Houston Endowment supports innovative strategies to increase student success through critical segments of the education pipeline. The foundation is interested in supporting consequential programmatic experimentation—which, if successful, promises to outperform existing practices. A key consideration is a commitment by the public school or college leadership team to seriously investigate the redeployment of recurring revenue to support the replication of successful experimentation at a larger scale over time. The foundation invests in four focus areas, each characterized by a desired outcome. Grantseekers should select one of the following areas as the primary focus of their application:

Early Childhood Education: Children traditionally defined as at-risk are academically and socially prepared to succeed when they first enter public school.

Middle Schools: Children traditionally defined as at-risk are on grade level from sixth to eighth grade and are academically prepared to succeed in ninth grade.

College Preparation and Enrollment: Students traditionally defined as at-risk graduate on time and are academically prepared to begin college without the need for remediation. Students and families have access to information and services that eliminate non-academic barriers to college access.

College Success: Institutions strongly focus on student retention and completion, deploying effective methods toward these goals, with a particular emphasis on students needing remediation.