Through education, technology, and philanthropic initiatives, Dalio Philanthropies is committed to creating meaningful opportunities for young people worldwide by supporting students and youth in Connecticut, expanding digital access, strengthening nonprofit organizations, and more.
Dalio Education
Founded by Barbara Dalio, Dalio Education collaborates with educators, schools, non-profit organizations, and communities across Connecticut to engage young people and achieve positive youth outcomes. Our approach is grounded in direct engagement with young people, educators, youth development professionals, community leaders, policymakers, and other experts.
To better understand the challenges young people face, Dalio Education commissioned Connecticut’s Unspoken Crisis: Getting Young People Back on Track, a research report by Boston Consulting Group. The 2023 findings revealed that 119,000 young people in Connecticut are disconnected—or at serious risk of disconnecting—from education, employment, and their communities.
Dalio Education’s signature initiatives are the Connecticut RISE Network (an independent non-profit organization) and the Connecticut Opportunity Project (a division of Dalio Education), which are designed to help young people in Connecticut get back on track.
In 2015, public school teachers, counselors, and administrators across Connecticut came together with Dalio Education to launch the Connecticut RISE Network. The nonprofit has brought together educators across districts to collaborate on strategies that improve students’ college, career, and life outcomes. Built by educators, for educators, RISE fosters a community dedicated to addressing systemic challenges while recognizing that each school and student population requires tailored solutions.
Dalio Education created the Connecticut Opportunity Project (CTOP) as a social investment fund to invest in and help strengthen non-profit organizations in Connecticut serving youth who are severely off-track or disconnected from school and employment. CTOP’s support is designed to help grantee partners more effectively prepare the young people they serve to succeed in a post-secondary pathway that leads to meaningful employment. We invest funding, coaching, and technical assistance to help our partners build the infrastructure required to deliver high-quality services that will meaningfully improve the lives of young people in our state, knowing that it takes years of dedicated effort to build the capacity needed to realize those outcomes.
CTOP works alongside seven grantee partners to help strengthen their organizations and programs:
- Catalyst CT – Bridgeport
- Connecticut Violence Intervention Program – New Haven
- COMPASS Youth Collaborative – Hartford
- Domus Kids – Stamford
- Forge City Works – Hartford
- Our Piece of the Pie – Hartford
- Roca Young Women’s Program – Hartford
Increasing Access to Education through Technology
Technology and digital literacy are critical to unlocking students’ potential. However, millions of young people around the world lack access to tools, technology, and educational content. We founded Endless Access to unlock human potential through technology by promoting digital access and career growth through game-based learning. Endless Access strives to build a world in which the next generation has access to the skills and tools to live an empowered life.
In partnership with grantees like Games for Change, Arizona State University, KIPP NYC, Urban Arts, and the Godot Foundation, we’ve helped thousands of learners across the world find community while gaining career-ready, digital skills through open-source community game making.
Meanwhile, our digital access grantees like Learning Equality, Kiwix, PBS Foundation, and Common Sense Media have made critical education resources available to millions of disconnected students across the world.
Beyond our work with Endless Access, Dalio Philanthropies was an early supporter of Khan Academy’s mission to “provide a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere.” Today, Khan Academy reaches millions of students around the world in over 36 languages, providing learning tools in math, science, computing, history, art history, economics, and test preparation.
Financial & Philanthropic Capacity Building
In 2020, Dalio Philanthropies established the Dalio Market Principles Program at the Wealth Management Institute in Singapore. This program teaches universal principles of market behavior to both private and public sector leaders and investors. The Program brings together Ray Dalio and other investors to share their investment principles and approaches to advance knowledge and build capabilities and thought leadership.
Additionally, Dalio Philanthropies and its China-based philanthropic organization, the Beijing Dalio Foundation, support educational and child welfare initiatives.
The Beijing Dalio Foundation is a founding member and ongoing supporter of the China Global Philanthropy Institute (CGPI), 深圳国际公益学院. This institute is intended to be a Chinese-run institute for the Chinese, dedicated to providing best-in-class philanthropic education and training for Chinese philanthropists and regulators. Dalio Philanthropies and Beijing Dalio Foundation have also supported other educational initiatives, including a collaboration between the Harvard Kennedy School and CGPI, the Schwarzman Scholars program, and the Henry M. Paulson Jr. Institute.
