E4FC’s Invest in the Dream Initiative: Scholarships and Support for Undocumented Students
A new report entitled “E4FC’s Invest in the Dream Initiative: Scholarships and Support for Undocumented Students” is available here.
Invest in the Dream is a competitive grant program that E4FC launched in 2014. By offering challenge grants to nonprofit scholarship organizations nationwide, Invest in the Dream encourages those organizations to create or expand scholarship programs that support undocumented students pursuing higher education.
With generous support from the Heising-Simons Foundation, the Grove Foundation and other funders, E4FC has awarded $750,000 in matching grants to nonprofit scholarship providers in 16 states. These grants have leveraged an additional $750,000 in matching funds from local donors and other sources, for a total of $1.5 million in new scholarship support for over 200 undocumented students. In addition, Invest in the Dream has created and nurtured a national learning community of scholarship professionals and volunteers, many of whom are working in very challenging political environments. Find out more about our grantees here.
After three years of work, we thought it was important to conduct an in-depth review of Invest in the Dream, including its key accomplishments, challenges and lessons learned. Jay Sherwin, Co-Director of Invest in the Dream, conducted that review, relying on his years of experience as a grantmaker and consultant to foundations and other nonprofit clients.
The report includes comments and insights from twenty informants, including thirteen grantee representatives, four scholarship recipients and three allies and funding partners. It also includes brief profiles of four students and two matching grant donors.
The report reaches these key conclusions:
- Invest in the Dream scholarships have positively affected 200 undocumented students and their families.
- Scholarships have been “game-changers” for many students, convincing some that college was possible and allowing others to attend college full-time.
- The Invest in the Dream learning community has become a highly valued source of advice and support for participating scholarship providers, offering information and affirmation to organizations that often operate in isolation and/or confront significant local opposition.
- Grantees gained credibility in their local communities from being selected to participate in a national initiative, even if community leaders were not already familiar with E4FC.
- While Invest in the Dream broke new ground as a national initiative, it is a relatively modest response to a much larger national need. Scholarships are powerful tools but they are also expensive investments on a per-student basisKJ