The Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University has announced more than $11 million in support of projects designed to solve societal challenges using data, design, technology, and policy. 

The funding includes a $5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a $5 million gift from Alberto and Olga Maria Beeck awarded by the family in late 2022, a $800,000 grant from the Families and Workers Fund, and a $500,000 grant from the Ford Foundation. Each grant will support specific projects at the center.

The grants from the Gates and Ford foundations will be used to scale the organization’s Digital Benefits Network and Digital Service Network—programs that position the Beeck Center to expand research and public goods dissemination, formal training and technical assistance programs, and service delivery capacity building and talent retention. In addition, the center will make recommendations to scale the practices needed to sustain the equitable, human-centered, data-driven delivery of public benefits and digital government services. The grant from the Families and Workers Fund, where Ford Foundation president and CEO Darren Walker serves as board co-chair, will be devoted to the Beeck Center’s Unemployment Insurance Technology Coordinating Coalition. The funding will enable the coalition to continue its focus on improving the capacity and resilience of the unemployment insurance system to promote technology and policy solutions that improve timeliness, increase equity especially for BIPOC and other historically marginalized communities, and prevent fraud. 

“We are incredibly proud of the work being done by the fellows, students, and staff at the Beeck Center,” said Beeck Center co-founder and advisory board chair Alberto Beeck. “For nine years the center has worked to enhance people’s experience in accessing public benefits and digital government services. We’re also thrilled to continue to inspire the next generation of students who are charting the center’s continued growth as they forge a human-centered future of civic tech.” 

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