Michelson Spark Grants: Student Basic Needs Funding Cycle

Michelson Spark Grants: Student Basic Needs Funding Cycle

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: Michelson 20MM Foundation
Amount: Up to US $25,000
Last Updated: November 13, 2025

Summary

The Michelson Spark Grants focus on addressing urgent educational needs in California, promoting innovative solutions that enhance student persistence and graduation rates. By funding impactful initiatives, this program aims to leverage technology for assessing basic needs, streamline support systems, and enhance campus culture regarding student welfare. Grants prioritize specific milestones that can catalyze new partnerships and innovative projects, while excluding funding for general operating expenses and direct student assistance.

Overview

Note: After LOI is submitted the Grant Committee will do an initial assessment. Within 6 business days you will be notified if your proposal is moving forward in the process. Spark Grants is an innovative, just-in-time grantmaking process. Our vision is to introduce a process that can fill urgent needs for education organizations that are well-aligned with our focus areas. We seek to fund highly impactful initiatives that would not be possible if they needed to wait through a traditional grant decision timeline. Student Basic Needs We seek to increase persistence and graduation rates through systems change, research, and technological innovations that help students meet their basic needs. Leveraging technology solutions to maximize and measure the effectiveness and efficiency of basic needs supports and capture student academic success. This could include:Systems to help assess student basic needs by providing data that captures the need for additional support and tells the story of who is accessing basic needs servicesStreamlining deployment and information about basic needs supports, emphasizing local resources—both on and off campus—for students taking classes online or in-personProviding support for students during “off-hoursIncorporating basic needs within the campus culture and climate. This could include efforts that strengthen the continuum of care for students’ basic needs. Topics may include:Support for students transitioning between two-year and four-year institutionsIdentifying students who have stopped or dropped out due to basic needs issues and assisting them with re-enrollmentUsing student voices and perspectives to inform student basic needs efforts, policies, programming, etc.Innovative approaches and promising practices that promote positive academic outcomes for students receiving direct financial assistance aimed at mitigating student basic needs concerns. This could include research, evaluation, or efforts that scale the impact of public benefits assistance, tax credits for eligible students, universal basic income, and approaches to liquidating institutional HEERF dollars.

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. For this round of funding we have decided to focus our impact on organizations that are doing work in California.

Ineligibility

For this funding cycle we will not be funding general operating expenses such as rent, utilities, server costs, etc. We will not be funding initiatives that would result in direct assistance to students during this Michelson Spark Grant round, such as emergency student aid, laptops and hotspots for remote learning, or food and housing vouchers.