Snapshot
2025
The Opportunity
Amidst Challenges
At Margulf, we see a unique opportunity right now to make a substantive change in education. In a rapidly changing society, how we serve youth with diverse needs and backgrounds hasn’t kept pace with demographic changes, shifts in necessary work skills, research on how youth learn best, or advancements in artificial intelligence and technology. Layered on top of that is a pandemic which shined light on educational and socio-economic inequities and recent federal pressures that restrict rather than expand access to high-quality public education. Fortunately, there are courageous leaders in Colorado and across the country taking action to ensure youth have the learning opportunities they need and deserve. In 2025, we took very seriously our role to continue to fund leaders deeply rooted in their communities and committed to reimagining education.
At Margulf, we know we are not experts with all the answers. We consistently learn from our grantees and build trusting relationships in which we seek to ensure they feel seen, valued, and heard. The perspectives and experiences they share with us allow us to reflect and iterate on our own practices to ensure we act in service of our grantees.
For example:
Whenever possible, we give general operating support, multi-year grants, and adaptable grant reporting timelines to give our grantees security and flexibility.
We gather the information we need to make grantmaking decisions primarily through our interactions with leaders rather than asking them to submit formal applications.
We offer small grants for our local grantees to use toward the emergency needs of their communities.
We add additional funds to every grant dedicated to sustaining leaders and their teams.
We support grantees beyond our financial grantmaking by providing opportunities to share and discuss challenges with their Margulf peers and attend expert-led workshops.
We provide opportunities for Collaboration Grants among grantees, giving them the financial resources to learn, grow, and build together.
As a result, we see grantees directly supporting youth in taking agency; educators growing in their competency; family members actively engaging in their students’ education; communities redesigning schools with expert support; and many more successes.
Margulf’s grantees are resilient, committed, brilliant, collaborative, and joyful. They also all share a deep commitment to improving learning opportunities for youth. We invite you to learn more about our grantmaking and grantees in 2025 and our shared efforts to drive change in education.
Liz Aybar Conti, Chief Executive Officer
Grantees
In 2025, Margulf granted approximately $10.8M to our Learning Environments and Talent grantees whose work reached over 1 million community members. To reimagine education and provide youth with the learning opportunities they need and deserve, we invest in leaders who are grounded in their communities and are both innovative and reflective in their practice. We prioritize investing in a portfolio of grantee leaders who represent and identify with the cultures and backgrounds of the youth and communities they serve and have the best understanding of how to effectively meet youth needs.
MEET MARGULF'S GRANTEE LEADERS
WHO THEY REACH
WHERE THEY MAKE AN IMPACT
Colorado
Building Relationships and Supporting Collaboration
BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS
At Margulf, building relationships is central to our work. In addition to developing strong relationships with grantee leaders, we also support those they build with each other. Cultivating relationships among our grantees is one of our core practices outside grantmaking and provides opportunities for them to connect in ways that sustain both their work and their own wellness.
An example of this priority in action emerged in 2025 when one of our grantees convened a group of leaders from other grantee organizations in Metro Denver with Margulf’s financial support. The group of 26 leaders still gathers to connect, share challenges, strengthen their leadership, and support one another’s long-term sustainability. Topics they discuss include fundraising and donor engagement, building resilient organizations, creative storytelling, and potential collaborations among their organizations.
Seeing the ways grantees already connect on their own reinforces our commitment to investing in intentional community-building opportunities. In 2025, these practices included one-on-one connections, Grantee Socials, and virtual Grantee Gatherings. We connect grantee leaders one-on-one when we see ways one leader can provide valuable technical expertise to another, when two leaders’ perspectives could meaningfully inform each other’s work, or – quite simply – when two leaders seem like a good match.
In addition, we hosted two Grantee Socials and three virtual Grantee Gatherings. At our Grantee Gatherings, leaders volunteer to share an aspect of their work as prompts for small group conversations with their peers.In 2025, grantees discussed topics such as: strategies for sustainable leadership, scaling ideas, navigating financial and political volatility, and effective collaboration.
Grantees playing a game developed by a grantee at one of Margulf's social gatherings
The Colorado grantee leader group at their retreat in Lone Rock
In our anonymous 2025 Grantee Survey, leaders shared that these community-building opportunities translated into stronger practice and a deeper fabric of partnership. In other words, these spaces help build a resilient, connected community of leaders prepared to meet the challenges of the moment.
Said they have enduring connections with other Margulf grantees
Said their interactions with the Margulf community have increased their efficacy as a leader
Said their interactions with the Margulf community have expanded their knowledge as a leader
Said they’ve adopted practices from fellow grantees
I look forward to the gatherings, both in–person and remote. They give me space to reflect, connect, and get an understanding of how others are navigating challenges while celebrating the wins. I’ve made over 20 connections with other grantees outside of the gatherings, had many of them visit our work, and this year we are getting to explore a collaboration grant with another amazing organization.
- ANONYMOUS MARGULF GRANTEE
SUPPORTING COLLABORATION
Guided by the belief that the collective genius of our grantees has even greater potential for impact than their individual genius, we provide financial resources to support collaboration among Margulf grantees through Collaboration Grants, which launched in 2022. As we prepared to open our third round of Collaboration Grants in 2025, we were curious if grantees’ shifting priorities in the current political and funding climate would decrease their capacity and interest in actively collaborating with one another. Instead, grantees leaned even deeper into creativity, innovation, and connection. We had the highest request for Collaboration Grants to date, with 41 grantees participating in 27 collaborations, representing over 62% of our grantee portfolio. Our 2025 collaborations took many forms, from pilot projects, where organizations teamed up to test new ideas and innovative programming, to technical assistance, where grantees leveraged each other’s expertise to strengthen their work.
Other collaborations brought leaders together for thought partnership, helping them grow collective understanding, share successes, and tackle common challenges. In every case, grantees shared how valuable it was to have the opportunity – and the resources – to think creatively about their work. These collaborations gave them a renewed sense of hope and, more tangibly, the chance to deepen their learning and expand their collective impact. Below are two examples of grantee collaborations from the past year.
Piloting Immersive Futures
Jeffco students at the Rithm Project's Immersive Futures experience
The Rithm Project and Jefferson County Public Schools (Jeffco) partnered around a shared belief: as AI becomes more present in young people’s lives, they need support navigating it in ways that strengthen human connection. While the collaboration began with a focus on co-developing a peer-to-peer AI literacy curriculum, it quickly evolved into a desire for shared, cross-generational experiences, conversations, and understanding. Together, the two grantees piloted an Immersive Futures experience with 45 youth, educators, and leaders exploring how AI is shaping human connection, identity, and trust. For The Rithm Project, the collaboration affirmed the relevance of immersive, human-centered approaches within K–12 systems and clarified pathways for translating this work into more accessible, school-based formats. For Jeffco, it opened new possibilities for youth leadership, community conversations, and digital wellness efforts that are rooted not just in rules or tools, but in values and relationships. Ultimately, this collaboration strengthened trust between the organizations and created a shared sense of momentum. It shifted the question from “What curriculum should we adopt?” to “How do we want to show up for one another in the age of AI?” – a question both partners are committed to continuing to answer together. The collaboration between the two organizations has continued organically, as students invited The Rithm Project to present as the keynote speaker and run a series of workshops for 200 students at Jeffco's 2006 Youth Leadership Conference.
Co–designing a Convening
LearnerStudio and Vocal Justice partnered to incorporate authentic youth voice and leadership at the LearnerStudio’s three-day convening on reimagining education. While both organizations came into the collaboration already committed to co-creation with young people, together they stress-tested what it takes to do it well and surfaced the specific conditions necessary to make it work. Young people were not just invited to the convening but were given genuine design authority in the planning process. The five months of pre-event co-design with the Youth Advisory Board (YAB) modeled engaging youth as partners from the start.
We are grateful for the time spent building relationships and deepening cross organizational learning with the Transcend team. This partnership created space for authentic dialogue, strategic alignment, and knowledge exchange across multiple departments. ... These exchanges were rich with practical takeaways to help fuel our collective work. ... At the executive level, regular conversations between Frances and Aylon provided a meaningful space for strategic reflection and thought partnership. Overall, we came away with stronger relationships, fresh perspectives, and renewed energy for advancing our shared commitment to reimagining education.
- NEW SCHOOLS ON THEIR COLLABORATION WITH TRANSCEND
Vocal Justice and LearnerStudio teams at their youth-designed summit.
As co-creators, the YAB helped set the agenda, shape community-building activities, and develop facilitation content. Over 40% of the attendees were youth leaders, and both grantees considered the convening a successful intergenerational event taking steps toward reimagining education with youth voice at the forefront.