Making progress toward ECMC Foundation’s North Star goal requires a funding approach that is flexible, responsive, and attuned to a rapidly evolving postsecondary landscape. Through exploratory bodies of work, the Foundation supports a diverse set of populations, geographies, and interventions, while engaging a range of innovations and reforms aimed at shifting the conditions that impede student success. Grounded in curiosity and humility, this portfolio allows ECMC Foundation to listen to the field, track emerging trends, and respond to urgent needs as they arise within these specific subject areas.
These bodies of work reflect areas where the Foundation sees opportunity to catalyze learning and advance systems change. ECMC Foundation explores these areas by learning from previous grants, connecting with subject matter experts, and joining funder collaboratives to inform a set of learning questions and guide portfolio grantmaking. While these subject areas may shift and change over time, they remain guided by our strategic framework and commitment to transforming the postsecondary ecosystem. This portfolio helps ensure we remain responsive to field-identified needs while leveraging its resources to activate and strengthen the broader postsecondary education landscape.
Brief overview statements for a sampling of the current bodies of work can be found below. These focus areas are meant to grow, change, and shift depending on the needs of the field. This list only represents a small window into the topics this team is focused on.
Advancing Advising Reform
The advancing advising reform body of work aims to ensure all students have access to streamlined and proactive advising that helps them realize their academic and career goals. Ample evidence links strong advising to positive student outcomes, with outsized impact for those from underserved backgrounds. However, institutions vary widely in resources and capacity, frequently resulting in advising that is fragmented, inadequate, or lacking in clarity. The body of work centers institutional advising reform, with a focus on scaling of evidence-based practices, building capacity for effective use of data and technology, and creating financial, policy, and staffing models for long-term sustainability.
Work-based Learning
The work‑based learning (WBL) body of work aims to ensure all students can access high‑quality, paid, and structured work-based learning experiences that strengthen persistence, completion, and career outcomes. Evidence shows that paid WBL improves academic and labor‑market results, with particularly strong benefits for students from underserved backgrounds. Yet institutional capacity, employer engagement, and program design vary widely, often leading to uneven access and inconsistent quality. The body of work centers institutional reform, focusing on expanding access, strengthening employer partnerships, improving program quality through evidence‑based design, and building the data, staffing, and partnership models needed for long‑term sustainability.
State Infrastructure for Student Completion & Success
This body of work is grounded in the hypothesis that building strong state longitudinal data sets (SLDS) and analytic capacity will unlock insights that drive improved programs, policies, and research, ultimately increasing completion of high‑value credentials and driving economic mobility. It explores the enabling conditions for sustainable, high‑impact data systems, including developing policy champions, empowering data leaders, building cross‑sector partnerships, and centering public trust in data privacy and security. The work examines use‑cases such as return on investment (ROI) analyses and outcomes‑based funding for higher education, while assessing institutional capacity to interpret insights. It also considers how user‑centered tools can translate insights to the field. This portfolio is currently prioritizing states with emerging SLDS capabilities that can benefit greatly from catalytic philanthropic investment.
Higher Education in Prison and Reentry
This body of work is guided by the hypothesis that expanding high‑quality, and sustainable higher education opportunities for currently and formerly incarcerated individuals leads to improved reentry outcomes, reduced recidivism, and increased economic mobility. Projects in this portfolio explore the barriers justice‑impacted learners face in persistence and completion and assesses how current programs address academic, logistical, and reentry challenges. The portfolio prioritizes a systems-approach to examine how institutions and statewide coalitions can strengthen data systems and leverage cross-sector collaboration to identify scalable, high-impact models that advance student success and catalyze systemic change.
Catalyzing Community Foundations for Postsecondary Student Success
The Catalyzing Community Foundations body of work aims to strengthen postsecondary outcomes in historically underserved regions by centering a multi‑level, intermediary‑led model that builds the community foundations postsecondary grantmaking capacity; strengthens community-based organization’s ability to deliver student‑focused supports and develop systems change oriented strategies; and fosters cross‑sector coordination across local organizations, state actors, and national networks. With a focus on developing the data capacity, policy awareness, and sustainability structures needed for long‑term impact, the work seeks to catalyze community‑driven ecosystems capable of improving persistence and completion for underserved learners. This portfolio is not currently accepting letters of inquiry.