Changing the World One Scholar at a Time: New Free Resource Launches

Today's donors and institutional philanthropists have become more ambitious in their aim to address the world's most pressing problems. How is this trend affecting the world of scholarship philanthropy? At their core, all scholarships aim to change the lives of recipients for the better. Some donors, however, have been able to leverage scholarships to impact society more broadly while improving whole institutions, industries, or communities. From increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion to creating economic opportunity in struggling communities, scholarship programs can be designed to create positive societal change that extends far beyond the individual recipient.

Earlier this month, Candid marked the launch of Scholarships for Change, a website and set of tools designed to help donors increase the impact of scholarship giving. Funded by the Ford and Mellon foundations, Scholarships for Change provides funding trend data, an interactive grants map, GrantCraft case studies, and a curated knowledge center that together serve to orient, inform, and empower donors with a road map to effective scholarship philanthropy.

Although supporting scholarships is often one of the first activities a new philanthropist undertakes, there has been no publicly available centralized source of knowledge about who has funded such programs and what they have learned. Scholarships for Change fills this gap by pulling together knowledge and data to guide funders in the practice of scholarship grantmaking and tells the story of how philanthropic dollars are supporting transformative scholarships. Scholarship seekers will benefit from the open access to insights into donor strategies that the platform provides.

Visitors to Scholarships for Change can access:

• Information about nearly 680,000 scholarships for change made between 2006 and the present. A funding map displays aggregate trend data and scholarship-focused grants with a specific change agenda. You can use the map to identify funding concentrations and gaps as well as key actors in the field, and learn more about what the data has to say about the types of social change most frequently supported by scholarship funders.
• Lessons learned by others, as captured in a dozen new GrantCraft case studies filled with insights from experienced scholarship funders, including the Ford Foundation, the Mastercard Foundation, the LeBron James Family Foundation, and the Jackie Robinson Foundation.
• A searchable resource center with research and news providing up-to-date access to knowledge about change-oriented scholarships.

Scholarships have the power to create greater access to education, fuel economic mobility, and lift up communities. We invite you to explore and learn from Scholarships for Change and welcome your suggestions for additions to the site.

Janet Camarena is director of transparency initiatives at Candid.