To the Hewlett Staff,
I live in California and have a two year old son and a four year old
daughter. I'm very interested directing some of my philanthropic
resources to improve K-12 education in my state. I see from your
website that you have a program focus on Improving Public Education in
California. I'm particularly interested in the third "strand" of this
focus, which you describe as "supporting innovative approaches to
improving the quality of academic instruction in the state's
demographically diverse public schools."

I'm personally at a loss to identify how I might donate my money to a
nonprofit which is improving the quality of academic instruction in
the state. I realize that picking a four star nonprofit from Charity
Navigator doesn't make any sense, since improving education likely
requires extensive program evaluation and educated staff (both
categorized as overhead).

Would you mind pointing me in the direction of a few nonprofits that
your program staff believes are worthy of my donation? If you wouldn't
mind linking to some of the research you've performed to come to your
conclusions, it would make me feel better to not just be following you
blindly.

I look forward to partnering with you in your efforts to support
education. While my donations might pale in comparison to your annual
grants, I know a ton of other parents who would be thrilled to donate
time and money to your grantees if they felt that doing so would
actually do something to improve education.

-Sean Stannard-Stockton
TacticalPhilanthropy.com