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Grants & Funding

Second Boot's funding strategy is mixed: federal grants, state allocations, corporate philanthropy, and local community foundations. The blueprint identifies high-fit and medium-fit opportunities below. None are confirmed; all are research targets for the program's funding lead.

Fit assessments are research, not commitments

[HYPOTHESIS] Fit ratings below reflect alignment between Second Boot's design and stated funder priorities as of program blueprint v1.0. Funder priorities shift, eligibility rules change, and deadlines move. Verify all opportunities before committing time to an application.

High-fit opportunities

Funder Program Typical award Why fit
FCC E-Rate / ConnectEd Varies Direct match: school/library technology access
IMLS Grants to States $10K–$500K Direct match: digital inclusion in libraries
Microsoft TEALS / Philanthropies $5K–$50K Direct match: CS education in underserved communities
WV DHHR Community Services Block Grant State allocation Direct match: services to low-income individuals/families
DOJ / BJA Second Chance Act $300K–$1M Direct match: reentry programs for formerly incarcerated
AT&T AT&T Believes $10K–$100K Direct match: criminal justice reform + workforce dev
Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation (WV local) General community grants $5K–$75K Start here — local funder, fits multiple program aspects

Medium-fit opportunities

Funder Program Typical award Notes
Google.org Impact Challenge $250K–$1M Highly competitive; fit is real but selection rate is low
SAMHSA Various grants $200K–$1M Substance-use-adjacent; Second Boot is digital literacy, not treatment — fit must be carefully framed
Verizon Forward for Good $10K–$250K Digital inclusion; corporate priorities shift year to year

  1. Start local. Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation or equivalent WV local funder. Faster turnaround, more forgiving evaluation, builds local champion network. [HYPOTHESIS] Local funder traction makes federal applications more credible.

  2. Federal entry point. WV DHHR CSBG via the state allocation process — Second Boot fits the existing CSBG service categories cleanly and the state-level review is more accessible than direct federal competition.

  3. Specialized federal. Once one cohort is running with documented outcomes, Second Chance Act becomes credible (requires the program to actually have served reentry participants, not just plan to).

  4. Corporate philanthropy in parallel. AT&T Believes, Microsoft Philanthropies, Verizon — these don't depend on federal sequencing, run on their own cycles, and produce devices or cash directly.

  5. Google.org and major nationals last. These are 1-in-100 selection rates. Apply when there's a real track record to point to, not before.

Application principles

Drawn from the BNI grant strategy and the Epistemic Honesty directive:

  • Honest framing of what's proven vs. hypothesized. Year 1 targets in Impact & KPIs are planning hypotheses; do not present them as projected outcomes. Funders sophisticated about evidence will read sloppy claims as a credibility problem.

  • Theory of Change with citations. Where research literature supports a Second Boot design choice (e.g., digital inclusion correlated with employment outcomes), cite the research. Where Second Boot is hypothesizing beyond the literature (e.g., "earned not given" framing improves retention), label it as the hypothesis it is.

  • Workforce numbers are real. Workforce Development creates documented paid roles for marginalized adults — this is a strong differentiator vs. pure device-distribution programs. Lead with it for funders who care about employment.

  • WV-rooted, not WV-limited. Second Boot is designed to be replicable. Don't frame it as a one-city project for funders who care about scale; do frame it as locally rooted for funders who care about community embedding.

  • No grant submitted without Kevin's review. Per BNI AI Use Policy — Claude Code drafts grant content but does not submit it.

Funder research workflow

For deeper research on any opportunity, use the BNI Grant Intelligence agent:

Agent({
  subagent_type: "general-purpose",
  prompt: "Working in /Users/kevincrump/source/bignerdidea/big-nerd-idea/.
  Read docs/resources/grant-strategy.md and docs/programs/second-boot/grants.md.
  Then: [specific grant task — e.g., 'draft a 2-paragraph LOI summary
  for IMLS Grants to States framing Second Boot against their stated digital
  inclusion criteria', or 'verify Second Chance Act 2026 application
  deadlines and eligibility requirements as of [today's date]'].
  Be specific about what is validated vs. hypothetical in our claims."
})

Per the BNI directive: agent output is research input for human grant writers, not submission-ready material.

In addition to cash grants, Second Boot actively pursues:

  • Corporate IT laptop donation programs — recurring inflow of devices via formal retirement pipelines (target: 2–3 ongoing donor companies in Year 1)
  • Software licensing waivers — not currently needed (open-source stack), but available for niche tools (e.g., Adobe for the creative track if it grows)
  • Volunteer hardware tech mentors — IT professionals willing to spend 4–8 hours/month at the makerspace mentoring trainees
  • Venue and meals for graduation ceremonies — local partner contribution

In-kind contributions are recorded and reported with the same discipline as cash grants — they are part of the program's funding model, and they are credit-worthy to the contributors who provide them.