Grant Guidelines
Lumina Foundation believes that education provides the basis for individual opportunity, economic vitality and social stability. With its partners, Lumina strives to meet workforce demands and close gaps in attainment for groups not historically well-served by higher education. Lumina’s overarching goal is to increase the higher education attainment rate of the United States to 60 percent by 2025. This will represent an increase of 23 million graduates above current levels of production. While our mission focuses on both student access and success in higher education, our emphasis is on attainment, defined as completing associate and baccalaureate degrees and credentials.
Lumina Foundation’s grantmaking is primarily proactive in nature. In other words, a large majority of our grants are awarded to partners solicited by the Foundation based on unique capacity or position to leverage large-scale systemic change. We have allocated a modest amount of grant monies for unsolicited inquiries in an effort to encourage innovative ideas that relate to our strategic portfolio. Our proactive portfolio focuses on: increasing awareness of the benefits of higher education; improving student access to and preparedness for college; improving student success in college; and productivity across the higher education system. Examples of current proactive work include:
Again, please be aware that very few resources are available to fund unsolicited inquiries. Note that Foundation grants vary in size by their scope but that grants resulting from unsolicited inquiries typically range from $50,000-$250,000. The usual duration for a grant is one to three years.
Lumina Foundation makes grants within the United States and its territories, occasionally initiating a grant to an entity outside the United States in order to inform its work to expand access and success in postsecondary education in the United States.
The Foundation makes grants to organizations that are classified as tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and as public charities under section 509(a)(1), (2) or (3) of the Code or to public organizations that are designated under section 170(c) of the Code. Please note that Lumina Foundation for Education does not make grants to (a.) supporting organizations controlled by disqualified persons to Lumina or (b.) Type III supporting organizations that are not functionally integrated Type III supporting organizations (as such terms are defined in the Internal Revenue Code).
