Our Portfolio

At STEM Next we want all young people to access great science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning, in and out of school.

A robust STEM workforce is critical to addressing the country’s and world’s pressing challenges and keeping our economy strong. And with STEM skills, our young people can choose their path to rewarding and successful careers, where skills are in great demand, earnings are high, and unemployment is low. Of course, not everyone will become a STEM professional. But STEM skills will help all kids become critical thinkers, creative problem-solvers, and rational decision makers, preparing them to be the successful leaders, parents, and citizens of tomorrow.

STEM Next Opportunity Fund is the nation’s leader in incubating, amplifying, and scaling effective STEM learning systems in and out of school. With venture investment, we know we can scale our work to reach millions of additional high-need children.

Explore our portfolio of current and past investments below. Investors are invited to build on existing initiatives to accelerate impact, or design your own effort to advance proven collaboration, knowledge building, and scale.

Scaling up 32 states and 54 communities.
STEM Next Opportunity Fund partners with the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation to systemically seed and grow 32 statewide afterschool networks that seek funding and policy advances to support out-of-school STEM programs, professional development, and curriculum. STEM Next Opportunity Fund is a co-founder of the national STEM Learning Ecosystem Initiative. The initiative includes 54 communities and regions across the country working collaboratively through cross-sector partnerships to increase STEM learning in and out of school and create pathways to STEM careers. Also, STEM Next has worked with the leadership of the Every Hour Counts urban intermediaries to incorporate STEM learning in afterschool and summer linked to the Next Generation Science Standards and leveraging social-emotional learning strategies.

Creating powerful research and tools.
Noyce/STEM Next Opportunity Fund has made sustained research investments to better understand what constitutes high-quality informal STEM education. These investments were incorporated into a seminal 2015 National Academy of Sciences Board of Science Education report that noted that out-of-school STEM programs are well-suited to building interest in STEM. The report showed that STEM programs also helped young people identity as a STEM learner. These findings reinforce research cited in the President’s Advisory Council on Science and Technology in its 2010 report to the President, also funded by Noyce.

STEM Next Opportunity Fund supports and disseminates new ground-breaking research. With an innovative research design, a team from the PEAR Institute at Harvard University and McLean Hospital and IMMAP: Institute for Measurement, Methodology, Analysis & Policy at Texas Tech University surveyed nearly 1,600 youth and their program leaders in 160 programs across 11 states. They collected and analyzed data from observations of programs, student self-assessment and teacher/facilitator questionnaires to create a fascinating new look into STEM in afterschool.

Reaching 18 million youth.
STEM Next Opportunity Fund is forging the first-ever national partnership among the leading youth-serving organizations (4H, YMCA, Boys & Girls Clubs, Girls Inc.), focused on embedding high-quality STEM programming into the most under-served and unserved communities. With increased capacity and collective vision and strategy, these partners effectively provide quality STEM programming infused with positive youth development principles and strategies.

STEM Next is engaging learners everywhere by:

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