Apply for Grants

The Campus Microfinance Alliance is pleased to announce the availability of capacity-building grants up to $5,000 for student-powered microenterprise organizations.

Download the grant application

Access the grant guidelines, timeline, and requirements in PDF format.

Grants will be disbursed throughout the year on a rolling basis. Please allow 60 days for review of your application.

If you have any questions about the grant application process, please contact Alliance staff at grants@campusmfi.org.

Eligible Recipients

All grant applicants must provide either microloans or business training and technical assistance (or both) and must rely on university students for a significant portion of the organization's leadership and operations.

Grant Amounts

If you have served... You may apply for up to... Possible uses of funds
No clients*
(or you haven't launched yet)		 $1,000 Market research (i.e. focus groups), printing
Between 1 and 10 clients* $2,000 Office rental, equipment, marketing, consultants, summer staffing
At least 10 clients* $5,000 Office rental, equipment, marketing, consultants, summer staffing
*Note: we define a client as an individual who has received financing or at least 10 hours of training or technical assistance.

Timeline and instructions

Applications are to be submitted electronically in Word or PDF format via e-mail to grants@campusmfi.org.

There are two separate application forms — one for start-up organizations that haven't yet served a client and another for existing organizations. Please be sure to complete the appropriate form. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us via e-mail at grants@campusmfi.org.

Grant Application for a Start-up CampusMFI

This application is only for organizations that have yet to serve a client ($1,000 maximum grant). Please complete the application in a new document. If you are an established organization please fill out the "Established Campus MFI Grant Application"
  1. Starting a student-led MFI can be difficult. Tell us about your core team of students and your plan for recruiting, training, and retaining student staff.
  2. How will you find clients?
  3. What will your program look like in two years?
  4. What products and services do you plan on offering? Include details about pricing, service delivery, and target market.
  5. When will you launch?
  6. List all current and potential funders (with amounts, status, dates, and use of funds).
  7. How much are you requesting? What will the funds be used for? How will they impact your organization and its future clients? Please provide a detailed budget.
  8. Provide a timeline for deploying the funds from this grant over the next 6 months.
  9. What are the concrete milestones you'll hit over the next 6 months before launching? What are the potential obstacles to meeting these goals?
  10. List three (not student-run) organizations that you have strong relationships with in your community, along with a detailed description of your partnership, and a contact person and phone number for each organization.

Grant Application for an Existing CampusMFI

This application is only for organizations that have served at least one client ($5,000 maximum grant). Please complete the application in a new document. If you are a start-up organization please fill out the "Start-up CampusMFI Grant Application"
  1. What month and year was your organization established? Give a brief synopsis of its history.
  2. How many clients have you served in the last 12 months? In the last six months? In the last month?
  3. How many students are involved with your organization? What is their average hourly commitment per week? Give some examples of roles and responsibilities of students on your team.
  4. Partnerships. List three (not student-run) organizations in your community that you have strong relationships with. Provide a detailed description of your partnership, a contact person, and phone number for each organization
  5. Training and TA. Provide a description of the training and technical assistance services you provide, including topics covered, curriculum used, pricing, format, venue, and duration. How many clients have received training/TA in the last year? How do you evaluate the success of your training/TA services?
  6. Lending. Provide a description of your loan programs (interest rates, terms, amounts, underwriting standards, application process). How many loans have you made in the last year? What is the dollar value of those loans? What is your repayment rate?
  7. Target market. Describe your target market in detail (i.e. low/low-to-moderate income, ethnicity, gender, etc.). Provide context for your target market in relation to the general demographics of your community.
  8. Other funders. List all current and potential funders with amounts, status, dates, and use of funds.
  9. Mission. Please provide a copy of your mission statement.
  10. Budget. Please provide a copy of your organization's annual budget, along with a detailed description and accounting of how you would use the grant proceeds.
  11. Client story. Please provide an anecdote about how you helped one of your clients, including how you met her, how long you've known her, what services you provided, and how it helped her.
  12. Attachments. Please provide as many as are applicable or available: Loan application, training application, curriculum sample lesson, outreach materials, business plan.