As part of our commitment to improving higher education for career success among underserved populations through evidence-based innovation, ECMC Foundation is proud to announce a new series of grants made from November 4, 2022, to November 29, 2022. This round of recently approved grants aims to improve postsecondary career and technical education (CTE), accelerate student success and advance critical education-to-career pathways. The total funding is $3,889,930.

A selection of grants and investments made are detailed below. For a full list of the Foundation’s active and inactive grants, please visit ECMC Foundation’s website at https://ecmcfoundation.org/grants/grants-investments.

Ascend at The Aspen Institute ($300,000) to support three community colleges and/or systems in bolstering supports for student parents, specifically single mothers. The goal is to catalyze institutional investment to build recommendations and begin implementing culturally informed supports for single mothers seeking postsecondary credentials.

Ithaka S+R ($750,750) to expand the Transfer Explorer tool to two systems of higher education beyond CUNY. With strong results within the CUNY system, the goal is to test and refine how the tool can be adapted to other systems outside of CUNY to significantly improve the transfer experience and transfer outcomes for students.

John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education ($1,000,000) to launch the Transforming the Foundational Postsecondary Experience project to help up to 60 two- or four-year colleges and universities comprising three cohorts, in transforming the first-year experience, gateway courses, and the curriculum during the first two years of college. The goal is to engineer a better foundational college experience, leading to higher student persistence and completion rates – especially in support of students of color, low-income, and first-generation students.

University of Southern California Race and Equity Center ($1,839,180) to support 12 community colleges that will pilot, implement, and scale innovative campus-wide efforts to support men of color. The goal is to create a body of evidence on how institutions can better remove barriers to postsecondary completion for men of color.