The Smart Justice Spark Grants seek to fund macro level projects that support systems-level strategies, creating impact at scale and informing public policy.
Donor Name: Michelson 20MM Foundation
State: California
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 09/16/2025
Size of the Grant: $10,000 to $100,000
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
Details:
The Foundation is interested in supporting projects that advance:
- Efforts that scale and increase higher education and workforce development pathways for incarcerated individuals pursuing firefighting careers.
- Projects that facilitate employment in firefighting careers for incarcerated firefighters, including efforts that fully certify them to pursue a firefighting career upon release and those that facilitate their employment in these careers post release.
- Policy advocacy work that supports incarcerated firefighters.
- Initiatives with innovative approaches to higher education in prison (HEP) programming
- Innovative efforts that address housing for individuals reentering the community including efforts centering specific underrepresented populations.
- Transfer pathways that help HEP programming participants with Associates degrees to seamlessly enroll in programs offering Bachelors degrees.
- Efforts that expand HEP programming at the California State University and/or University of California systems
- Policy advocacy efforts that facilitate the scaling of HEP programming across California higher education systems and carceral facilities.
- Projects that help ensure the quality of education being provided in HEP programs
- Efforts that promote/improve consistency in data collection to better understand the impact and tell the story of HEP programs.
- Programs that promote, ensure, or evaluate race equity in accessing HEP programs.
- Projects that improve training for HEP program educators and include appropriate pedagogy/practice that ensures a quality education for incarcerated students.
- Efforts focused on increasing higher education retention and completion rates for individuals in prison and individuals being released from prison.
- Policy advocacy work that help ensure the quality of education being provided in HEP programs.
- Efforts that analyze the landscape of HEP programming in California to support the launching of a California HEP consortium, a group that will advance recommendations on best approaches in HEP/Reentry programming and policy statewide.
Funding Information
Up to $25,000.
Eligibility Criteria
The Spark Grant Program is available to United States–based nonprofits and educational institutions. For this round, they have decided to focus the impact on organizations that are doing work in California. Organizations whose work does not impact California will be ineligible for this opportunity.
For more information, visit Michelson 20MM Foundation.
