Motorola Solutions Foundation

The Motorola Solutions Foundation offers grant opportunities that help schools

incorporate different innovations among other things. They specifically award schools grants that

apply for science, technology, engineering and math. We are searching for grants that would

allow us to get coding devices and a 3D printer. After reviewing our needs assessment we

decided that the grant offered by Motorola fit the criteria we needed and we felt like this grant

would be a wonderful opportunity.

After researching the grant further we were able to find out some important details about

the grant. In order to be eligible to even apply for the grant you need to write an inquiry paper

first. When I clicked on the link to obtain the inquiry form and to find out about what needed to

be in the form, it immediately told me that they are no longer expecting inquiry forms for the

2018 grant cycle. The deadline for the inquiry form was on February 2, 2018. Here is the

message it shows you when you try to pull up the form:

If you complete the inquiry form and you get approved, the application deadline to receive the

grant is April 16th, 2018. They will choose the winner of the grant sometime at the end of July in

2018. The grant does not state a minimum requirement of what you can request when filling out
your application but does have a maximum of $50,000 you can apply for. While we were looking

at the grant opportunity there did not seem to be any glaring information on whether there were

any restrictions on how to use the money. They did list some priorities that they look for when

awarding grants though. The priorities that stood out to us included that it had to reach girls and

underprivileged populations, help teachers improve the teaching of STEM, they wanted the

technology to be hands on, and the give higher priority for middle school through college.

Another priority that stood out to me is they like to award grants that are close to one of their

Motorola locations. There happens to be a location in Linthicum, MD. We emailed the

organization just to ask a few more questions. Here is the email we sent to the foundation in

order to receive more information. We did not get a response, but that could be due to the fact

that the inquiry form is past due. Here is the email:

As a group we discussed some pros and cons for applying for this grant. The first con we

came up with is that the inquiry form is already past due and we would not be able to apply until

next year. The organization also stated that they do give priority to middle schools, high schools

and colleges. We all work in elementary schools. This could be hindrance if we apply for the

grant.
 We also found some major pros to this to this grant. The first being that they award up to

$50,000. That is a lot of money and our schools could afford to not only get 3D printers for our

Makerspace rooms but also we could get a ton of different programing and coding devices. All

of our school fit all the priorities they are looking for except that we work at elementary schools.

They also do not seem to have many restrictions on how you spend the money. That could be a

pro. That could essentially mean it could be up to our school’s discretion what we use the money

for.

Overall this grant opportunity seems to a good option and meets our needs assessment

with acquiring a 3D printer for our schools along with getting coding and programing devices.

Here is the link to the grant opportunity and the diverse list of past winners.

https://www.motorolasolutions.com/en_us/about/company-overview/corporate-

responsibility/motorola-solutions-foundation.html . The PDF files for the past US winners and

International winners are on the left hand side of the website. Some of the winners include

code.org (which I know another member of our cohort is focusing on), CodeNow, INC, Girls

Who Code and Girlstart. These are just a few of the many winners. A lot of the international

winners seem to have been awarded grants for disaster relief and public safety. Whereas a lot of

the US winners seem to be more STEM related. I also want to share the screen shot of where you

can find the deadlines, priorities and where you can get the inquiry form:
 Honda the Power of Dreams

As our group was looking at different grant opportunities for our schools, we came across

the Honda power of dreams grant. The grant they provide is awarded to nonprofit organizations

who want to improve STEM education. This is exactly what our schools are looking for.

We wanted to research the grant further to make sure it fit our needs assessment. While

we were looking for deadlines the only thing that it said was that you were allowed to submit one
request in a 12 month period. They award anywhere from 20,000 to 75,000 over a one year

period. In order to even apply for the grant you need to pass an eligibility quiz. Here is the link to

the eligibility quiz:

http://www.cybergrants.com/pls/cybergrants/quiz.display_question?x_gm_id=2587&x_quiz_id=

1338&x_order_by=1

After you take the eligibility quiz you are allowed to apply for the actual grant. We took the

eligibility quiz and it did say we qualified to apply for the grant. This proved that the Honda

grant met our needs assessment. We are able to apply for the grant in order to get 3D printers and

coding devices for our school. Even though we passed the eligibility quiz we were not able to tell

if there were any restrictions on spending. They would not give you much information unless

you pass their eligibility quiz.

At first glance this looks like an awesome grant for our schools to apply for. The budget

is nice and high and would allow for us to get everything we need in order to incorporate 3D

printers and coding devices. Some cons I see with this grant is it is not easy to tell if your school

qualifies for the grant or not. You can take a quiz to see if you qualify but it is not a simple

process. Even when you pass the quiz it is not exactly easy apply for the grant. They also did not

make it clear what the restrictions are on spending if you ended up getting the grant.

In order to find out more about the grant we emailed the foundation. Unfortunately, we

did not hear anything back. We are not sure why we didn’t hear anything back. It did not seem

like the grant opportunity had expired or anything. Here is the email we sent:
He

Here is also a few other links and screen scots about the grant. Here is the link to the actual

grant:

https://www.honda.com/community/applying-for-a-grant

Here is the timeline for submitting grants and when they award the winners:
They accept applications for grants three times a year.

The Honda power of dreams foundation also accepts supported materials such as DVDs,

brochures, newsletters, articles and etc. Here is the address to send those extra Materials:

American Honda Foundation

1919 Torrance Blvd.

Mailstop: 100-1W-5A

Torrance, CA 90501

After, passing the eligibility quiz we think in would be a wonderful opportunity to apply

for the Honda foundation dream fund, It would give us the capital we need in order to buy the

materials we needed for our Makerspace rooms.