Ed-tech wins Gates Foundation funding for access work

  • October 18, 2021
Ed-tech wins Gates Foundation funding for access work

Ed-tech non profit co-founded by Greg Nance wins a $980,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Since our founding, we have strived to create meaningful change and impact across the country.

Greg Nance

An ed-tech non-profit co-founded by a Gates Cambridge Scholar has received a $980,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop its free college affordability tool.

Moneythink, co-founded by Greg Nance who is also its Board Chair, says the money will help it to accelerate the development and reach of DecidED, its free college affordability comparison tool to help underrepresented students achieve college success.

Moneythink CEO Joshua Lachs described DecidED as a tool which “enables students to accurately determine which schools offer the best value and create responsible plans to pay, setting them up for college and life success”. It brings together financial aid data and provides transparent information about college costs. It also helps students to build long-term financial wellness habits to avoid them falling into debt.

“With this tremendous boost, we are thrilled to enable Moneythink’s ability to develop and deploy its DecidED tool into its next phases of evolution,” said Greg [2011], who did his MPhil in Management at the University of Cambridge. “Since our founding, we have strived to create meaningful change and impact across the country. This opportunity brings us an important step closer, fuelling our tech-enabled tools for individual students and college advisors while aggregating critical data to inform system-wide decisions that put students in the driver’s seat.”

Since it was set up in 2008, Moneythink’s youth-focused financial capability work has helped more than 33,000 high school students across the US. It has received national recognition, including Capital One’s 2020 Give Back Nonprofit of the Year Award, Goldman Sachs’ Impact Challenge Fan Favourite Award and White House Champion of Change Award under President Obama. Moneythink has also collaborated with leading design and behavioural science firms, such as Ideo.org, Ideas42, PwC, and Fast Forward.

*Picture credit: Moneythink

Latest News

How do you lead for the longer term in a world of rapid change?

Two Gates Cambridge Scholars debate how to lead for the long term in a short-term world in the second episode of the third series of the Gates Cambridge podcast, So, […]

Leading in international relations and rowing

Alix De Saint-Aignan [2026] is at the top of her game both in terms of her academic studies and her sporting prowess. Alix has just been selected as a Gates […]

Computer vision for a better world

Stephora Cesar Alberi [2026] has always wanted to use her computer skills to help people, but it was  not until she discovered computer vision that she saw where she could […]

Gates Cambridge at the Cambridge Festival 2026

Four Gates Cambridge Scholars will be debating how you lead with courage in an age of autocracy, misinformation and lack of trust at this year’s Cambridge Festival in March. Bookings […]