostering equitable education systems that reduce fragmentation, promote collaboration, and support continuous learning, with a specific emphasis on serving historically marginalized communities.