ECMC Foundation: Open Letter of Inquiry

Overview

The Foundation is focused on improving postsecondary education outcomes so that all students have a better chance of career success. The scope of higher education includes credit-bearing career and technical education (CTE), and other two- and four-year postsecondary credentials. The Foundation focuses particularly on improving outcomes for underserved populations and is committed to evaluation and learning from our grantmaking and field expertise to drive evidence-based innovation in higher education.

The Foundation aims to drive systemic change, getting at the root causes of complex challenges in higher education, not just the symptoms. This may mean tackling the biases, institutional, system-level or state or federal policies, resource allocation and flows, and financial and life circumstances that create barriers to success for underserved learners.

Our strategic priorities represent a three-pronged approach to creating systemic change in higher education that includes creating immediate change by removing obstacles that stand in the way of learner success right now; equipping institutions and organizations to better serve learners; and evolving the postsecondary ecosystem over time to become more adaptive, resilient, and capable of delivering better college completion outcomes for all students.

• Removing barriers to postsecondary completion--We bolster programs that directly support learner success by meeting the unique needs, goals and aspirations of today’s learners
• Building the capacity of organizations, systems and institutions--We strengthen the capacity of higher education institutions, systems, and other support and service organizations to improve outcomes for today’s learners and evolve to meet the changing needs of learners.
• Transforming the postsecondary ecosystem--We support large-scale, cross-sector collaborations and innovations that have the potential to transform the postsecondary ecosystem so that more students, especially those farthest from opportunity, have a better chance of earning a postsecondary degree or credential.

Growing Our Initiatives
To drive systemic change, we focus a substantial portion of our strategic grantmaking and program-related investments on initiatives. As the Foundation evolves in its learning, existing initiatives will grow and new initiatives will be developed. An initiative represents the Foundation’s commitment to working toward systemic change in or through an area of the postsecondary ecosystem. All grantmaking and investing related to an initiative will be strategically connected to the initiative. 

Established initiatives include:

1. Basic Needs Initiative -- Our multipronged approach aims to decrease the percentage of postsecondary students experiencing basic needs insecurity by 10% by 2033.
   Strategies for Action: To realize this ambitious-but-possible goal, ECMC Foundation addresses basic needs insecurity in postsecondary education by supporting programs and solutions that align with the following strategies.
   1. Growing Data Capacity: Incorporate use of data to understand effectiveness of basic needs interventions on student experiences, nonacademic outcomes and academic outcomes.
   2. Scaling Effective Practices: Leverage, improve and modernize local, state and federally funded basic needs services that align to the evolving needs of today’s students and expand use of services.
   3. Informing Policy Reform: Advance the understanding of policy change to remove structural barriers to basic needs services and promote student success.
2. CTE Leadership Collaborative Initiative -- The CTE Leadership Collaborative (LC) Initiative brings together diverse perspectives and equips postsecondary career and technical education (CTE) leaders with the tools, resources and skills needed to advance the field. Across the country, there is a critical shortage of qualified workers needed to fill middle-skill jobs—jobs that require more education and training than a high school diploma, but less than a four-year college degree. Many of the middle-skill jobs in high-demand industries, like manufacturing, information technology and healthcare, pay family-sustaining wages and can be accessed by attaining postsecondary career and technical education (CTE) credentials. While CTE programs in high-demand fields exist, the quality and outcomes of programs vary, research and awareness of best practices are limited, and leadership and professional development opportunities are uncommon.
3. Rural Impact Initiative -- In response to sparse data and wide-ranging potential impact, the Rural Impact Initiative aims to enhance the field’s understanding of the unique opportunities, assets and challenges of rural postsecondary institutions and learners and to ultimately increase completion rates and build the capacity of organizations, institutions and systems to support rural learners.
4. Parenting Student Success Initiative -- By funding and supporting the work of grantee partners, ECMC Foundation strives to make strategic investments so that parenting students can realize their educational dreams, fostering a brighter and more equitable future for them and their children. 

Remaining Strategically Responsive 
In addition to our initiatives, we make grants and investments through our open letter of inquiry process. As we pursue systemic change in the postsecondary ecosystem, we remain committed to funding evidence-based innovation with the flexibility to adapt as the higher education landscape evolves. We reserve funding for projects that do not fit within one of our established initiatives but are connected to one or more of our strategic priorities.

Our Commitment to Learning and Evaluation
As part of our commitment to embodying a culture of humility and responsiveness, learning and evaluation is evolving and increasing its role significantly through our strategic framework. Learning and evaluation is a driving influence of initiative strategies to ensure that the work within each initiative is moving toward the initiative goals, advancing a learning agenda and is aligning to one or more strategic priorities.

In recent years, ECMC Foundation has strengthened attention to learning and evaluation and is developing a robust approach befitting the growth of the Foundation’s grantmaking and our strategic focus on systemic change. This approach will be ongoing and iterative, incorporating data from applications, reports and conversations with grantees to make evidenced-based decisions. Centered in equity and focused on systemic change, learning and evaluation is being integrated into the entire strategy development and works in close partnership with the grantmaking and investing teams. Grantees are essential partners in all stages of the Foundation’s learning and evaluation processes.

ECMC Foundation makes grants and investments with durations ranging from one year to five years and amounts from $50,000 to over one million dollars. The grant period and funding amount varies based on the proposed request, however our average grant duration is two years and our average grant size is $500,000.

All new requests for funding will be required to meet one or more of the strategic priorities under the strategic framework.

LOI Deadline: ECMC Foundation’s open application and rolling deadline make us unique among national foundations. Our LOI process is open, meaning organizations do not need to be invited to apply. Each LOI, whether solicited or not, is processed the same way internally. And there’s no specific timeline for submission – LOIs are accepted and reviewed on a rolling basis (all year long), which means there are no deadlines or missed windows of opportunity.