ECMC Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The ECMC Foundation is an education and career readiness grantmaker with an unusually focused portfolio that prioritizes career readiness, systemic reform in education, and postsecondary education. This funder aims to prepare students from underserved and 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 outcomes for students from underserved backgrounds. In additional 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. To be considered, programs must be centered on using evidence-based approaches that address low-income or first-generation students. Grantseekers must ensure their requests fall into one of ECMC’s three strategic priority ares, which are outlined below and on their website. ECMC’s detailed website includes a grants database and information about its financials.
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.” 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.”
The foundation invests in college success, career readiness and education innovation. 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.”
ECMC’s three-fold Strategic Framework sets forth a clear vision for how it seeks to achieve grantmaking goals. ECMC states that it only makes grants for programs or initiatives that align with at least one of these strategies:
Removing barriers to postsecondary education
Building the capacity of organizations, systems and institutions
Transforming the postsecondary ecosystem
In addition to the grant programs outlined below, ECMC has developed its own programs and initiatives, which include:
Grants for College Readiness and Higher Education
The ECMC Foundation supports college readiness through its college success program, which seeks to “increase the number of students from historically and presently underserved backgrounds who persist through and graduate from an institution of higher education with a bachelor’s degree.” ECMC understands that many students’ postsecondary journeys start with community college or technical school, so it actively engages opportunities to invest in transfer success. The college success program ultimately funds postsecondary programs and initiatives that:
Improve and scale systemic reforms and supports to increase student success at postsecondary institutions.
Increase currently enrolled students' persistence toward a degree.
Support on-time transfer from two-year to four-year institutions.
Enhance students’ pathways to graduation with career-ready skills.
Elevate new research findings and publications that promote student success outcomes.
This program – while focusing on first-generation, low-income, and PoC student populations – seeks programs that particularly address the education of single mothers or previously incarcerated persons. ECMC Foundation also manages several related initiatives through the Learning & Evaluation program, as well as Education Innovation Ventures (EIV). Past college access grantees grantees include the University of California, Riverside; UCLA; and the Foundation for California Community Colleges. In 2021, ECMC pledged $1.125 million to the American Indian College Fund to support healthcare and education programs at tribal colleges and universities in North Dakota and Montana.
College success grantees are supported nationally and tend to support established organizations and programs using evidence-based innovations. Explore other college success grantees here.
ECMC manages a program-related investment portfolio, Education Innovation Ventures (EIV), in order to make “below-market-rate investments into nonprofit and for-profit ventures that seek to generate both social impact and financial returns.”
Grants for Economic Development and Opportunity
ECMC views economic development efforts through an education lens, so it provides related support through its college success program, which is dedicated to “improving postsecondary career and technical education (CTE) outcomes for students from underserved backgrounds.” It generally prioritizes programs that:
Build the capacity of institutions and organizations to provide accredited, credit-bearing, industry-informed and transferable postsecondary CTE pathways.
Conduct research and evaluations to inform the field and promote postsecondary CTE programs that are part of educational pathways that lead to portable certificates or degrees.
Support adult learners’ postsecondary CTE advancement toward a certificate or associate degree with the inclusion of learner-centered approaches and academic and non-academic wraparound supports.
The program also prioritizes funding programs centered on underserved demographics such as single mothers and the formerly incarcerated.
Special initiatives include the CTE Leadership Collaborative, which works on “bringing together diverse perspectives and equipping CTE leaders with the tools, resources and skills needed to advance postsecondary CTE,” and Zenith Education Group.
Important Grant Details:
Grants widely range from $25,000 to several million. The median grant size is around $500,000.
Grantseekers may review the foundation’s grants database for more information on the foundation’s giving habits.
ECMC offers more details on how to apply for a grant.
This funder accepts letters of inquiry, from both schools and nonprofits, on an ongoing basis via its online portal. All LOIs must demonstrate how the project-based concept fits within one of ECMC’s three strategic priorities to improve postsecondary persistence and degree completion. Grantseekers may find a template here.
Full grant applications are by invitation only, but the foundation accepts letters of inquiry on a rolling basis through its online portal.
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