These planners also recognized that Bay Area schools were failing a growing majority of students, especially the poor and children of color, despite the dozens of reform initiatives thriving across the region. They knew their answers to improving schools for all children could not lie in yet another bureaucracy. Solutions would have to come from a broadly-based--and difficult--collaborative process that would unite people from different districts and settings, prompt them to act together in ways that generated new learning, and help them reflect on each one's part in making schools better for children.

Inspired by the possibility that a formal learning community--a regional collaborative composed of Bay Area schools, districts, and support organizations--could achieve this bold vision, the group sought out its own challenge: a grant from the Hewlett Foundation and from William Hewlett himself. When first Hewlett, then Annenberg pledged $25 million each--and after planners agreed to raise an additional $50 million in matching funds--the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative (BASRC), the Hewlett-Annenberg Challenge, was inaugurated on May 17, 1995.

Once launched, BASRC proceeded to concentrate its Challenge funding in a group of Leadership Schools that would develop practical, focused reform plans, provide evidence of their progress, and stay closely accountable to their local communities. Through example and status, Leadership Schools would later pull (unfunded) Membership Schools--and eventually even non-BASRC schools--toward their shared vision of teaching and learning. To help support and spread the schools' work, BASRC urged both districts and support provider organizations to join the Collaborative and become vital members of this regional learning community. It also sponsored specialized research and development projects to seek new answers to the pressing problems shared by all its members.

BASRC's theory of action thus called for key players in school reform to create a system of new relationships based on reciprocity, leadership, and inquiry. This culture of collaboration inherently demanded new roles for schools, district offices, and support provider organizations engaged in whole school reform. It demanded new roles for funders, too.

To understand better the Collaborative's effect on educational grantmaking in the Bay Area, BASRC conducted a study in late 1998 of ten local funders of K-12 educational efforts. Interviewees represented foundations large and small, new and established, as well as locally- and nationally-headquartered corporations. They included people who have varying degrees of involvement with the Collaborative--current, past, and prospective donors. And they included funders who have made grants directly to BASRC as well as those whose grants to other schools and organizations are aligned with the goals of the Collaborative and the Annenberg Challenge, such as promoting collaboration among public/private partnerships and achieving educational equity for all children.

This paper summarizes the findings from this study--and highlights the various ways BASRC has enhanced K-12 grantmaking in the Bay Area. Despite the variety of funders interviewed, one thing is clear: they share a recognition of BASRC as a leader--a definer--of school reform efforts in the Bay Area. As one funder commented, BASRC is considered to have "massive momentum," regarding school reform issues in the region. BASRC's expertise and vision have fostered a deepened appreciation of the complexities and opportunities inherent in school reform, a growing awareness of the need to act cohesively and regionally, and a realistic hope for sustainability.

BASRC's "portfolio reviews"--required for admission to the Collaborative and for Leadership School funding--figured prominently in shaping this perception. Repeated several times annually for the project's first three years, the portfolio review process centered around BASRC's five criteria for whole school change (see X) and a rubric describing the developmental stages through which reforming schools move. To become members of the Collaborative, schools, districts, and support provider organizations all had to submit a portfolio that documented their accomplishments in light of these criteria. "Peer" panels examined and scored the portfolios using the rubric, which itself had been jointly developed.

A large number of foundation staff participated in the reviews, enabling funders to become familiar with the BASRC criteria, as well as providing them the opportunity to work alongside educators, making judgments together about the quality of proposals. Indeed, the portfolio review process embodied BASRC's core belief in the power of engaging in common work to spur mutual learning. Educators and funders alike declared it one of the best professional development experiences they had ever had.

This mutual learning--especially for those new to grantmaking--has, in turn, enlarged the school reform picture for many funders. In some cases it has pushed funders to support projects with similarly broad goals. Jennifer Sims of Quantum Corporation looked to the Collaborative's criteria as a template for the development of the corporation's own educational initiatives. "If you look at the way our guidelines are written, a lot of them are taken directly from BASRC's criteria for schools," she said.

In other cases, funders' priorities have remained focused, but the criteria have given them a better sense of how their particular interests contribute to a larger picture. As one funder remarked, "BASRC was really helpful in getting us to see the complexity of schools. I don't think we originally thought about all of the dimensions of schooling, but when you work with BASRC's criteria, it compels you to think about all the various forces that make schools work or not work." Likewise, an officer in a foundation that directly funds several BASRC schools cited BASRC-sponsored professional development experiences as helping her to understand how her grants fit into the overall vision and focus for changing a school. Even those who do not use the criteria in their day-to-day grantmaking decisions acknowledge that exposure to the Collaborative's principles has provided a better idea of how to judge the real merit of projects that come before them.