Grants for Students
The Entrepreneurship & Innovation Hub @ USF helps fund students' projects across any level, discipline, or degree – to translate their ideas into action.
Microgrants
Microgrants are small grants provided to individuals or small groups of students. We offer microgrants of up to $500 for students to ideate, research, prototype, test, and build their ideas to create real-world projects. All ideas, regardless of size or development stage, are encouraged to apply for funding. If you use the initial funding, you're always welcome to submit another request.
Examples of what microgrants can be used for include:
- Ideation & Research
- learning skills
- conducting interviews, surveys, observations
- Prototyping & Building Projects
- Tools, equipment, and materials
- Specialized software
- Testing Ideas
- Online ads
- Experiments
- Product testing incentives
- Usability testing
- Implementation
- Fabrication
- Production costs
- Registering organizations
- Legal templates and trademarks
Past Microgrants have funded:
Prototyping a wildfire monitoring system for fire risk assessments.
User testing an affordable, high-quality egg waffle pop up offering both traditional Hong Kong style and experimental flavors
Gaining financial traction for an AI-powered, gamified financial literacy platform that helps Gen Z build financial confidence
Research & ideation for a social media platform for home cooks to share their culinary creations and receive personalized recipe recommendations
Implementation of The Period Equity Project: A campus initiative providing free, sustainable menstrual products and educational workshops to eliminate period poverty and stigma at the University of San Francisco.
User testing a student-led food recovery initiative that redirects campus food surplus and unused flexi dollars to address food insecurity in the broader San Francisco community.
E&I Funding for USF Clubs
The E&I Hub is excited to support student-led club events that help our community build entrepreneurial skills and make a positive impact. Student organizations with ideas for events that promote these skills and opportunities may apply for funding of up to $3000.
To qualify for funding, the event must:
- Be open to a broad student community at USF, allowing your organization to provide a service for all, not just something for your members.
- Give students access to entrepreneurial skills and opportunities such as networking, public speaking, creative thinking, learning to pitch ideas, hackathons or workshops to prototype of build ideas, or other related skills
- Takes place within the academic year (fall or spring)
Once E&I approves your grant, sign this agreement to finalize your collaboration with the E&I Hub.
Frequently Asked Questions
The E&I Hub welcomes anyone with an idea. It does not have to be fully conceptualized before joining.
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The turnaround time to apply for a student club grant is based on a rolling basis. Please submit the request sooner rather than later as it can take time to review.
After submitting the micro grant it can take…
Yes, we will reimburse you for your expenses. Please fill out the form and reach out to Johnathan Cromwell (jcromwell@usfca.edu) with your questions/concerns.
You can begin working on the stages of your project using the money you requested to help with jumpstarting your project.
Please spend money wisely. As stated in the micro grant form or student club form we had you fill out what you will be using the money for. We hope that you use the money for what you requested within the form.
Our grants for student clubs are not going directly towards the club itself but for the event that you plan to have. Your event should encompass the E&I Hubs mission since we are funding the event.