The AAACF Community Scholarship Program: A Strategic Approach to Building Community

A hands-off, donor-driven approach in general has been common among community foundations; for scholarships, this results in programs that tend to focus on rewarding merit or fund students who might otherwise still have access to college. The Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation's new approach presented donors with other options including one designed to address disparities in degree attainment and focused on impact. The new Community Scholarship Program provides multi-year scholarships to students who are first generation, from low-income families, and youth of color, pairing each with a College Success Coach. This article outlines the program and concludes with recommendations for other community foundations interested in addressing disparities in access to college and degree attainment.