The Community Foundation for Monterey County manages over 50 scholarship funds, with a total value of more than $8 million. Over the last four years, their scholarship giving grew from $375,000 to over $1.4 million, for the benefit of about 375 students.
In 2016, the Community Foundation began to focus on awarding strategic needs-based scholarships designed to support low-income students who will be the first in their family to attend college. This shift was supported by funding and technical assistance from the College Futures Foundation. They also began to work with more employers to grow and manage scholarship programs for employees and their children, including:
- Church Brothers – True Leaf Farms Scholarship Fund
- Raymond H. Costa Family Scholarship Fund
- Henry Hibino Memorial Scholarship Fund
- The Morse Foundation Scholarship Fund
- Taylor Farms Scholarship Fund
- The Club at Pasadera Scholarship Fund
Finally, the Community Foundation invested in a new online scholarship application that allows students to complete one application and be automatically matched with the 45+ scholarships in the system. This dramatically simplifies the application for students and helps the foundation to more efficiently manage the selection process.
