After award, grant dollars will be provided as reimbursements based on monthly reimbursement requests (known in the grants portal as Financial Status Reports). In cases where this arrangement creates hardship, institutions may inquire about receiving an initial advance. Institutions should request an advance after receiving notification that their grant has been selected for an award but before the grant agreement is signed.
There is no budgetary match requirement. That said, the presence of matching dollars can increase the strength of a proposal. For example, community partners committing some of their own resources to a Community Action Grant project shows a strong level of buy-in and collaboration. A college covering some costs of a project that is part of a College Success “Go Big” grant demonstrates that there is strong institutional support and real capacity and intention to make the program sustainable after the end of the state grant.
We understand that plans can change, especially in a multi-year grant. Changes to the budget amounts, if the budget categories remain unchanged, of up to 5% of the award amount are allowable without a budget amendment. Changes of more than 5% of the award will require a budget amendment.
The Office of Sixty by 30 may approve additional eligible expenses. The easiest way to explore options is to ask about your particular ideas during a weekly office hours session. (Visit the grants webpage for updated times and Zoom links).
The strongest applications will create benefit across the institution. This may include benefits that are felt by all students, regardless of whether they are from Michigan or elsewhere. That said, it is unlikely that a successful College Success grant will have an exclusive focus on one of those groups of students. For the Barrier Removal—Direct to Students grants, the State is not prohibiting that funds would benefit out-of-state or international students, although if they are to be the focus, the college will need to make a strong case that those are the students with the greatest need, as intended by the program.
Funding infrastructure/facilities improvements is certainly not the primary goal/intent of this program. That said, facilities improvements are not prohibited as an eligible expense. A successful grant application that includes facilities improvements will make a strong case that the facilities upgrades will lead to stronger completion rates (not just, for instance, room for more students to enroll in a program without improving the completion rate).
For the first four categories of College Success grant, personnel are eligible expenses in certain situations. It is not the State’s intention to fund projects where staff that are actually needed on a permanent basis are funded temporarily with these grants, nor where new staff are in roles that are considered pilots. For instance, grant applications focused on growing an advising team without a true post-grant sustainability plan are unlikely to be awarded. On the other hand, creating a temporary position to carry out or oversee the project, when the project is truly about helping the institution undergo a transformation, would be eligible.
If a college seeks to fund new, permanent positions with one of the Student Success grants, one way to strongly demonstrate a plan for sustainability is to scale down the percent of the staff member’s salary that is covered by the grant over time. For example, a college could use the grant to cover 80% of staff time the first year, 50% the second year, and 25% the third year, increasing the institutional support each year to fill the difference.
Please do note that stipends for staff who are taking on additional work for this project are supported and encouraged. Relatedly, funding for a temporary staff member whose role is to oversee a transformational project for 2-3 years would also be supported. The theme is that funding can be used for staff to support the intensive processes related to institutional change, not the ongoing work of general operations.
The response to this question is different for the Reconnect Community Action grant. For the Reconnect Entry Point Program, staff time is an expected cost, especially if it is aligned toward growing the strength and alignment of the collective effort. In the College and Career Navigators Program, staff are expected to be the primary expense and there is not a similar burden to prove sustainability as exists for the other four categories of grants.
The answer to this varies for each grant category, as described below. Please note that some costs that might be considered administrative are eligible separate from indirect costs, and should be broken out (for instance, a portion of a person’s salary to manage the program).
Yes. Grantees will submit reimbursement requests through the EGrAMS portal using the provided forms (Financial Status Reports). Financial Status Reports are required to be submitted monthly, even if no funds were expended for the month (in this case $0 would be submitted in each category on the report).
