The Michelson 20MM Foundation is seeking applications for its Student Basic Needs Spark Grants.
Donor Name: Michelson 20MM Foundation
State: California
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 06/09/2026
Size of the Grant: $10,000 to $100,000
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
Details:
Focus Areas
- Systemic approaches and actionable strategies for higher education systems to address student housing insecurity and housing affordability. They 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 they 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.
Principles
- Scalability
- Pilot Program Support
- Rapid Response
Funding Information
Grant Award up to $25,000.
Eligibility Criteria
For the Spark Grant cycles, they generally focus the impact on organizations doing work in California. Organizations whose work does not impact California are likely ineligible.
For more information, visit Michelson 20MM Foundation.
