Alumni Micro Grants

Micro grants are small, focused grants that can be accessed by our alumni to continue their design work in helping create a more equitable and innovative public education system in Washington, DC.

CityBridge’s mission is to incubate the people, ideas, and conversations needed for equity-driven innovation in DC’s public schools. To date, we have over 300 alumni who are doing incredible work transforming teaching and learning for DC’s children. We have heard from our alums over the past year that they want more support in continuing their design work.

Micro grants are small, focused grants that can be accessed by our alumni to continue their design work in helping create a more equitable and innovative public education system in Washington, DC.

Alums can apply for grant funding of $1,000-$5,000 to use for aligned projects in two waves: spring 2023 or summer 2023.
We will consider applications on a rolling basis each month and deploy these grants within 30 calendar days of being accepted. Once the funds for the wave run out, we will pause applications.

Eligible Projects:

The purpose of these grant funds are the continuation of the design work our alums started in their CBE program. This could look like additional piloting work or projects aligned to building out and scaling your venture or school model. We are open to hearing your proposals—submit your application today. If you have lingering questions, don’t hesitate to contact us!

Timeline:

We will consider applications once a month and will notify alums of their status within 30 days of their application submission.
We launched the first wave of applications for spring 2023 projects on November 11, 2022. Applicants will be notified of decisions in January 2023.
We will re-launch applications for the summer 2023 wave in March 2023.

Please note that Spring 2023 funds have been exhausted. Stay tuned for the Summer 2023 application.

Frequently Asked Questions

The application should take you no more than one hour to complete if you have a strong sense of your project and key activities you want to plan.

We are excited to launch this program in this fiscal year, but believe this will be a program that we continue offering for years to come. We will announce next year’s grant program status after the spring and summer cycles are completed.

We don’t anticipate this being a huge lift of your time. The mid-grant check-in process should only take about one and a half hours to prepare and engage in. The end of grant report should take a few hours at most to complete, given you’ve documented and codified your learnings.

We will post updates on our website once grant funds have been exhausted for each cycle. Grant funds are distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis for each cycle. We encourage you to apply early to ensure you receive your funding amount.

We recommend only applying for and requesting the funding you need for your project. You will need to complete a budget proposal for your application. If you end up not using the money or significantly reducing your scope, we will discuss in your mid-grant check-in and either brainstorm ways to redistribute funds in a project-aligned way or the return unused grant funds to us.

We engage with grantees through Bill.com to ensure the process is easy and streamlined. We also can provide a paper check, but prefer to use electronic distribution methods.

It depends on how you apply. If you are seeking this grant as an individual person, the answer is yes. You should keep a portion of the grant funds for your personal taxable liability (we don’t know the details of your income but a good rule of thumb would be to keep ~25% of the grant for future taxes). As always, you should consult with a tax professional if you have more specific, personal questions.

If you apply as a non-profit entity, you will not be required to pay taxes on this grant. Consult your accountant for more guidance here on this question.

If you apply as a for-profit entity, you will be required to pay taxes on this grant through your entity’s tax returns. Consult your accountant for more guidance here on this question.

You can only receive grant funds for either a Spring 2023 grant (application opening in November 2022) or a Summer 2023 grant (application opening in late Winter 2023). If you aren’t selected for the Spring grant cycle, you are encouraged to re-apply again for the Summer grant cycle.

That’s totally fine. As long as you are working on a project that advances equity and matches the vision of the program within PK-12 education in DC, you are eligible. We recommend checking the eligibility requirements listed on the grant website for more information.

Possibly! You are an eligible alumni if you participated in one of the approved programs from 2017 on.

For the purposes of this grant, you must be using the funds to advance your mission and project for children/families in DC. You may still be eligible if you are living outside the city but plan on doing your pilot or project here in DC. However, we will prioritize local alums doing local projects.

Micro grants for alumni.