Catalyst Fund
Scaling What Works
The NASH Catalyst Fund encourages broad engagement of system members in sharing promising practices that are leading to equitable student success outcomes scalable to fellow systems.
Its impact will be far-reaching but the concept is simple: through pooled philanthropic support, NASH can recognize and incentivize the development of our members’ big ideas that, once proven to work, have the potential to be scaled not only across a single system but amongst peers around the country.
The first round of the NASH Catalyst Fund included $275,000 to recognize hotspots of best practices that demonstrate interventions that are already underway and proving to be successful with the potential to have a catalytic impact in meeting NASH’s measurable goals.
P-20 Partnerships Request for Proposals
NASH is excited to announce the launch of a new request for proposals for a Catalyst Fund aimed at identifying, expanding, and assessing innovative approaches to P-20 collaborations. The Catalyst Fund aims to lift up examples of “systemness” that advance educational opportunity and excellence through collaborations that span the educational continuum from pre-K through postsecondary education. NASH is seeking examples of meaningful partnerships between pre-K-12 and postsecondary entities from across the nation that demonstrate efforts to “seed, test, and scale” what works to advance student success. This RFP emphasizes the inherent interdependency between P-12 and postsecondary systems of education in effectively preparing the workforce and engaged citizens of tomorrow.
For more information, read the P-20 Partnerships RFP. Completed submission forms and all supporting documentation should be sent to Catalyst@nash.edu by 12:
Read the P-20 Partnerships RFP
Respond to the P-20 Partnerships RFP
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Refugee Resettlement Initiative Rolling Request for Proposals
Through this Rolling RFP, we are looking for NASH member systems to nominate interventions that represent positive deviance emerging at the system office and/or one or more institutions and is related to the Refugee Resettlement Initiative (RRI), which is a strong example of how our members can leverage systemness. Positive deviance is an approach to behavioral and social change based on the observation that in any community, there are people whose uncommon but successful behaviors or strategies enable them to find better solutions to a problem than their peers, despite facing similar challenges and having no more resources or knowledge than their peers.
Student Group Eligibility
Attention students: Your work on the ground matters, and we want you to share your successes with the world. The NASH RRI invites student groups to apply to the Catalyst Fund, to build out initiatives on their campuses in support of refugee inclusion. We know being a student leader is hard work, and we want to make it easier to spread your work not only with your classmates but with student leaders across the U.S.
*Student-led groups, clubs, associations, or organizations that are institutionally recognized and in good standing are eligible for funding. Like all applicants to the Catalyst Fund, student groups should be nominated by their system leadership to apply, and the system must submit the application on the group’s behalf, as outlined in the “Proposal Submission” section. We recommend reaching out to your college or university student affairs office as soon as possible!
Catalyst Fund FAQ's
