About Us

Our Founder: Frances Hall Rousmaniere Dewing Frances Hall Rousmaniere DewingFrances Hall Rousmaniere Dewing

Frances Hall Rousmaniere was born in 1877 near Boston, Massachusetts. She received her B.A. from Wellesley College in 1900 and her Master’s degree in philosophy from Wellesley in 1904. In 1906 she was one of the first women to earn a Ph.D. from Radcliffe College. She taught philosophy and psychology at Mt. Holyoke and Smith Colleges and mathematics at Bennington College. In 1910 she married Arthur Stone Dewing, a professor at Simmons College and Harvard Business School. She had three daughters—Mary, Abigail and Ruth. She maintained a lifelong interest in philosophy and innovative approaches to education. She died in 1964 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Frances R. Dewing Foundation

The Frances R. Dewing Foundation was created on April 4, 1963 by Frances Hall Rousmaniere Dewing. The foundation is a small, non-profit charitable organization that supports innovative approaches to the education of young children in the United States. Approximately 20 to 30 grants are made per year.

Frances Dewing’s daughters Mary Moraine, Abigail Avery and Ruth Ewing were the founding trustees. They were succeeded over the years by Frances’ grandchildren and great-grandchildren and extended family members.

Funding PrioritiesFrances Hall Rousmaniere Dewing and the Dewing FamilyFrances Hall Rousmaniere Dewing
and the Dewing Family

The Frances R. Dewing Foundation supports innovation in early childhood education. Emphasis is placed on new, untried or unusual projects and programs that if successful could have a snowball or ripple effect benefiting the larger educational or local community. Generally such projects and programs need seed money to develop and try new educational methods and tools. The foundation provides seed money in the form of small grants, generally ranging from $1000 to $25,000. The foundation prefers to provide a significant portion of any project it funds. Rarely do trustees fund a project for more than three years, with the assumption that the grantee will use that time to find additional sources of funding for long-term sustainability.