When did your organization launch and why?
The Alliance for Decision Education was founded in 2014 as the How I Decide Foundation through the vision and generous support of two accomplished decision-makers, Annie Duke and Eric Brooks. Both realized that the skills they were leveraging every day with highly successful results were rarely taught to K-12 students, creating a meaningful gap between children’s potential and their reality. They founded the Alliance to close that gap. Over the next four years, the organization built effective and engaging Decision Education programs that reached tens of thousands of teachers and students and had measurable and positive results. That success ignited a drive to scale the work of How I Decide to a national level to benefit millions of students. To achieve this, How I Decide became the Alliance for Decision Education in 2018, refocusing and committing to becoming a field builder and catalyst, sparking and growing support for Decision Education to be implemented in schools nationwide.
What does your organization do? What are its main goals? Main initiatives?
The Alliance for Decision Education (the Alliance) is a national nonprofit and field builder with the mission of improving lives by empowering students with essential skills and dispositions for making better decisions. Decision Education is the teaching and learning of skillful judgment formation and decision-making. It empowers students to develop skills and dispositions that help them determine for themselves what they value, what is true, and what to do. Just like literacy, numeracy, and leadership, applied decision-making skills can be learned and developed over time.
The Alliance is building a field for Decision Education, similar to other transformative educational movements, such as STEM and computer science. Our goal is to establish and integrate Decision Education into the K-12 school systems of all 50 states. We work with educators, families, students, funders, academic and business leaders, researchers, policymakers, and more.
What makes your organization stand out? What would you say is the most unique thing about your organization?
The Alliance for Decision Education stands out as an organization because we are the leader and field builder in the field of Decision Education. Field building involves the collaboration of multiple organizations and individuals working toward a shared goal, with a focus on creating the necessary conditions for success.
As a field builder, the Alliance aligns, coordinates, and amplifies the efforts of organizations and individuals working toward the vision of Decision Education being part of every student’s learning experience. We partner with teachers, researchers, academic and business leaders, families, and community members to raise awareness and develop solutions that can be scaled in classrooms across the country.
Making Decision Education part of every student’s learning experience requires time and concerted effort. Our strategic plan organizes this work into long-term goals, measures, and initiatives across multiple strategic areas, including: serving as a field builder, establishing a research base, securing funding, building networks, and raising awareness, among other areas.
What are recent projects or new resources that your organization would like to share with other NAMLE members?
The Alliance for Decision Education has received $12.5 million in philanthropic funding to support current and future research on Decision Education. Open to researchers of various disciplines, the Grants and Awards Program will propel research on decision-making skills in K-12 students, shaping a brighter future for all. We are thrilled to be embarking upon this crucial work and will be releasing applications for funding in the coming months.
We are proud to be recognized as one of The NonProfit Times’ Best Nonprofits to Work For! The Alliance for Decision Education was recently named one of the 2024 Best Nonprofits to Work For, finishing 24th on the list of all nonprofits and 7th among small nonprofits.
What are the connections between the work of your organization and media literacy?
Media literacy teaches students the skills to understand and deeply process different types of communication and information. Decision Education develops the skills and dispositions for students to determine for themselves what they value, what is true, and what to do. Together, media literacy and Decision Education can support students to become better decision makers.
Why is media literacy important to your organization?
At the Alliance, we know that being able to think critically about information from media sources is an important component of making better decisions.
Students form judgments and make decisions based on their understanding and interpretation of information. Before students can decide what to do, they must first determine what information is true. This can be tricky in our digital world, where floods of messages inundate various platforms around the clock. With this access to information, it becomes crucial to determine the authenticity, reliability, and relevance of messages we receive from the media. Media literacy and Decision Education both empower students with the skills necessary to navigate and evaluate the variety of information they receive. From there, Decision Education teaches students how to make a rational decision based on that information.
Anything else you want our readers to know about your organization, your mission, or your staff?
The Decision Education Podcast
All episodes from Season 4 of The Decision Education Podcast are now live. Hosted by author, speaker, and Alliance co-founder, Annie Duke, the podcast brings together visionaries, scholars, and other decision-making experts from various fields to share insights on improving decision-making in all aspects of life. Hear from outstanding experts, including Adam Grant, Google executive Maya Shankar, and the late Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman.
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The views and opinions expressed in the Organizational Spotlight blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NAMLE or its members. The purpose of the Organizational Spotlight blog is to highlight our Organizational Partners and give them a place to share their reflections, opinions, and ideas.