Michelson Spark Grants: Digital Equity Focus Area

Michelson Spark Grants: Digital Equity Focus Area is sponsored by Michelson Philanthropies. Funds innovative projects that promote digital equity in California, addressing issues like digital discrimination, access in Tribal communities, and the intersection of digital equity with health and education.

Spark Grants - Michelson 20MM The Spark Grants platform is an innovative just-in-time grantmaking process that enables organizations aligned with our focus areas to receive funding within weeks. This rapid funding approach supports initiatives that would be impossible under traditional grant decision timelines. The Student Basic Needs Spark Grants funding cycle is now open for proposals through June 9th.

To support your application, copies of the Letter of Interest (LOI) and application ; and a recording of an informational webinar are available for your reference. Student Basic Needs Funding Cycle Focus Areas Systemic approaches and actionable strategies for higher education systems to address student housing insecurity and housing affordability.

We are primarily focused on: Integrating affordable housing into broader student basic needs strategies across higher education systems, for example, rising utility costs and tenant rights Aligning housing plans, policies, and implementation efforts across segments (e.g., community colleges, CSU, UC) Leveraging and streamlining existing housing grant programs and funding mechanisms to maximize impact Innovative approaches that utilize existing housing infrastructure and cross-sector partnerships to address the housing crisis Policy advocacy efforts that systematically address student housing insecurity Innovative approaches that strengthen equitable economic mobility and long-term student stability.

Areas in which we hope to achieve this include: Expanding workforce development pipelines that promote economic mobility for low-income and first-generation students (including those that strategically leverage work study).

Efforts that expand and streamline student access, enrollment, and maintaining of public benefits at scale, including CalFresh, CalWORKs, and Medi-Cal Models that move basic needs operations from grant-based to sustainable, institutionalized systems with skilled, permanent staff (including innovative approaches that mitigate the impact of recent federal policy shifts).

Actionable research, data, and strategies that inform policy and advocacy efforts.

Priorities include: Research and practice that supports timely policy response to emerging federal and state changes, (e.g., HR1 impacts), such as expanded emergency aid from campuses and government funding Student-centered storytelling, narrative-building, and messaging that strengthen advocacy and policy implementation Data collection and analysis related to student access to healthcare and public benefits (including Medi-Cal enrollment and uninsured student populations) Analysis of funding flows and impact, including federal dollars brought into California through student benefit enrollment Tools and systems that improve tracking, coordination, and responsiveness to both short-term and long-term basic needs challenges We support systems-level strategies that can create impact at scale and inform public policy.

We prioritize demonstrating the viability of groundbreaking ideas, seeding innovative initiatives that are still in the proof of concept phase. We are committed to advancing or declining an LOI within one week of when the call for proposals closes. Grants are awarded within six weeks of the call for proposals closing.

In the spirit of acting quickly, grants are reviewed on a rolling basis. Below is a rough timeline of when each cycle’s call for proposals opens: Open Educational Resources (Q1 of 2026) Student Basic Needs (Q2 of 2026) Digital Equity (Q3 of 2026) Smart Justice (Q4 of 2026) For our Spark Grant cycles, we generally focus our impact on organizations doing work in California.

Organizations whose work does not impact California are likely ineligible, but please review our call for proposals each cycle.

Faculty Professional Development Bootcamps on OER Supporting Workforce Development for Formerly Incarcerated Individuals in Forestry and Firefighting Careers Educating Decision Makers on How SNAP Benefits Help Students Meet Their Basic Needs Healing and Justice Center Supporting Justice-Impacted Parents Through Trauma-Informed, Healing-Centered Programming Launching the California Justice Leaders Postsecondary Pathways Program (CJLP3) Expanding their Returning Relatives program to reduce incarceration and promote community healing Local Bandwidth Speed Tests to Inform State Policy Implementation Analysis of California’s $6B Broadband Investment Through SB156 Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Building a Student Coalition to Combat Automatic Textbook Billing U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund Study Revealing the Limited Choice and Uncertain Savings of Automatic Textbook Billing University of California, Irvine LIFTED Piloting the First UC Degree-Granting Program in Prison Student-Led Research Ensuring Effective Implementation of California's Investment in Community College Basic Needs Centers