OVERVIEW: The ECMC Foundation is an education and career readiness grantmaker with a tightly-focused portfolio that prioritizes postsecondary education and vocational training for underserved students. This funder aims to prepare students from marginalized backgrounds for college and support them as they complete their degree programs.
IP TAKE: The ECMC Foundation is one of the only national grantmakers to focus exclusively on improving postsecondary outcomes for students from underserved backgrounds. In addition to grantmaking, it makes impact investments and develops its own programs and initiatives to pursue systemic change within the U.S. education system. Its assets and grantmaking have grown in recent years. In an interview with Inside Philanthropy, ECMC president Jacob Fraire spoke about the foundation’s “audacious” goals and ambitions. “Every state matters and every region of the nation matters,” he said. “… We’d like to be able to think that we will serve all corners of this great nation, and certainly that we will serve all communities.”
This foundation is both transparent and accessible. ECMC accepts letters of inquiry from both for-profit and non-profit grantseekers on a rolling basis. Areas of focus change every few years, so make sure your organization is a good match by reading about the foundation’s current initiatives here. ECMC’s detailed website includes a grants database, although it no longer features information on its recent financial reports.
PROFILE: Based in Los Angeles, California, the ECMC Foundation was established in 2000 as the charitable arm of ECMC Group, a student loan and financial aid nonprofit headquartered in Minneapolis. For many years, ECMC primarily provided student scholarships. In 2013, it shifted its focus to grantmaking and program development, focusing on “long-term, systemic change in postsecondary education to help low-income and first-generation students achieve academic success.” According to its website, the foundation’s “North Star goal is to eliminate equity gaps in postsecondary completion by 2040.” The ECMC Foundation envisions a country where “all learners—regardless of their socioeconomic background, which neighborhood or zip code they grew up in, or the color of their skin—have access to quality educational and career opportunities and the necessary supports to succeed.”
ECMC’s grantmaking approach supports “organizational capacity building, new program or model development, existing program refinement or expansion, capital, research and evaluation.” A key aspect of ECMC’s approach is a “commitment to being aware of and responsive to developments in the field of higher education.”
Grants for Higher Education, Work and Opportunity
ECMC’s three-fold Strategic Framework sets forth a clear vision for how it seeks to achieve grantmaking goals. Grants typically support efforts that directly remove barriers to postsecondary education and success, build the capacity of related systems and organizations and broadly transform postsecondary education to serve students from backgrounds that are underrepresented among college graduates. The foundation names five areas of grantmaking focus.
- The Basic Needs Initiative targets efforts to prevent basic needs insecurity from disrupting students’ pursuit of higher education. The foundation names “resources like food, housing, childcare, transportation, technology, physical safety, mental health services and more” as relevant needs and works to decrease the number of students experiencing lack of basic needs by 10% by 2033. Grantees include the Campus Food Insecurity Initiative at Auburn University, John Burton Advocates for Youth’s California Student Homelessness Project and the United Way of King County in Washington, which received funding for its Bridge to Finish Program.
- Career and Technical Education Leadership Collaborative grants focus on leaders in the career and technical education field and aim to provide the “tools, resources and skills needed to advance the field.” The overarching goal of this program is to expand the reach of quality career and technical education programs and, in doing so, address the “critical shortage” of workers to fill “middle-skill jobs.” Grantees include the CTE Research Program at Old Dominion University, Harvard University’s Strategic Data Project on CTE and Advance CTE’s Postsecondary State CTE Leaders Fellowship Program, among others.
- The Rural Impact Initiative supports research on rural postsecondary students and institutions and mirrors the foundation’s overall goals of improving postsecondary supports and outcomes. This newer program was launched in 2024 and early grants have focused on identifying the specific needs and challenges of rural students. Grantees include the Institute for Evidence-Based Change, which used funding for its Rural Expansion and Network Creation, and the Columbus Learning Center Management Corporation, which received support for its CivicLab’s Building Rural Community Systems initiative.
- Established in 2021, ECMC’s Parenting Student Success Initiative aims to increase the number of single mothers who complete associate degrees in six or fewer years by 25% by the end of 2025. Specific areas of interest for this program include student supports, free and affordable childcare, and research on the types of interventions that best support parent-students. Grantees include The Association for Community College Trustees, California Competes, New Moms Inc., and the Virginia Foundation for Community College Education.
- The Transfer and Credit Mobility Initiative works broadly across the U.S. to facilitate “effective and equitable transfer of credits between and among all postsecondary education institutions.” Also launched in 2021, the program’s initial grant cycle awarded grants for $4.5 million to a cohort of five organizations to pave the way for increased collaboration between two- and four-year schools transfer programs that prevented loss of credits earned and streamlined application and admissions processes. Grantees included the American Association of Community Colleges, the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education and the the Institute for Higher Education Policy. The foundation plans to extend this work in the coming years to further align programs through initiatives for dual enrollment, credit alignment and “stackable credentialing.”
Important Grant Details:
Grants widely range from $100,00 to about $1.5 million, although past initiatives have awarded grants in much larger amounts.
- This funder supports large national, regional and state-level organizations whose work relates to higher education services, research and policy to dismantle traditional barriers to postsecondary education and completion.
Grantseekers may review the foundation’s grants database for more information on the foundation’s giving habits.
- This funder accepts letters of inquiry at any time via its online portal. Grantseekers should read the grant application guidelines carefully to determine fit and eligibility.
- Full grant applications are by invitation only.
Submit general inquiries to the foundation via email at info@ecmcfoundation.org or call (866) 336-3262. Sign up for the foundation’s newsletter at the bottom of the website.
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