The Lumina Foundation for Education Grants

 
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    CFDA#

    None
     

    Funder Type

    Private Foundation

    IT Classification

    B - Readily funds technology as part of an award

    Authority

    Lumina Foundation

    Summary

    Lumina Foundation believes that education provides the basis for individual opportunity, economic vitality and social stability. Lumina is committed to helping the nation redesign learning after high school to help an additional 6.9 million adults—beyond those who are already on track—earn the degrees, certificates, and industry certifications necessary to boost national attainment among working-age adults to 60 percent. They concentrate on ensuring that adults, especially people of color, have access to programs that lead to meaningful credentials, that they have financial and non-financial support along the way to ensure their success, and that the credentials they earn lead to good jobs, higher pay, and greater opportunity to learn and serve others.


    Lumina has three objectives in their current Strategic Plan (https://www.luminafoundation.org/about/strategic-plan/):

    • Short-Term Credentials: Lumina's work with community colleges and employers will help 2.6 million more U.S. adults earn quality, short-term credentials, including certificates and certifications, than would be awarded based on current estimates. Strategies will aim to improve affordability, add flexibility, and align with employment and occupational demands.
    • Associate Degrees: Lumina's work with community colleges will help 3.3 million more adults earn associate degrees than would be awarded based on current estimates. Strategies will aim to increase completion rates among those who are already enrolled, expand access to increase enrollment, and develop employer partnerships that will increase the number and quality of pathways to associate degrees—especially those that recognize the increasing integration of work and learning.
    • Bachelor's Degrees: Lumina's work with colleges and universities will help at least 1 million more adults earn bachelor's degrees than would be awarded based on current estimates. Strategies will aim to re-enroll students and scale efforts that lead to their success, ultimately eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in bachelor's degree attainment.

    To accomplish this, the foundation has committed to supporting and expanding evidence-based practices that can meet the nation's pressing needs. They push hardest on equity-first strategies, those that are most likely to produce fairer results for people who are Black, Hispanic, and Native American. They have also adjusted—or phased-out—efforts that are not aimed squarely at accelerating learning gains within the next several years.


    NOTE: Lumina Foundation's grantmaking is primarily proactive in nature. In other words, a large majority of its grants are awarded to partners solicited by the Foundation based on unique capacity or position to leverage large-scale systemic change. It has allocated a modest amount of grant monies for unsolicited inquiries to encourage innovative ideas that relate to its strategic portfolio. The foundation seldom funds unsolicited proposals not explicitly designed to yield systemic, large-scale, or nationwide impact. For example, programs bringing thousands of students to a quality credential in a city may be considered if there are explicit strategies for replication across multiple cities targeting systemic change.

     

    History of Funding

    For information on past grants go to: https://www.luminafoundation.org/resources/grants/grant-database/

    Additional Information

    The Lumina Foundation has offered two recent funding opportunities to help achieve parts of their strategic plan:

    • Racial Justice and Equity Fund: The fund is designed to directly support organizations and efforts working to eradicate systemic racism and to advance equity and justice for those who have experienced racial oppression: Black, Hispanic/Latino, Native American, and Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) populations. Lumina supported 21 organizations with grants of up to $400,000 each for up to two years.
    • Community Grants: The fund is designed honor what local organizations in and around Indianapolis were doing, without holding them to the scale requirements reflected in the foundation's larger strategic projects. This reflects the foundation's determination to show local support in addition to the national efforts that make up the bulk of their work.

    The Lumina Foundation does not fund the following activities and programs:

    • Partisan political or lobbying efforts (in compliance with the Internal Revenue Code)
    • Direct service programs, especially those of small scale, including:
      • Workforce training
      • Summer bridge programs for high school and college students
      • English as a second language courses
      • GED or other test preparation
      • Literacy training
      • Social/human services
    • Discipline-specific programs or the creation of new degree programs
    • Curriculum development
    • Graduate-level or professional programs
    • Research that is not directly applicable to our strategic outcomes
    • Institution-specific projects not explicitly designed to stimulate change at a systemic level
    • Individual scholarships or institutional scholarship programs
    • Capital campaigns and endowments
    • Requests exclusively for equipment, such as technology hardware and software
    • Corporate sponsorships and fundraising events outside Indianapolis, Indiana
    • Religious activities
    • K-12 education reform
    • Teacher education and training
    • Tutoring or mentoring
    • Meetings and conferences, unless they relate to a Foundation program

    Contacts

    Lumina Foundation Staff

    Lumina Foundation Staff
    Program Office New Inquiry Lumina Foundation for Education PO Box 1806
    Indianapolis, IN 46206
    3179515300
    3179515300

    Lumina Foundation Staff - New Inquiry

    Lumina Foundation Staff - New Inquiry

    ,
    317-951-5300
     

  • Eligibility Details

    Lumina Foundation funds organizations that are classified as tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code operating within the United States and its territories. Funding is also available for public charities under section 509(a)(1), (2) or (3) of the Code and to public organizations that are designated under section 170(c) of the Code.

    Deadline Details

    Interested applicants may submit an unsolicited request which are reviewed by the grants management team for alignment with the Foundation's current strategic priorities. If the request aligns with current work, it is referred to a program officer for further review. Requests considered viable are invited to submit concept papers for further consideration by Lumina Executive Team members. Formal invitations for full proposal may be advanced following initial evaluation. Unsolicited requests can be sent to:


    Program Office New Inquiry

    Lumina Foundation for Education

    PO Box 1806

    Indianapolis, IN 462061806


    Assuming potential grantees' timely responses to requests for information, the entire review and approval process typically takes approximately six months.


    NOTE: Limited resources are available for unsolicited inquiries, due to the proactive nature of its grantmaking. Generally, unsolicited LOIs are reviewed at the end of September. Submissions after September are likely to be held for review the following year.

    Award Details

    Grants vary in size by their scope and potential for impact. Direct-service grants to students and families tend to be smaller than those that affect entire systems. The median size of a typical grant is approximately $150,000; the average size is about $400,000. The usual term for grants is one to three years, although exceptions sometimes apply to initiatives they sponsor.

    Related Webcasts Use the links below to view the recorded playback of these webcasts


    • Funding Classroom Technology to Empower Students and Teachers - Sponsored by Panasonic - Playback Available
    • Maximizing Technology-friendly Workforce Development Grants - Sponsored by Panasonic - Playback Available
    • Funding Data-driven Workforce Development Projects - Sponsored by NetApp - Playback Available

 

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