As in previous years, the report draws from a survey of Grantmakers for Education's (GFE's) membership that provides a snapshot of giving patterns as well as grantmakers' qualitative impressions of lessons and insights from their work. This year, to mark the report's fifth anniversary, GFE also looks back to provide a historical perspective on themes and patterns they have observed over the five years of this series. A section is dedicated to reviewing how the craft of education grantmaking has evolved since GFE first introduced the "Benchmarking" survey in 2008, examining three themes that have consistently risen to the top among funders: engagement with public policy, collaboration, and education systems alignment. Additionally, the report takes a look at 28 funding priorities--from addressing vulnerable populations to improving education delivery systems--and synthesizes funders' responses to illuminate the field's top funding priorities. Lastly, emerging trends are examined--such as Common Core implementation and the impact of changing demographics, continued fiscal distress and technological advances--to understand their implications for education philanthropy and the education ecosystem as a whole. [For "Benchmarking 2011: Trends in Education Philanthropy," see ED537487.]