Money, Money, Money – Funding Roundup

Are you an aspiring social entrepreneur or changemaker looking for funding or financial support? There are a lot of resources available from numerous organizations, but it can be difficult to know where to look. The following is a round-up of grants, prizes, and fellowships. Some are super competitive, some are available only to current undergraduates, and all focus on social entrepreneurship or civic engagement work. A more extensive list of funding sources is available in the PCSE Resource Center. If you know of any others, please tell us.


 

Aetna Foundation Prize for Health Equity Innovation Seed Stage Grants 

Two $10,000 seed awards to develop technological solutions to address health challenges that disproportionately impact low-income communities. Solutions which employ mobile technology are actively encouraged, but the prize is open to any proposed improvement involving a technological solution. One seed award will be given to a team of students from Yale; and one to a team from one or more other colleges in CT.$25,000 Thorne Prize for Social Innovation in Health or Education. Awardee will receive mentoring to help prepare for the $25,000 Thorne prize.
Deadline: Apply by 11/29
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $10k

Ashoka’s Venture and Fellowship Program  

Venture is the mechanism through which Ashoka finds and supports the world’s leading social entrepreneurs with project grants and mentorship. Nominate a fellow by following this link.
Deadline: rolling recommendations
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: Living stipend for 3 years

Awesome Foundation Grant for Projects 

An “ever-growing, worldwide network of people devoted to forwarding the interest of awesomeness in the universe.” The Foundation distributes a series of monthly $1,000 grants.
Deadline: rolling application
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $1,000

Ben and Jerry’s Foundation Grassroots Organizing for Social Change Program

Supports non-profit, grassroots, constituent-led organizations (must have 501(c)3 status) across the country that are using direct action, community-organizing strategies to accomplish their goals. They consider proposals that are aligned with the Foundation’s broad interests in social justice, environmental justice and sustainable food systems.
Deadline: Check back in fall 2018
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: Up to $25,000 for a one-year grant

Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellowship

The Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellowship, a project of the Congressional Hunger Center, is a unique leadership development opportunity that trains, inspires, and sustains a network of leaders committed to social justice. The Emerson program bridges community-based efforts with national public policy to develop Hunger Fellows as effective leaders in the movement to end hunger and poverty.
Deadline: January 14, 2019
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $36,000

Blue Ridge Labs @ Robin Hood Fellowship

Blue Ridge Labs helps innovators build high-impact products for low-income New Yorkers. This intensive summer Fellowship is designed to help top talent tackle big problems in new ways. By taking a human-centric approach and pushing their teams to iterate quickly and cheaply, they aim to build products that can really make a difference.
Deadline: Check back in winter 2019
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $22,000

Brower Youth Awards

The Brower Youth Award recognizes the work of six young leaders who are making strides in the environmental movement. Brower Youth Award winners demonstrate excellent leadership as well as a commitment to the communities their work serves.
Deadline: May 20, 2018
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $3,000, professionally-produced film about your work, trip to SF Bay Area
Kate Weiner ’14 won in 2015

CartoDB Grants Program

CartoDB Grants Program funds funds nonprofit organizations seeking the means to create meaningful data-driven visualizations that facilitate efforts to achieve social progress, environmental protection, technological innovation, data science, and economic growth.
Deadline: rolling application
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: up to $5,500 in CartoDB software

Christopher Brodigan Award

Students from any discipline are encouraged to submit applications proposing a public service or research project. Service projects should be carefully designed to provide some form of valuable assistance to people in Africa.
Deadline: Check back Spring 2019
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: up to $3,000

The Classy Awards

The Classy Awards ceremony is an opportunity for your organization to be recognized as one of the most innovative social programs worldwide. Classy Awards Finalists receive exposure to the top leaders across the social sector, including funders and media. Classy Award Winners have gone on to receive press coverage through the recognition, and many have increased their funding within a year of receiving the award.
Deadline: Check back spring 2019
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: Press coverage and increased recognition/visibility, conference attendance

D-Prize Grant 

D-Prize is for anyone who can start a new social enterprise in the developing world and solve one of the D-Prize distribution problems. You must be committed, highly skilled, and ready to scale for the long term.
Deadline: Check back spring 2019
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: up to $20,000 to launch a pilot in India, Africa, or another developing region.

Kathryn W. Davis Projects for Peace Grants

Davis Projects for Peace is an initiative for all students at the Davis United World College Scholars Program schools (including Wesleyan) to design their own grassroots projects to promote peace or conflict resolution in the broadest sense.
Deadline: January 27, 2019
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $10,000

Dorm Room Fund

Dorm Room Fund invests in student-run companies. Your founding team must include at least one full-time student (undergraduate or graduate) — if you are a recent grad, you may still be eligible.
Deadline: rolling application
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: average of $20,000, in addition to PR, mentorship, and discounts with service providers.

Draper Competition for Collegiate Women Entrepreneurs

The competition is designed to give undergraduate entrepreneurs an experience that will help them hone their business plans and elevator pitches. The goal of the Draper Competition is to provide the best educational and entrepreneurial experience of any undergraduate business competition.
Deadline: February 15, 2019
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $10k for first place, $7.5k for second place, $5k for third place, and more

Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation

The funds are specifically and solely for entrepreneurs starting new non-profit organizations. The idea must be sustainable and scalable. The founder must have the skills to manage a national or global organization.
Deadline: rolling application
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: Multi-year funding

Echoing Green Fellowships

The Echoing Green Fellowship is a two-year program that provides seed-stage funding and strategic assistance to emerging leaders driving positive social change around the globe. Successful applicants will not only present an innovative way of addressing social issues, but also explain why they as individuals have what it takes to succeed.
Deadline: October 30, 2018
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $80,000 for individuals ($90,000 for two-person partnerships) plus mentoring and more

Ethical Global Engagement Grants

Omprakash, an organization dedicated to building mutually beneficial and educational relationships between grassroots social impact organizations and volunteers, donors and classrooms around the world, is currently offering Ethical Global Engagement Grants for international volunteers and interns. The grants support travel, living and Education for Global Engagement (EdGE) tuition expenses for exceptional candidates.
Deadline: Rolling
Stipend/Prize/Competition: up to $2,500

FF Ventures

Forest Foundation, through its FF Ventures program, invites grant proposals from current undergraduate college students and recent college graduates who have created an emerging or new non-profit in the New England/New York states. These are funding grants to aid in the start-up and/or continued momentum of the early stages.
Deadline: Request a proposal now!
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: up to $10,000, with the possibility of renewing up to 3 years

 

Global Health and Innovation Conference Innovation Prize 

This is the world’s leading and largest global health conference as well as the largest social entrepreneurship conference, hosted at Yale University. They are accepting social impact pitches for programs in early stages and established stages from both students and professionals.
Deadline: November 30, 2018
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $10,000 for first place and $5,000 for runner up

Global Social Venture Competition     

The Global Social Venture Competition leads entrant teams through an experiential learning process to develop innovative, scalable solutions to the world’s greatest challenges. Through their global network of 14 partner schools and competitions, GSVC gives teams the connections, support, and exposure needed to advance their social ventures.
Deadline: December 3, 2018
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $1,000-$40,000

Grinnell Prize

Social justice leaders who are less than 15 years of out of a bachelor program who demonstrate leadership in their fields are eligible to be nominated for the Grinnell Prize. Winners will receive $100,000, split between a personal award and an organizational grant.
Deadline: Nominations close October 8, 2018
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $100,000

Halcyon Incubator

The Halcyon Incubator program equips early-stage entrepreneurs with the support they need to transform audacious ideas into scalable and sustainable ventures and change the world. During this 18-month fellowship, a diverse cohort of fellows receives free residency and workspace, mentorship and leadership coaching, robust support from business consultants, and a living stipend to develop their entrepreneurial vision into reality.
Deadline: October 8, 2018
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: free housing and monthly $10,000 stipend during residency phase.

Haymarket Sustaining and Urgent Response Grant 

They are committed to supporting both urban and rural organizing across the region, and to funding start up and emerging organizations as well as groups that have a long history of grassroots organizing. They make grants for both general operating support and project work.
Deadline: November 28, 2018
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: up to $10,000; $1,000 Urgent Response Grants are also available to support organizations facing unforeseen and urgent financial crisis.

Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellowship

The Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellowship, established in 1987, is a highly-competitive national fellowship program that provides recent college and graduate school alumni with the opportunity to gain a Washington perspective on key issues of peace and security.
Deadline: January 7, 2019
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $3,100 per month, plus travel and professional development expenses

Humanity in Action Fellowship

Intensive and demanding, the Humanity in Action Fellowship brings together international groups of university students and recent graduates to explore national histories of discrimination and resistance, as well as examples of issues affecting different minority groups today. The Fellowship seeks to educate, connect and inspire the world’s future leaders in the fields of human rights and social justice.
Deadline: January 6, 2019
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $5,000

Map the System 

Map the System challenges students to think differently about social and environmental change — starting with understanding a problem and its wider context, rather than jumping straight into a business plan or an idea for a quick fix. This global competition requires applicants to demonstrate a deep understanding of a pressing social or environmental issue by mapping out the landscape of current solutions and identifying missing opportunities for change.
Deadline: Register to participate by January 28, 2019. Apply by April 1, 2019.
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: One Wesleyan team will be given up to $4,000 to travel to Oxford, UK to compete in the Map the System Global Finals

Net Impact Fellowships

Net Impact’s chapter-led programs offer a wide variety of inspiration, problem-solving and leadership opportunities which include Racial Equity and Tech for Good. The fellowships are year-long leadership development programs which support students in designing and implementing action projects on campus.
Deadline: Check back fall 2019
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: free admission to Net Impact Conference, stipend and tools for implementing projects

Obama Foundation Fellowship

The Obama Foundation Fellowship program seeks to support outstanding civic innovators from around the world in order to amplify the impact of their work and to inspire a wave of civic innovation. The two-year, non-residential Fellowship will offer hands-on training, resources, and leadership development.
Deadline: Check back summer 2019
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: No stipend at this time

The OZY Genius Awards 

The OZY Genius Awards aims to support the next Albert Einstein or Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah Winfrey or Wendy Kopp, as they write a book, film a documentary, launch a new company or create the next Teach For America over the summer. With academic and technological resources like never before, students today are doing the unimaginable and the unbelievable. Young learners have ideas that can change the world, and OZY wants to help them get there.
Deadline: Applications open December 2018
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $10,000

Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship Seed Grant

For Wesleyan students looking to launch, scale, or build capacity for a social impact venture, enterprise, program, or project of any kind.
Deadline: January 27, 2018
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $5,000

Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship Conference Fund

The Patricelli Center awards small grants (up to $500) for students to attend conferences or conference-like experiences. Applications will be reviewed within 5 business days and may receive partial funding. Applicants are encouraged to meet with a PCSE advisor to talk about ways to get the most out of attending a conference. All grantees will be expected to submit a public report for the ENGAGE blog reflecting on the conference experience and offering advice for students who may want to attend in the future.
Deadline: Check back summer 2019
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: up to $500

Project Entrepreneur Venture Competition

The Project Entrepreneur Venture Competition ignites bold ideas by providing women to the tools, training and networks needed to build scalable, economically impactful companies.
Deadline: Check back fall 2018
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $10,000 and a spot in a 5-week accelerator

Roddenberry Fellowship

The Roddenberry Fellowship is a new 12-month program for activists from across the country who are working to protect the most vulnerable and to make the US a more inclusive and equitable place to live. Twenty Fellows will be selected to receive $50,000 each, as well as tailored support, to help implement a project or initiative towards justice and equality for all.
Deadline: September 19, 2018
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $50,000

RSF Social Finance Seed Fund 

The Seed Fund provides small grants (between $500 and $3,500) to organizations offering innovative solutions to furthering the field of social finance, or addressing issues in the areas of food & agriculture, education & the arts, or ecological stewardship.
Deadline: Applications open January 2019
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $500-$3,500

 

SeedMoney

SeedMoney is a Maine-based 501(c)3 nonprofit that is helping public food gardens to start and thrive by offering them grants, access to crowdfunding, and technical assistance with garden planning.
Deadline: November 12, 2018
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $200-$600

The Social Venture Fund 

This student-led fund at the University of Michigan invests in and supports innovative, for-profit companies that place social and environmental impact at the heart of their business model.
Deadline: November 2, 2018
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $50,000-$100,000

Soros Justice Fellowships

The Soros Justice Fellowships fund outstanding individuals to undertake projects that advance reform, spur debate, and catalyze change on a range of issues facing the U.S. criminal justice system. Fellows receive funding through the following three categories: Advocacy, Media, and Youth Activist.
Deadline: Check back spring 2019
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $52,500-$120,000

The Sparkplug Foundation

The Sparkplug Foundation offers funding for start-up organizations and new projects of existing organizations in music, education, and community organizing.
Deadline: Applications open December 3, 2018
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $3,000-15,000

 

Thorne Prize for Social Innovation in Health or Education

The Thorne Prize for Social Innovation in Health or Education is a $25,000 cash prize awarded to the best student-led venture focused on social innovation in health or education. The prize will be awarded in the spring of each year to support a student or group of students beginning or continuing to develop a social enterprise or innovation focused on these two areas. The winner of the Thorne Prize receives automatic acceptance into the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale Summer Fellowship (a summer program that provides a $15,000 stipend), and continued support from Yale faculty. 

Deadline: Check back in spring 2019
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $25K

U.S. PIRG Fellowship

This is a two-year program, expressly designed to prepare future leaders with U.S. PIRG. You won’t just sit behind a desk. You’ll be out in the real world, working on everything from reducing the overuse of antibiotics in the food industry to defending consumer protections on Wall Street. You’ll be recruiting new groups to join a coalition, speaking in a church basement or town hall to win a new endorsement, organizing a news event or rally, meeting with an editorial board, or doing whatever else it takes to get results.
Deadline: Rolling applications
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $26,500 the first year

Venture Well E-Team Program (for STEM)

Venture Well funds and train student inventors and entrepreneurs in the STEM fields who want to address important problems in the world through new technology-based ventures.
Deadline:  May 2, 2018 (summer cohort), October 3, 2018 (winter cohort)
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: up to $25,000, plus workshops and coaching

Wesleyan Green Fund

Offers funding to Wesleyan students, faculty, and staff for projects related to environmental sustainability and conservation.
Deadline: rolling applications are now open
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: Between $50 – $20,000

Wesleyan Summer Experience Grant

For Wesleyan sophomores and juniors currently receiving need-based financial aid who plan to do socially innovative or socially responsible work during summer break. Grants are given for all types of summer experiences that are career focused, ranging from the corporate world to non-profit; in the U.S. and abroad.
Deadline: February 28, 2019
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: up to $4,000

Westly Prize

The Westly Prize for Young Innovators of California honors the talent, creativity, daring, and humanitarian spirit of young social entrepreneurs. They are looking for creative leaders from or currently living in California who are early in their journey, and have not yet received major recognition or substantial outside investment, but show great potential.
Deadline: Check back fall 2019
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: up to $30,000

Yonah Fellows

Yonah promotes ideas in the fields of freedom, education, creativity, impact. Our fellows include innovators, educators, social engineers and creators who suggest unconventional approaches to various challenges or create works that expand and empower a perception of particular issues. Applicants must identify as persons under 35 years old.
Deadline: October 15, 2018
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $15,000-$100,000 available

Young Activist Award: Mario Savio Memorial Lecture Fund

This award, which carries a cash prize of $6000, is presented each year to a young person (or persons) with a deep commitment to human rights and social justice and a proven ability to transform this commitment into effective action.
Deadline: Check back spring 2019
Stipend/Prize/Compensation: $6,000