The Mastercard Strive USA 2025 Innovation Fund, supported by the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and implemented by DAI, will award grants to organizations that are testing new products and services that improve the financial health of small businesses with high potential for impact and scale.
Donor Name: Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 11/21/2025
Size of the Grant: $100,000 to $500,000
Grant Duration: 2 Years
Details:
The Mastercard Strive USA program, funded by the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and implemented by DAI, is a philanthropic initiative designed to provide small businesses with the support they need to achieve sustainable growth and financial resilience. They help small businesses overcome three common roadblocks:
- Get capital: By supporting community financial institutions including local banks, minority depository institutions and credit unions, they are making it easier for small businesses, especially underserved businesses, to get the funding they need.
- Go digital: They connect small businesses with mission-driven tech partners and essential digital tools that eliminate bottlenecks and enable growth.
- Grow networks & know-how: Through local and national partnerships, they connect small businesses with expert organizations that help them to develop new skills and grow their capabilities.
Key challenges they want to address through this fund include:
- Hard-to-understand finances
- Many entrepreneurs have limited visibility into their financial position and often rely on manual processes that are time-consuming, error-prone, and reactive.
- Vulnerability to shocks
- Most small businesses lack early warning systems or planning tools to anticipate economic downturns, supply chain disruptions, natural disasters, and other unexpected expenses.
- Limited access to growth resources
- Even profitable businesses often struggle to access capital, identify their strongest opportunities, or optimize operations for sustainable scaling.
Funding Information
Each grant will range between $200,000 and $250,000 depending on the project budget. The grant must be spent over 12-18 months.
Project Eligibility
Proposed projects must:
- Target U.S. small businesses as customers or end users
- Be implemented in the U.S.
- Solve critical and systemic challenges to small business financial health
- Must be in the prototyping or early testing phase; solutions may be piloted with users but should not yet be deployed at scale.
- Includes a digital tool or platform (not solely training or mentorship).
Organizational Eligibility
The Mastercard Strive USA 2025 Innovation Fund is open to any organization developing innovations for small business financial health including nonprofits, CDFIs, credit unions, universities, and for-profit companies that is registered in the U.S. They will also encourage applications from coalitions of partners working on a specific financial health innovation (e.g., a fintech-CDFI partnership).
They recognize the scope of this innovation fund will naturally attract fintechs and other private sector companies developing distinct products for commercial markets. However, grant funds cannot support the development of products intended solely for commercial use. All applicants must demonstrate a clear commitment to public benefit by selecting one or more of the following pathways:
- Pathway 1: Mission-Driven Implementation. The applicant either operates as a mission-driven organization (nonprofit, CDFI, credit union, university) OR partners with such an organization to co-develop, implement, or distribute the innovation to serve their constituencies.
- Pathway 2: Open Source Development. The applicant will release all or core components of the technology, algorithms, and methodologies under open source licenses (such as Apache 2.0, MIT, or GPL) that allow free use, modification, and distribution by others in the ecosystem.
- Pathway 3: Public Benefit Licensing. The applicant commits to licensing the innovation at cost or for free to nonprofits, CDFIs, and organizations focused specifically on serving low-to-moderate income small businesses.
- Pathway 4: Alternative Public Benefit Approach. The applicant proposes an alternative pathway that ensures meaningful public benefit and broad ecosystem access. Proposals must be specific and measurable as well as demonstrate comparable public benefit to the above pathways. Generic commitments to “help small businesses” will not be considered sufficient.
For more information, visit Mastercard Impact Fund.
