2024 California Student Parent Pooled Fund

The California Student Parent Pooled Fund aims to lay the groundwork for activities that advance equity and systemic change for student parents. It aims to support student parent advocates, and prevent the fragmentation and siloing of student-parent work in California. The fund will ground its work in a multi-generational approach that supports the whole family unit by simultaneously working with children and the adults in their lives together to access new resources, solve problems, and sharpen existing skills. Our efforts will combine best practices in the early childhood education/development space as well as the post secondary education sector. Our goal is to affect multi generational change at the micro level within families, systems change within California’s higher education ecosystem, and policy change at the state level. 

For student parents and their families we hope to strengthen and create postsecondary and employment/workforce pathways that break intergenerational cycles of poverty and forge futures filled with economic opportunity and prosperity. For their children we’ll push for good health, adequate nutrition, safety, security, responsive caregiving and opportunities for early learning. Throughout our process we’ll source solutions from student parents themselves and the many advocates that for years have sounded the trumpet on the importance of investing in this often forgotten population. 

Funding Cycle Details

Grants are available to United States–based nonprofits and educational institutions. For this round of funding, we are honing our impact on organizations that are doing work in California. Organizations whose work does not impact California will be ineligible for this opportunity. Additional details are below:

  • We will award grants ranging from $50,000 to $100,000
  • Proposals where our funds are part of a larger overall project with multiple funding streams are welcomed.
  • Grants from this fund are intended to support systemic change and broader impact initiatives rather than direct services to individuals. Proposals should focus on creating sustainable change through research, advocacy, and capacity building rather than providing direct financial assistance (e.g. housing vouchers, emergency aid, etc) or support services to student parents.
  • Grants must demonstrate an ability to create impact at a systemic level, extending beyond a single campus or geographic region. We are particularly interested in proposals that can foster collaboration across institutions or regions to drive statewide change for student parents. 

Grantmaking Priorities:

The grantmaking priorities of the pooled fund are as follows:

Research and Practice

  • Research that informs improved data collection of student parents across California’s higher education systems.
  • Research that analyzes progress made across California’s higher education systems in supporting student parents as well as the efficacy of supports including but not limited to housing, childcare, food and nutrition, and workforce programs.
  • Efforts that advance/scale programmatic best practices and evidence based models in support of student parents.

Movement Building (in collaboration with The California Alliance for Student Parent Success)

  • Work that catalyzes and scales                
    • Student Parent learning communities 
    • Student Parent communities of practice
    • Student Parent coalitions
    • Student Parent networks
    • Student Parent clubs
    • Peer to peer support models

     

Education, Awareness, and Narrative Change

  • Efforts that provide statewide technical assistance to organizations and institutions focused on increasing their servingness of student parents.
  • Statewide public awareness campaigns that uplift the needs of student parents.
  • Efforts that convene student parents, student parent advocates, and practitioners from throughout California to learn and share best practices. 

Policy Advocacy

  • Efforts that inform institutional and legislative leaders about the needs of student parents with the end goal of affecting systemic change. 
  • Efforts that coalesce the student parent community in California to advance state level change for student parents.  
  • Efforts that expands benefits access for both parent and child

Evaluation and Impact

  • Efforts that evaluate the impact of the California Student Parent Pooled Fund and its collective and comprehensive approach to student parent work in California               
    • Analyze the effectiveness of building a community of practice 
    • Analyze the pooled funds contribution in advancing systems change for student parents in california 
    • Analyze the impact of coalescing philanthropy around student parent work 
    • Analyze grantees’ perspectives on the benefits of a pooled fund approach

      

     

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