Grant Highlights
Education
Through research, public policy, and programs, Excelencia seeks to improve postsecondary access and success for Latino students. The nonprofit is using this two-year grant to expand the SEMILLAS: Growing What Works initiative to five select institutions in five different states that will refine, assess, and replicate effective practices for accelerating Latino college attainment.
Founded in 1891, the college has maintained its historical commitment to educating Native American students and serving as a community resource in Colorado’s Four Corners area. This challenge grant helps to fund the renovation and expansion of the College Union, providing a LEED-rated facility for campus and community educational services and events.
The independent nonprofit organization, located on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus, is a community of academic leaders and scholars who explore new thinking and ideas that affect the future of higher education. This four-year grant enables forum members to study innovative ways of using learning media and technologies to improve academic productivity.
The foundation serves California’s 110 community colleges, providing resource development and advancement, program and grant management, systemwide purchasing, financial services, information-technology, and career-training support. This planning grant is being used to identify opportunities for cost savings and resource development to help the California community-college system withstand current financial challenges and prepare for growth.
The foundation was established in 2009 to provide financial support for the seven-college Maine Community College System and to reinforce the need to raise Maine’s college-achievement level. This three-year grant enables Eastern Maine Community College to join the Achieving the Dream initiative and also funds a new initiative, Accelerate ME, offering support and services to students completing their degrees.
With 24 sites, the dropout-recovery program uses a college-based model to help homeless and other hard-to-serve students complete high school and earn college credits. This grant enables the organization to extend its national network, improve developmental education at its partner institutions, strengthen its data collection, and build its growth and funding capacity.
The upper-division university, where course work begins at the junior baccalaureate level, is the only public institution of higher education in Chicago’s south suburban area. This three-year grant funds the expansion of the university’s Dual Degree Program, which aims to increase the transfer rate of students from six local community colleges.
The association of 275 foundations and corporations is dedicated to leveraging philanthropic investments to improve educational outcomes. Grant money supported Innovation 2.0, a meeting held in June 2011 at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, and its 15th annual conference, held in October 2011 in Los Angeles.
Arkansas’ leading liberal-arts institution maintains a firm commitment to community outreach, local leadership, and environmental sustainability. The college’s new LEED-rated Student Life and Technology Center, supported by this challenge grant, houses innovative learning programs and serves as an open door to the surrounding community.
The fund is a major provider of scholarships and college access and success programming for Latino students and parents. This grant supports phase two of the bilingual “Your Words Today” public service campaign to encourage greater involvement by parents in their children’s education and to improve the college attendance rate.