ST. LOUIS — The Opportunity Trust, a grantmaking nonprofit, has launched the $100,000 Reinvention by Community Fund. Grants of $2,500 to $10,000 will be allocated to local educators for projects “outside of the scope of going back to a more normal version of school next year.”
Applications for grants will be accepted through August 13.
This fund will be the first by the organization to use a “participatory grantmaking model.” This means the grants will be distributed based on decisions made by a committee of Black and brown community members, rather than by Opportunity Trust executives.
Mia Howard, an advisor with Opportunity Trust, explained the decision to create this committee of community members.
“For us as an organization, we recognize that … we were doing a lot of our philanthropic investments in really traditional ways that maintain the status quo in terms of power and who has the ability to influence the decisions that shape our school system the most,” she said.
“And so a lot of the last year has been about learning new models and unlearning old models of grant making.”
The granting committee will include three St. Louis-area students, Howard said, “which we’re very excited about.”
Potential projects of interest, Howard said, could be focused on aspects of schooling from emotional health and wellness to new uses of time in the school day.
“Teachers may need additional training and development on how to build learning environments that focus on emotional wellbeing and health and wellness for students,” she said.
“We’re recognizing that the school systems across the country, not just in St. Louis, were not designed for the 21st century. They're often from a factory era of industrial learning.
“We could see innovations for how time is used in the school day. We need to build in tutoring programs during the school day or beyond the school day.”
After the grantees are announced in late August, they are expected to put their funded projects into action this fall — and to share what they learn with the broader community.
“We're going to be convening grantees throughout the fall, to share what they're learning from these projects,” Howard said.
For more information, visit www.theopportunitytrust.org