Michelson Spark Grants: Student Basic Needs Funding Cycle

Michelson Spark Grants: Student Basic Needs Funding Cycle is sponsored by Michelson 20MM Foundation. Focuses on addressing urgent educational needs in California, promoting innovative solutions to enhance student persistence and graduation rates.

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 Digital Equity Spark Grants funding cycle will be open for proposals from August 31, 2026, to September 15, 2026.

A recording of the informational webinar and copies of the Letter of Interest (LOI) and application are available for your reference. Digital Equity Funding Cycle Focus Areas For this funding cycle, we will focus on organizations that are doing work in California.

We are interested in supporting initiatives that address the following: Digital Discrimination – Internet Access as a Civil Right: Efforts that document and address the impact of different forms of digital discrimination on our most vulnerable communities. The projects should provide tools to combat digital discrimination and promote equitable access to broadband throughout California.

We seek to grow awareness and uplift the needs of underserved communities that have been deliberately excluded from connectivity by systematic redlining and disinvestment.

These may include, but are not limited to: Efforts that highlight disparities in broadband access, and hold government and private institutions accountable to communities Storytelling, surveying, and testimonial-gathering that helps direct public and private investments to communities to address digital inequities Efforts that center community voices impacted by digital inequity through civic journalism, for community resilience and systems change Data and research that contributes to transparency around internet service providers (ISP) practices and services for use in collective community advocacy efforts Broadband as a Utility – Policy Advocacy and Civic Engagement: Efforts that increase civic participation in digital equity policy-making and regulatory processes at the local, regional, or state-level with the goal of recognizing internet service as a public utility – and enabling universal access to high-speed, reliable, affordable broadband for all.

This includes the education of state policy-makers on key digital equity issues. Projects may feature efforts focusing on education, capacity-building, and the equitable implementation of digital equity policy. This may include policy efforts that improve internet affordability, network reliability, and access to broadband.

Digital Equity and Economic Mobility: Efforts that address digital inequity and its impact on economic mobility for all Californians, are scalable across the state, and bridge the digital divide in at least one of the following issue areas: Higher Education (i.e.: Research on the impact of digital inequity on college students) Economic Opportunity (i.e.: Workforce development; equitable access to seeking, applying, and securing jobs) Access to Public Benefits (i.e.: Removing barriers to government service delivery) Housing and Renters’ Rights (i.e.: Access to fair and affordable housing, protection of renters’ rights to internet choice) We will award grants of up to $25,000 in support of initiatives that address our focus areas.

Given the complexity of securing funding for programs and initiatives that fully address digital inequity, we welcome proposals where Spark Grant funds are coupled with multiple funding streams. We will not fund initiatives that provide direct assistance to students during this round (e.g. laptops or hotspots for remote learning).

While we realize there is a tremendous need for this type of direct support, we are leveraging our funding to effect broader systemic change. 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