Strada collaborates with students, policymakers, educators, and employers across the U.S. to strengthen the link between education and opportunity.
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We prioritize policies, practices, and programs that help ensure postsecondary education provides equitable pathways to opportunity.
We advance our mission through research, grantmaking, social impact investments, public policy solutions, Strada-supported nonprofit organizations, and strategic initiatives.
We provide grants to nonprofit organizations that help students and workers succeed, especially those who face the greatest barriers. Since 2013, we have given nearly $200 million in grants, sponsorships, and awards to 820 organizations.
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Our grants support organizations that help students succeed throughout their education and beyond completion of degrees and other credentials. These organizations are developing promising new opportunities, expanding proven solutions, and sustaining models that are already working. We evaluate the social impact of our grants and incorporate what we learn into future investments. We also share what we are learning so that effective organizations and promising practices receive more attention from the field and support from other funders.
Some of our grantmaking is organized into aligned initiatives. Each initiative has specific outcome goals, a defined budget, and a timeline.
Our latest three initiatives focus on supporting student leadership development at historically Black colleges and universities (Strada Scholars), on improving student success beyond completion of a degree (the Beyond Completion Challenge), and on supporting innovative collaborations between community colleges and employers (Employer and Community College Partnership Challenge).
All of our initiatives are informed by the work and impact of our current and past grantees. To read more about grants we’ve made in recent years, click here.
The $4 million challenge funds community colleges and their local employer partners that are innovating to meet regional workforce needs, boost employment and earnings outcomes for students, and drive enrollment for community colleges.
$10 million grant challenge to improve equitable student outcomes beyond college completion.
The Strada HBCU Initiative is designed to elevate the transformative economic, social, educational, and cultural influence of historically Black colleges and universities.
Deborah Santiago’s parents always made clear she and her three siblings would go to college.
Nationwide, about 80 percent of students enrolling in community college say they intend to continue at a four-year college or university to earn a bachelor’s degree. But only 15 percent of community college students achieve that goal within six years.