Grant Opportunity: Academic, and Innovation, and Mentoring Program (AIM)
by Danielle Baer | | Posted under
The Washington Academic, Innovation, and Mentoring (AIM) program was created to provide afterschool and summer programs that include educational services, social-emotional learning, mentoring, and recreational activities for youth who are six to eighteen years of age. In 2015, AIM was enacted through a budget proviso. Boys and Girls Clubs received the grant that supported programming in five sites (you can read the program report here). This year Senate Bill 5258 passed the legislature placing AIM into law and legislators included a slight increase in funding at just over $350,000 for the biennium.
The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) recently announced the availability of $178,000 in funding for the AIM program. OSPI anticipates making 1-3 grant awards to nonprofits with a statewide network of eligible neighborhood entities that will provide out-of-school time programs for youth ages 6-18 that include educational services, mentoring, and linkages to positive, pro-social leisure and recreational activities. Please note that grants are not available to individual local programs, but to organizations that have a network and will support those programs. Applications are available through OSPI’s grant application system, iGrants, through form package 738 - https://eds.ospi.k12.wa.us/iGrants/.
OSPI anticipates making 1-3 grant awards to applicants that meet the following eligibility criteria:
- Are exempt from taxation under Title 26 USC Sec 501(c)(3).
- Provide after-school and summer programs with youth development services.
- Provide proven and tested recreational, educational, and character-building programs for children ages 6-18.
- Have an existing infrastructure or network of eligible academic, innovation and mentoring neighborhood youth development entities that will serve as operating sites.
Neighborhood youth development entities serving as operating sites must offer programs that provide out-of-school time programs for youth ages six to eighteen years of age that include educational services, social emotional learning, mentoring, and linkages to positive, prosocial leisure, and recreational activities and:
- Ensure that 60% or more of the AIM participants qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.
- Have an existing partnership with the school district and a commitment to develop a formalized data-sharing agreement.
- Be facility based.
- Combine, or have a plan to combine, academics and social-emotional learning.
- Engage in a continuous program quality improvement process.
- Conduct national criminal background checks for all employees and volunteers who work with children.
- Have adopted standards that, at a minimum, include staff ratios, staff training, health and safety standards, mechanisms for assessing and enforcing the program’s compliance standards.
The AIM grant is now open, but closes Monday, August 28th. If you have any questions about the grant, please contact Cara Patrick at OSPI at cara.patrick@k12.wa.us. If you want to know more about the AIM program and related advocacy generally, please contact David Beard at dbeard@schoolsoutwashington.org. Good luck!