FUNDING INTERESTS

This cycle will be focused on experimenting and learning as much as we can about civic engagement in a community college setting.

We are interested in:

• Finding innovative and promising ideas for engaging community college students in the state of California, especially those focused on pocketbook issues.
• Identifying and supporting promising institutional or third-party programs, or faculty members who have unique solutions to ignite and maintain civic participation and community engagement among community college students.
• Solutions that address specific challenges to successful program implementation faced by students, faculty, and administration.
• Using new tools, technologies and organizing methods to support distributed models of engagement and activism on a community college or among community college students.
• Taking a risk on unconventional or untried approaches. We want to be surprised.

This is what we want from our investments:

• A legacy. Whatever we support should exist and be useful beyond our financial support.
• Initial success with the potential for replication
• Articulated and demonstrated impact with limited, focused financial resources
• Ability to attract “mezzanine” funding, with some targeted help from us
• Capacity to capture best practices and lessons learned from the work.

Criteria for investment

The work must seek to engage young people in a community college setting in the business of leadership and governance.

We've learned so far that for an approach to be successful in a community college setting, six following components should ideally be present:

1. Opportunity for academic credit (preferably core credit)

2. Curriculum with civic and issue-specific education

3. Co-curriculum with service-learning focused on community problem-solving and transformation

4. Skills-training in advocacy and organizing

5. Leadership development opportunities for students

6. Clear measurement and assessment of student outcomes related to retention and graduation

We are open to supporting specific components of an approach, as long as there is a fair level of certainty that said component will be implemented by the end of the one-year grant period. We want to learn from your work.

We are particularly interested in organizations or projects that:

• Have significant potential for scale at reasonable cost
• Are at an early stage in their lifecycle (think start up)
• Have budgets of under $100,000
• Demonstrate a thoughtful and effective strategy

Eligibility

You must have an IRS 501 (c)3 status and be classified as "not a private foundation" under Section 509(a), or have a similarly qualified fiscal sponsor.

We do not make grants to individuals or to the following:

• individuals or scholarship programs
• capital campaigns
• state agencies
• religious programs
• international or foreign-based programs
• social service programs

Review Process

To make this process easiest and most efficient for you, please call Catalina Ruiz-Healy at 415-593-7111 or email her at Catalina@catalista.net to ensure that your LOI falls within the guidelines. While we want to see everything, we'd hate for you to waste your time.

Rappaport Family Foundation will be making grant decisions in early August 2010.

We anticipate the following schedule:

Office Hours to discuss LOI (please email to schedule)	June 8 - June 18
Final Day to Submit LOI to RFF	Monday, June 21
Short list of organizations invited to submit full proposals	Wednesday, June 30
Full proposal due to RFF	Monday, July 12
Decisions announced	Early August
Agreement letters to RFF; checks disbursed	Friday, August 13
Interim grant report due to RFF	Friday, January 14, 2011

To submit an LOI, click here.