New Profit Welcomes Big Picture Learning and Leading Educators as our Newest Transform Investments

New Profit is proud to welcome two organizations as our newest Transform Investments: Big Picture Learning and Leading Educators. Both organizations are tackling the same root challenge from different angles: the structures and conditions of American education that often work against the students they’re meant to serve. Together, they reflect our belief that the most powerful solutions come from those closest to students, classrooms, and communities and that investing in that proximity is what drives real change.

New Profit piloted Transform Investments in 2024 in response to two realities. First, social entrepreneurs told us that sustained coaching and strategic support, not just unrestricted funding, would help them reach the next level of their impact in their work. Second, organizations at this size and stage often fall into a gap in the philanthropic market: too large for some early-stage funders, and not yet at the scale that attracts the largest institutional investors. 

Transform Investments support Build portfolio alumni organizations that have a proven model and a strategic path forward towards transformative impact. Through this investment, Big Picture Learning and Leading Educators will each receive $3M over four years, alongside dedicated support from a New Profit Deal Partner who helps leaders navigate the high-stakes decisions that come with scaling.

Big Picture Learning

Big Picture Learning aims to transform the K-12 U.S. education system to enable all students to live fulfilling lives of their own design.

Big Picture Learning believes that every young person has the potential to lead a life of their own design. However,  schools today prioritize standardization over individualized support or choice for students, fostering environments that feel out of step with student needs and failing to adequately prepare students for the realities of life after high school.

The remedy starts with addressing the student disengagement crisis by building learning environments where young people have agency over their own education and access to real-world learning and adult mentors in their communities. Big Picture Learning’s approach aligns with experts’ perspectives on a path to better motivate and prepare young people to navigate the modern economy and civic society. This comes at a critical moment when national test scores lag pre-pandemic levels and schools are under-enrolled and understaffed, with rising stress and dissatisfaction reported among students.

Led by co-Executive Directors Andrew Frishman and Carlos Moreno, Big Picture Learning’s school transformation work empowers and reenergizes students, teachers, and school leaders by prioritizing autonomy, care, and joy. They mobilize students, educators, school leaders, nonprofit and community leaders, and families to change structures and mindsets about our current approach to education. At the core of their work, they partner with a growing network of almost 150 schools and districts across the U.S., equipping educators to implement their learner-centered design through site coaching, student and family engagement tools, and community-based internship systems. 

To further support schools to shift their practices, Big Picture Learning provides technical tools to schools, including internship management and mentorship platforms and the International Big Picture Learning Credential, which offers a personalized project-driven, competency-based assessment as an alternative to standardized testing to assess college readiness. They also offer fellowships for school, nonprofit, and systems-level leaders to build peer community and empower leaders to change policy and practice where they live and work. To shape public conversation at the national level, they hold two annual conferences to convene educators, leaders, and students from across the country.

Big Picture Learning is seeing long-term impact for the schools they partner with and the students they reach. 

• Each year, Big Picture Learning directly supports about 300,000 young people across 27 states through the schools in their network. 
• A longitudinal study published in 2020 found that 97% of Big Picture Learning students were admitted into two-year or four-year colleges and 74% of alumni who were working and not enrolled in post-high school education reported securing a job through a contact made through one of their high school internships. 96% of alumni reported they were in touch with their high school advisors two years after graduation. The same study found that Big Picture Learning graduates were equally likely to enroll in college, regardless of their race, gender, or parents’ level of education. 
• In New York, the organization played a significant role in passing policy supporting individualized and holistic “Portrait of a Graduate” assessments for students and moving away from standardized testing to assess competency for graduation.

“Big Picture Learning has spent 30 years proving what’s possible when schools are built around the real interests, strengths, and futures of young people, and the results speak for themselves,” said New Profit President and BPL Deal Partner Molly O’Donnell. “Students are learning by doing, accessing college and careers at higher rates, and, perhaps most powerfully, becoming the kinds of leaders and thinkers our country needs.” 

“What moves me most is BPL’s commitment to proximity: they don’t just advocate for learner-centered education, they build the skills and conditions that make it real, in schools and communities across the country. New Profit is proud to walk alongside BPL as they deepen their school partnerships, build compassionate leader pathways, expand their technology tools, and step into an exciting new chapter of field leadership.”

Leading Educators

Leading Educators works with school systems to strengthen the conditions for powerful, relevant learning so every student can thrive in a complex, changing world. Their vision is to ensure that excellent, future-ready learning is the norm–not the exception.

Today’s students are entering a future shaped by rapid technological change, evolving workforce demands, and increasing social and economic complexity. Yet many school systems were designed for a different era—one focused more on stability and standardization than adaptability, relevance, and continuous learning. Leading Educators, led by CEO Chong-Hao Fu and President Karolyn Belcher,  is helping school systems within historically underinvested communities meet this challenge by strengthening leadership, instructional practice, and systems for continuous learning toward a coherent, future-ready vision for student success. Their work strengthens educators’ and leaders’ capacity to close opportunity gaps today by delivering rigorous, relevant learning experiences while building the conditions for long-term adaptability tomorrow.

For more than a decade, Leading Educators has partnered with large urban and statewide systems to improve literacy, mathematics, and instructional leadership outcomes through scalable, multi-level support. Their approach is grounded in the belief that sustainable improvement requires systems that help all educators learn, adapt, and improve together over time. Leading Educators is also producing cutting-edge, human-centered models and guidance for navigating the potential of artificial intelligence and emerging technologies in teaching and learning. Rather than approaching AI as a standalone innovation trend, the organization is helping systems thoughtfully integrate new tools and instructional models in ways that strengthen—rather than fragment—teaching and learning. 

This investment supports Leading Educators at the launch of an ambitious four-year strategic plan—one that sets out to reach one million students annually by 2030 while building the learning models that will define what excellent, future-ready education looks like for the next generation.

Their future ambitions build from one of the strongest evidence bases in the field. 

• Leading Educators is the first professional learning organization in the past decade to receive Tier 1 evidence status in the What Works Clearinghouse, the Department of Education database that rigorously evaluates educational programs to determine “what works” in education. 
• Rigorous research on Leading Educators’ partnerships since 2016 found 21 positive cases of student impact with federal ESSA Tier 3 or stronger evidence. Students in supported schools experienced an average of 9 additional months of learning in a year.
• National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data show that, of the five districts nationwide that improved in reading during the COVID-19 pandemic, four were Leading Educators partners. 

“I am thrilled to partner with Chong-Hao Fu and the incredibly talented Leading Educators team,” shared New Profit Deal Partner Wendy Lee Haines. “Leading Educators has built a strong track record of impact with school districts nationwide, and I’m excited to have a front-row seat to their work as they evolve and scale their model further.”

“This is an organization that deeply understands what excellent teaching looks like— designing in deep proximity with educators in a way that resonates with New Profit’s core values. And they’re committed to innovation, actively pursuing new ways of teaching that better prepare students for a future we can’t yet imagine. I’m so excited to learn alongside the Leading Educators team and support their continued growth.” 

Big Picture Learning and Leading Educators  join the following organizations as part of our Transform Portfolio:

• Braven (Economic Mobility): Braven empowers first-generation college students, students of color, and those from low-income backgrounds by equipping them with skills, networks, experiences, and confidence to secure strong first jobs.
• GirlTREK (Economic Mobility): GirlTREK is a dynamic grassroots movement and the largest public health nonprofit for Black women and girls in America.
• Transcend (Education): Transcend is a national nonprofit that helps communities reimagine and redesign schools so every young person can thrive in a rapidly changing world. 

We invite you to subscribe to New Profit’s newsletter and follow Big Picture Learning and Leading Educators on social media for updates to stay connected to their progress. Learn more about New Profit’s funding opportunities here. 

About New Profit

New Profit is a venture philanthropy organization that catalyzes the impact of social entrepreneurs who are expanding access and opportunity in America. We provide capital, capacity, and community to a portfolio of organizations to increase their impact, scale, and sustainability. And we partner with social entrepreneurs, philanthropists, and cross-sector leaders to shift how the philanthropic sector pursues social change and ensures that everyone in America can thrive. Since 1998, New Profit has invested over $350M in 275+ high-impact organizations serving more than 35 million people in all 50 states.