Feb. 13, 2014 /3BL Media/ - STEM seems to be among the top acronyms of the moment in the education field. It stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, an area of education now receiving intense focus from businesses and organizations. To better understand the growing partnerships between corporations and STEM education nonprofits, the Corporate Citizenship Center, a division of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, with the support of CCC’s STEM Education Network partners Dow, Intel, Microscoft, and United Technologies, studied a group of leading STEM nonprofits, many of whom have received grants from the Department of Education’s Investing in Innovation Fund, i3. The goal was to discover how STEM nonprofits could more effectively partner with corporations, and how these nonprofits measure their success and share it with their corporate donors. Among the key findings was that corporate and nonprofit partnerships are underpublicized.

Of 26 corporations sponsoring i3 grantees, CCC found that just 10 of them released a public statement announcing their partnership. Of the 10, all announced the corporation’s donation, but none mentioned the impact resulting from the donation. In the words of the report, “it appears that corporations are missing out on communicating the value of their impact to the public.” For STEM partnerships to really add up, they will have to be counted at the bottom line.

I’m John Howell for 3BL Media.