Siegel Family Endowment

We aim to understand and shape the impact of technology on society.

We make grants across three primary interest areas.
Learn more about each one, and the grantees we work with, below.

Explore
Who We Are

Siegel Family Endowment supports organizations working at the intersections of learning, workforce, and infrastructure.

Technological change has radically altered the way we live, work, and learn. The transformation of the global economy has impacted society on every level—from schools to the workplace to our built environment —and altered the terms on which people are able to access opportunities and thrive in daily life. In order to address the biggest challenges we face today, we aim to ensure all people have the tools and equitable access to systems necessary to engage with and affect change in a rapidly evolving world.

Our Work

Our Interest Areas

We make grants across three primary interest areas. Learn more about each one, and the grantees we work with, below.

Learning

To better equip individuals with the knowledge they need to contribute to and engage with a rapidly changing society, we support initiatives that build lifelong learning opportunities, particularly in computer and data science, and envision an education system that works for everyone by addressing long standing social and economic inequities.

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Workforce

In order to put equity at the center of our workforce and broader economy, we prioritize advancing actionable insights into how AI and emerging technologies transform work and the work environment. We aim to support organizations that address worker’s needs and perspectives around work-impacting technologies through pilot programs, case studies, and other research initiatives.

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Infrastructure

We believe that just and equitable social, physical, and digital infrastructure is vital for fostering vibrant societies, and our work seeks to make both present and future infrastructure community-centric. We support organizations and scholars that design, build, and care for  resilient social networks and communities, strengthen public spaces, and seek to eliminate existing divides in the access, design, and use of digital technologies.

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Learning

To better equip individuals with the knowledge they need to contribute to and engage with a rapidly changing society, we support initiatives that build lifelong learning opportunities, particularly in computer and data science, and envision an education system that works for everyone by addressing long standing social and economic inequities.

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Workforce

We believe that just and equitable social, physical, and digital infrastructure is vital for fostering vibrant societies, and our work seeks to make both present and future infrastructure community-centric. We support organizations and scholars that design, build, and care for  resilient social networks and communities, strengthen public spaces, and seek to eliminate existing divides in the access, design, and use of digital technologies.

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Infrastructure

In order to put equity at the center of our workforce and broader economy, we prioritize advancing actionable insights into how AI and emerging technologies transform work and the work environment. We aim to support organizations that address workers’ needs and perspectives around work-impacting technologies through pilot programs, case studies, and other research initiatives.

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Our Values

How We Work

Collaboration

We work closely with grantees and partners in the field to develop strategies and solutions that drive progress for our shared goals. We seek out people and organizations whose work is forward-thinking and true to their core values.

Risk & Experiment

We’re eager to test and develop new solutions, and push ourselves beyond traditional philanthropy to find promising untested ideas, identify gaps, and reframe conversations about complex issues. We embrace failure, taking it as an opportunity to learn, iterate, and strengthen our practice. This also means seeking out projects and people that have historically been seen as ‘risky’ and have been overlooked, departing from traditional metrics to focus on what truly matters.

Relationship Driven

We have a “people first” approach to our relationships with grantees and partners, and consider a wide range of factors when developing engagement and assessment strategies. We don’t ask that our grantees fit a certain mold, or change who they are to fulfill our own objectives.

Humility & Trust

Our role as a funder is to lift up the expertise of others. We don’t have the answers and are not always positioned to understand or wield the assets of the communities we serve. We operate from a place of trust in our grantee leaders, who know best how to approach challenges and allocate their resources. We acknowledge that the best solutions will emerge from a reimagined grantee-funder relationship—one rooted in equity, where grantees hold power and can be heard.

our Recent Work

Featured Projects

Case Study Series

Introducing our Public Interest Technology Case Studies

The pace of technological change can induce whiplash; from generative AI, to robotics, to bioengineering, to virtual and augmented reality, it seems that there’s always a new innovation. Yet these technological advances are not always accompanied by discussion, regulations, and designs that consider negative impacts or unrealized potentials. At Siegel Family Endowment, we are committed to advancing a vision of technological change that includes and improves the lives of all people.

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Partnership

Meet Our 2024-2025 Siegel Research Fellows

Siegel Family Endowment is proud to announce the 2024-2025 cohort of Siegel Research Fellows. This extraordinary group includes researchers, academics, and policy experts whose work spans diverse fields such as technology ethics, economic democracy, social media dynamics, and AI governance. Nominated by a range of host institutions, including leading universities, think tanks, and advocacy organizations, these fellows will tackle complex questions at the intersection of technology and society.

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Grantees

Our Featured Grantees

We support a wide range of grantees who are engaged with advancing our understanding of the driving questions that underpin our research. We also support a diverse range of grantee work, from academic research projects, to mission-driven programs, to institutions informing policy and governance across a range of sectors.

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Go Deeper

All Insights
Reflections | Research
Independent Research for Improbably Good Futures: Reflections and Takeaways from Our 4th Annual Fellow Convening 

Each year, we bring together our Siegel fellow cohort for an annual convening. This year’s convening, which included 14 fellows,…

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From Our Grantees | Q&A | Research
The Human in the Loop: Pegah Moradi on Automation, Discretion, and the Future of Frontline Work

Pegah Moradi is a PhD candidate in Information Science at Cornell University, where she studies the social and organizational dimensions…

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From Our Grantees | Q&A
Home Growing Community Leaders in New York City Neighborhoods

CitizensNYC’s CEO Reflects on the Organization at 50 Years and Explains Why Its Work Is More Relevant Than Ever A…

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