Student Success Mini-Grant Program

Program Overview 

The Cal Poly Student Success Mini Grant Program provides funding to faculty, staff, students, university departments, and colleges across both the SLO and Solano campuses to develop, strengthen, or expand programs and practices that measurably advance student success.

Grounded in the CSU Student Success Framework, the program is designed to help translate Cal Poly’s institutional commitment to student success into action by investing in innovative, student-centered approaches that improve the academic, co-curricular, and broader university experience.

The program serves as a vehicle for aligning and advancing Cal Poly’s existing student success initiatives, including its work as an emerging Hispanic Serving Institution, the Black Student Success Initiative, and other strategies focused on implementing efforts aligned with the CSU student success framework across the university. Projects should contribute to improving student access, achievement, belonging, persistence, career readiness, degree completion, and continued education.

Purpose 

The program is intended to: 

• Support strategies that align with Cal Poly’s Hispanic-Serving Institution and Black Student Success Initiatives. 
• Accelerate implementation of the CSU Student Success Framework at Cal Poly. 
• Generate promising practices that can be assessed, strengthened, and potentially scaled across colleges, divisions, and the San Luis Obispo and Solano campuses. 
• Build a stronger culture of shared responsibility for student success across the university. 

Removing Barriers to Student Success 

Projects should identify and address institutional, financial, procedural, linguistic, accessibility, or cultural barriers that make it more difficult for students to access resources, participate in opportunities, navigate the university, or progress toward their educational or career goals.

Examples may include:

• Programs or events rooted in the Servingness Framework.
• Development of communications or programming geared towards advancing translation, interpretation, and multilingual resources.
• Efforts aimed at enhancing access and equity in advising, financial aid, academic support, career services, and student services.
• Student-centered projects that foster cross-cultural engagement, holistic student development, and pathways to leadership, careers, and continued education.
• Programs or educational resources that increase every student’s ability to experience an inclusive, accessible, and intentional learning environment.
• Projects that use student feedback, participation data, and outcome measures to identify needs, refine programs and services, and improve equitable outcomes.

Eligibility  

All Cal Poly faculty, staff, and students including individuals, registered student organizations, departments, and units are eligible to apply.  

Faculty and staff must be employed full-time or part-time, and students must be enrolled for the 2026–2027 academic year.  

Faculty and staff must submit applications by the mini grant deadline for mini-grants ranging from $1,000–$5,000. Student applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis for mini-grants ranging from $500–$1,500 until all available funds have been awarded.  

We welcome applications from both the San Luis Obispo and Solano campuses.  

Timeline 

Sept 10 – Applications open  

Sept 30 – HSI Mini-Grant Writing Workshop during Adelante 2026  

Oct 9 – Student Success Mini-Grant Student-Facing Workshop  

Oct 11 – Application deadline (for faculty and staff) 

Oct 13 – Student Success Mini-Grant Selection Committee reviews applications  

Oct 26 – Recipients are selected and notified  

Application Process 

Applications for the 2026 to 2027 academic year are open; the deadline for faculty and staff to submit is October 11, 2026, at 11:59 pm. We will accept student applications on a rolling basis until all available funds are awarded.  
 

 CLICK HERE FOR THE APPLICATION FORM