Grants for Nonprofits - Science and Technology

The Connecticut Department of Transportation (CT DOT) is offering the 2024 Active Transportation Microgrant Program to solicit projects aimed at improving active transportation. This grant program aligns with a mission to foster equitable, safe, accessible, and sustainable transportation options, thereby encouraging healthier and more environmentally friendly travel modes. The program's core objective is to make conditions safer for individuals of all ages to engage in walking, biking, and other active forms of transit, contributing to broader community well-being and environmental sustainability. The primary beneficiaries of this program include municipalities, schools, school districts, and nonprofit organizations, all of which are encouraged to apply. The impact goals are centered on enhancing access and conditions for active transportation users across Connecticut. This includes increasing safety for pedestrians and cyclists, promoting the use of non-motorized transport, and supporting educational initiatives that raise awareness about active transportation benefits and safety. The program prioritizes non-infrastructure projects, explicitly excluding design and construction costs. Eligible activities focus on improving access and conditions for active transportation users. This includes providing bicycle helmets, locks, lights, and maintenance training. It also covers the rental or purchase of bicycle fleets, including adaptive bicycles, League Cycling Instructor (LCI) training, and various programs and materials for pedestrian and bicycle safety education, such as safety vests. The emphasis is on practical, immediate interventions that directly support active transportation without requiring extensive infrastructural development. Expected outcomes and measurable results include an increase in the adoption of active transportation methods, a reduction in accidents involving pedestrians and cyclists due to enhanced safety measures, and a rise in community participation in active transportation events and educational programs. The funding limits for individual microgrants range up to $5,000, with an overall grant size between $1,000 and $10,000, indicating a focus on numerous smaller-scale, impactful projects rather than a few large ones. This approach suggests a strategic priority to broadly distribute resources to foster active transportation at a grassroots level across various communities in Connecticut.

This grant provides funding for innovative technologies and systems that enhance military space operations, targeting industry, academia, and research organizations capable of advancing communication, navigation, tracking, and battle management capabilities.

This funding opportunity is designed for hospitals, universities, and nonprofit organizations in Ohio to conduct research on pediatric cancer, focusing on its causes, treatment, and management.

The Children’s Foundation of Mississippi (CFM) is offering up to 10 small planning grants to establish local Early Childhood Councils (ECCs) across all counties in Mississippi. The primary goal of these grants is to foster community-led initiatives that improve conditions for children aged 0-5 and their families. This aligns with CFM's mission to advance early childhood programming by empowering local communities to identify needs and promote solutions. The grants, ranging from $1,000 to $10,000, are designed to support the initial planning stages of these councils. The target beneficiaries are children aged 0-5 and their families in Mississippi, particularly those in neighborhoods, cities, and counties where early childhood programming is lacking. The impact goals include expanding civic engagement with policymakers on children's issues, advocating for and supporting policies that increase state funding for high-quality public Pre-K, and building partnerships with established non-profits and programs like Excel By 5 and the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading. The grants prioritize communities that seek to build a committee focused on one or more key areas: expanding civic engagement with policymakers, advocating for high-quality public Pre-K funding, serving as a facilitator for partnerships with existing programs, implementing unique early childhood programs in underserved areas, and identifying unmet program or service needs within their communities. These focus areas are critical to CFM's strategic priorities of fostering local leadership and collaborative efforts to address early childhood development challenges. Expected outcomes include the establishment of new or strengthened Early Childhood Councils that are actively working to improve conditions for young children and their families. Measurable results will stem from the successful planning and initiation of activities aligned with the council's goals, such as increased community leader involvement, development of local action plans, and the identification of specific programming or policy advocacy targets. The foundation's theory of change posits that by empowering local entities to assess needs and lead initiatives, sustainable improvements in early childhood outcomes can be achieved at the community level.

The FY24 PRARP TrRA is intended to support studies that will make transformative and advanced contributions to reduce risk of or prevent the development of AD/ADRD. Risk reduction considering TBI and/or military service is of particular interest to the program. The work should significantly accelerate efforts in AD/ADRD research and demonstrate significant impact toward improving patient care and/or quality of life. To meet the intent of the funding opportunity, applications must robustly address an important problem or a critical barrier to progress in prevention and risk reduction. The proposed research may include, but is not limited to, exploring questions in the following areas: Identification of risk factors (environmental, genetic, epigenetic, lifestyle, etc.). Identification and implementation of strategies to reduce AD/ADRD risk and prevent cognitive problems following TBI and/or military service. Understanding the role of social determinants of health in risk reduction. Informational (not descriptive) epidemiology to understand environmental and other factors that contribute to development of AD/ADRD. All applications submitted to this funding opportunity must clearly indicate how the project addresses a critical unmet need, explain how the research will be representative of the population it intends to benefit, and demonstrate cultural competence. Culturally competent research factors the cultural background and diversity of the intended beneficiaries of the research outcomes when developing research ideas, conducting research, and implementing the research findings. Cultural competency in research is critical in reducing health disparities and enhancing the quality and impact of research by ensuring inclusivity, understanding, and responsiveness to the needs of diverse populations. Key elements of this award mechanism include: Research should be robust: The FY24 PRARP TrRA mechanism is geared toward supporting robust, well-designed research projects that provide significant impact on the AD/ADRD field, persons living with dementia, and their families, care-partners/caregivers. Inclusion of collaborative Community partner approaches is strongly encouraged for all projects and is required for all projects involving clinical research. Use of animal models must be fully justified for relevance to human health. Non-incremental advancement: Research projects should leverage existing knowledge to accelerate ideas, strengthen evidence, and move the field forward. Therefore, preliminary data are required. Projects proposing incremental advances that do not significantly propel the field do not meet the intent of this mechanism. Feedback to the Community: Applicants are expected to articulate a plan for relaying the results and outcomes of the research supported by this mechanism must be relayed back to the research/Community(ies) to allow for continued knowledge building. Optimizing research impact through Community collaboration: Research funded by the FY24 PRARP should be responsive to the needs of people living with AD/ADRD. Community collaboration is required for clinical research projects and encouraged for preclinical studies. Establishment and utilization of effective and equitable collaborations and partnerships with members of the AD/ADRD lived experience, family, and care partner communities, which will be referred to as Community(ies) in the remainder of the Funding Opportunity, maximizes the translational and impact potential of the proposed research. Collaborative research approaches feature shared responsibility and ownership for the research project to ensure non-tokenistic involvement of Community members within the research team. Collaborative research approaches such as Community-based participatory research, participatory action research, and integrated knowledge transition generate partnerships between scientific researchers and Community members to create knowledge useable by both sets of stakeholders. Recognizing the strengths of each partner, scientific researchers and Community members must collaborate and contribute their expertise equitably on all aspects of the project, which may include needs assessment, planning, research intervention design, implementation, evaluation, and dissemination. Research results are jointly interpreted, disseminated, fed back to affected communities, and may be translated into interventions or policy. These methods are critically important for Community-level interventions and can also augment the potential impact of a research program on people living with dementia, their families, and/or their care partners. These collaborative relationships are often established through integrating Community members into research teams as co-researchers, advisors, and consultants. Some examples for Community collaborations include: Lived Experience Consultation: The research team includes at least one project advisor with AD/ADRD experience who will integrate with the research team to provide consultation throughout the planning, implementation, and dissemination of the research project. Lived experience consultants (LECs) may include individuals with AD/ADRD, their family members, care partners, or others as appropriate. Partnership with a Community-Based Organization: The research team establishes partnerships with at least one Community-based organization that provides consultation throughout the planning, implementation, and dissemination of the research project. Community-based organizations may include advocacy groups, service providers, policymakers, or other formal organizational stakeholders. Community Advisory Board (CAB) Utilization: A CAB is composed of multiple Community stakeholders and can take many forms, from a board of LECs to a coalition of Community-based organizations or any combination thereof. As with LECs and organizational partners, the CAB provides consultation throughout the planning, implementation, and dissemination of the research project. Career Initiation or Transition (CIT) Partnership Option: The FY24 PRARP encourages applications that include meaningful and productive collaborations between two principal investigators. To promote enhanced research capacity within the AD/ADRD field, the FY24 TrRA includes an option for a CIT Principal Investigator (PI) to partner with an experienced to jointly address a research question. The CIT PI must have nominal, if any, research support in the field and may be either one of the following: The Career Initiation PI must be an early-career researcher, at least 3 years post their terminal degree but no more than 7 years into their independent position. Both PIs may have similar or disparate expertise, but each PI is expected to bring distinct and complimentary contributions to the application. The Career Transition PI must be an investigator (at any stage) who is new to the military health, TBI, or AD/ADRD field(s). New to the field is defined as having only nominal, if any, publications in the field. The other partnering investigator must have complimentary experience (as evidenced by publications) in military health, TBI, and/or AD/ADRD field(s). The CIT is structured to accommodate two PIs. One PI will be identified as the Initiating PI and will be responsible for most of the administrative tasks associated with application submission. The other will be identified as a Partnering PI. Either PI can be the CIT PI. Both PIs should contribute significantly to the development of the proposed research project, including the Project Narrative, Statement of Work (SOW), and other required components. Both PIs may have experience in similar or disparate scientific disciplines, but each PI is expected to bring distinct and complimentary contributions to the application. If recommended for funding, each PI will be named to an individual award within the recipient organization(s). For individual submission requirements for the Initiating and Partnering PI, refer to Section II.D.2, Content and Form of the Application Submission.

The North Carolina Department of Commerce is offering Rural Downtown Economic Development (RDED) Grants, a program designed to support downtown revitalization and economic development initiatives. The core mission of this grant program is to assist local governments in growing and leveraging their downtown districts as assets for economic growth, development, and prosperity. While the context does not explicitly detail the "foundation's strategic priorities and theory of change" in a separate section, the program's overall purpose and eligible activities implicitly align with strategies focused on strengthening local economies through targeted investment in public infrastructure and community assets within downtown areas. The primary beneficiaries of the RDED Grants are units of local government, specifically municipal or county governments located in Tier 1 or Tier 2 counties, and rural census tracts in Tier 3 counties within North Carolina. The impact goals are centered on fostering economic growth, retaining businesses, attracting customers, and creating or retaining jobs within downtown districts. The program aims to transform these areas into vibrant economic engines for their communities, ultimately leading to broader economic development and increased prosperity for residents. The program prioritizes and focuses on projects that involve public improvements aimed at business retention and customer attraction within business districts. It also strongly supports publicly owned downtown economic development initiatives that utilize main streets and downtown districts as economic catalysts. Furthermore, the grants facilitate publicly owned building improvements for community-wide or mixed-use development, ensuring public control and benefit. Specific eligible activities include improvements to public infrastructure (like lots, alleys, streetscapes, waterfront developments, and parks), renovations or additions to public buildings (such as community centers, theaters, and libraries), and mixed-use downtown developments incorporating retail, restaurant, service, professional, nonprofit, governmental, institutional, or residential uses. Expected outcomes include a strengthened local economy, increased job opportunities, enhanced public spaces, and revitalized downtown districts that serve as community hubs. Measurable results are directly tied to the maximum grant amount, which is capped at $850,000 per grantee and may not exceed $12,500 per projected job created or retained. This direct link to job creation and retention provides a clear metric for assessing the program's success in achieving its economic development objectives. The discretion of the Rural Infrastructure Authority in funding availability suggests an ongoing commitment to strategic investments that align with the state's broader rural development goals.

This program provides funding for research institutions and organizations to develop advanced techniques for improving the performance and reliability of quantum computing systems, specifically targeting applications in national defense.

This grant provides funding to nonprofit organizations in the Berkshire Taconic region to support capacity-building projects that enhance governance, diversity, and overall effectiveness in serving their communities.

The Flash Grant program, managed by the North Carolina Biotechnology Center (NCBiotech), aims to energize innovative ideas in the life sciences field that show early signs of exceptional commercial potential. Flash grants provide a quick infusion of funding at critical early stages to help shape innovative research ideas into high-potential life sciences technologies. The grants support short, focused research projects that generate initial exploratory, proof-of-concept, or feasibility data, or that conduct final experiments to advance research into the translational phase. These micro-grants target projects too early for traditional grant funding mechanisms and are available to researchers at any North Carolina university or nonprofit research institute.

This funding opportunity supports projects that foster cultural, educational, economic, and environmental collaboration between the United States and New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau, targeting a diverse range of applicants including individuals, non-profits, and educational institutions.

The National Science Foundation's Directorates for Engineering (ENG), Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), Mathematical Physical Sciences (MPS), and Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) are coordinating efforts to create fundamental understanding that will enablecontinued effective use of an essential common resource, the electromagnetic spectrum. Existing approaches to spectrum management and regulationhave struggled with the ever-increasing demands for spectrum created by continual emergence of new scientific, military, and commercial applications, powered by steady advances in wireless technologies. Development of fundamentally new models and paradigms of spectrum access and management, along with enabling technologies, is needed before it becomes too costly to accommodate new innovations and essential services, or too late to sustain the digital transformation and growth of key industries and public services. This program seeks to develop the intellectual capital enabling the U.S. to smoothly and quickly transition to effective new ways of using and managing the radio and optical spectrum after the end of the current spectrum era of long-term exclusive-use license auctions, thereby sustaining and advancing the social, economic, scientific, and U.S. national leadership benefits derived from the electromagnetic spectrum.

The "DoD Peer Reviewed Cancer, Idea Award" is a grant aimed at supporting innovative and high-risk basic cancer research that introduces new concepts or challenges existing paradigms, with the goal of advancing knowledge in cancer research and treatment for the benefit of Service Members, Veterans, and the American public.

The FY24 LCRP Idea Development Award mechanism promotes new ideas that are still in the early stages of development and have the potential to yield impactful data and new avenues of investigation. This award supports conceptually innovative, high-risk/high-reward research that could lead to critical discoveries or major advancements that will accelerate progress toward eradicating deaths and suffering from lung cancer. Research applications only in the area of mesothelioma will not be accepted. Applications should include a well-formulated, testable hypothesis based on strong scientific rationale.New Investigators: The FY24 LCRP Idea Development Award mechanism encourages applications from independent investigators in the early stages of their careers (i.e., within 10 years of their first faculty appointment or equivalent). The New Investigator category is designed to allow applicants early in their faculty appointments to compete for funding separately from established investigators. Applications from New Investigators and Established Investigators will be peer and programmatically reviewed separately. Principal Investigators (PIs) using the New Investigator category are strongly encouraged to strengthen their applications by collaborating with investigators experienced in lung cancer research and/or possessing other relevant expertise. It is the responsibility of the applicant to describe how the included collaboration will augment the PIs expertise to best address the research question. All applicants for the New Investigator category must meet specific eligibility criteria as described in Section II.C, Eligibility Information.Preliminary data to support the feasibility of the research hypotheses and research approaches are required; however, these data do not necessarily need to be derived from studies of lung cancer.Key elements of this award are as follows:Innovation: Research deemed innovative may introduce a new paradigm, challenge current paradigms, look at existing problems from new perspectives, or exhibit other uniquely creative qualities.Impact: Research that has high potential impact may lead to major advancements and significantly accelerate progress toward eradicating deaths and suffering from lung cancer.It is the responsibility of the PI to clearly and explicitly articulate the projects innovation and its potential impact on lung cancer and its relevance to Military Health System (MHS) beneficiaries. The projects impact to both lung cancer research and to patients with lung cancer should be articulated, even if clinical impact is not an immediate outcome. Applications that demonstrate exceptional scientific merit but lack innovation and high potential impact do not meet the intent of the Idea Development Award.

The Scherman Foundation's Core Fund for Strengthening New York Communities focuses on challenging inequities and improving the conditions of New York City communities in need. The grant program supports housing justice, equitable economic development, gender equity, worker rights, immigrant community challenges, sustainable development, and police and carceral system reform. It also provides support for policy reform organizations collaborating with neighborhood-based groups. The Foundation prioritizes general operating support for smaller neighborhood groups and offers project-specific support for larger and policy-focused organizations or collaborative campaigns.

This funding opportunity provides financial support for nonprofit organizations to offer specialized technical advisory services to enhance offshore oil and gas safety and environmental practices in the Gulf of America region.

The Jackson County Community Foundation is offering community grants to qualified charitable organizations that serve the local community within Jackson County, North Carolina. This grant program aligns with the foundation's mission to address a broad range of local needs, supporting essential services and development within the community. The grants are intended to foster local initiatives that improve the well-being of residents and strengthen community infrastructure across various sectors. The target beneficiaries of this grant program are diverse, encompassing individuals and groups benefiting from human services, education, youth development, health, food/nutrition, and arts programs. The impact goals are to meet a wide array of community needs, providing support to vulnerable populations, enhancing educational opportunities, promoting healthy lifestyles, and enriching cultural experiences. The foundation prioritizes organizations that are 501(c)(3) public charities, local governments (including public schools), fire and rescue departments, and religious entities engaged in social outreach programs. The program focuses on funding initiatives that provide tangible benefits to the community-at-large, with a particular emphasis on services that are accessible and non-discriminatory. Expected outcomes include improved access to essential services, enhanced community programs, and a strengthened local support network. While specific measurable results are not explicitly detailed beyond the range of grants, the implied results are the successful implementation of programs in the areas of human services, education, youth development, health, food/nutrition, and arts. The Jackson County Community Foundation's strategic priorities are to address local needs comprehensively through community-focused grantmaking. Their theory of change appears to be that by funding a diverse range of charitable organizations and public service entities, they can collectively create a more resilient, educated, healthy, and culturally vibrant community. The grant size typically ranges from $1,000 to $3,000, indicating a focus on supporting numerous local projects rather than a few large-scale initiatives.

The DOD Pancreatic Cancer, Idea Development Award is a grant that funds innovative, high-risk/high-reward research projects with the potential to significantly advance our understanding of pancreatic cancer and improve patient outcomes, with a special focus on supporting early-career investigators in the field.

This funding opportunity supports South Carolina organizations focused on anti-litter initiatives, encouraging collaboration and community involvement to reduce litter and promote environmental stewardship.

In today's increasingly networked, distributed, and asynchronous world, cybersecurity involves hardware, software, networks, data, people, and integration with the physical world. Society's overwhelming reliance on this complex cyberspace, however, has exposed its fragility and vulnerabilities that defy existing cyber-defense measures; corporations, agencies, national infrastructure, and individuals continue to suffer cyber-attacks. Achieving a truly secure cyberspace requires addressing both challenging scientific and engineering problems involving many components of a system, and vulnerabilities that stem from human behaviors and choices. Examining the fundamentals of security and privacy as a multidisciplinary subject can lead to fundamentally new ways to design, build, and operate cyber systems; protect existing infrastructure; and motivate and educate individuals about cybersecurity. The goals of the SaTC program are aligned with the National Science and Technology Council's (NSTC) Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Strategic Plan (RDSP) and National Privacy Research Strategy (NPRS) to protect and preserve the growing social and economic benefits of cyber systems while ensuring security and privacy. The RDSP identified six areas critical to successful cybersecurity research and development: (1) scientific foundations; (2) risk management; (3) human aspects; (4) transitioning successful research into practice; (5) workforce development; and (6) enhancing the research infrastructure. The NPRS, which complements the RDSP, identifies a framework for privacy research, anchored in characterizing privacy expectations, understanding privacy violations, engineering privacy-protecting systems, and recovering from privacy violations. In alignment with the objectives in both strategic plans, the SaTC program takes an interdisciplinary, comprehensive, and holistic approach to cybersecurity research, development, and education, and encourages the transition of promising research ideas into practice. The SaTC program welcomes proposals that address cybersecurity and privacy, drawing on expertise in one or more of these areas: computing, communication, and information sciences; engineering; education; mathematics; statistics; and social, behavioral, and economic sciences. Proposals that advance the field of cybersecurity and privacy within a single discipline or interdisciplinary efforts that span multiple disciplines are both welcome. The SaTC program spans the interests of NSF's Directorates for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), Engineering (ENG), Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS), Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE), and Education and Human Resources (EHR). Proposals must be submitted pursuant to one of the following designations, each of which may have additional restrictions and administrative obligations as specified in this program solicitation. CORE: This designation is the main focus of the multidisciplinary SaTC research program. EDU: The Education (EDU) designation is used to label proposals focusing on cybersecurity and privacy education and training. TTP: The Transition to Practice (TTP) designation will be used to label proposals that are focused exclusively on transitioning existing research results to practice. CORE and TTP proposals may be submitted in one of the following project size classes: Small projects: up to $600,000 in total budget, with durations of up to three years; and Medium projects: $600,001 to $1,200,000 in total budget, with durations of up to four years. EDU proposals are limited to $400,000 in total budget, with durations of up to three years. EDU proposals that demonstrate a collaboration, reflected in the PI, co-PI, and/or Senior Personnel composition, between a cybersecurity subject matter expert (researcher or practitioner) and an education researcher may request up to $500,000 for three years.

This funding opportunity is designed for small businesses and innovators to develop autonomous robotic systems for military river crossings, enhancing safety and efficiency in contested environments.