A new scholarship initiative by one of Central Iowa’s oldest foundations is spurring increased donations by employers to help low- to moderate-income students of color and those who are first-generation college enrollees in private colleges and universities across the state.

Last fall, the Iowa College Foundation quietly launched the DEI Opportunity Challenge. Using a seed grant from its parent organization, the Council of Independent Colleges, ICF added some of its own funds and secured sponsorship commitments from three major Iowa employers — Kent Corp., MidAmerican Energy Co. and Principal Financial Group.

The result was approximately $75,000 of matching funds that the foundation has used to raise the same amount in new or increased contributions from 40 corporate donors. The $150,000 in targeted scholarship funds will be allocated to the foundation’s 23 private-college members to augment their diversity, equity and inclusion scholarship programs. Scholarship recipients must be from low- or moderate-income families who are students of color, and/or the first in their family to attend college.

“I think we tapped into what I would consider to be one of the strongest areas of interest for many companies and most of our donors,” said Ed Finn, president of the Iowa College Foundation. Founded in 1952, the foundation has a significant base of corporate supporters from across the state, many of them contributing for multiple decades.

The foundation’s flagship scholarship program, the Let’s Keep Iowa Students In Iowa Scholarship Challenge, has operated since 1989 with a broad approach of assisting any student with financial need who plans to attend one of its 23 member institutions. In a typical year, more than 70% of students from those private colleges remain in Iowa after graduation.  

With the pandemic lingering over the past two years, the level of corporate support had dipped as business conditions became more challenging, Finn said.

“This fund has helped to bring us back up and above what we were raising,” he said. “The companies that we’re sharing this with have been very supportive — I would say they’ve more than exceeded our expectations, and that’s why we’re going to continue this fund at least through next year as well next fiscal year and then maybe beyond that, if we are able to still see that kind of interest.”

All but two of the gifts were from corporate donors, along with two checks written by executives on behalf of their companies, Finn said. The foundation purposely avoids seeking individual personal contributions, as it believes alumni should contribute directly to their alma mater.

The foundation plans to distribute every dollar raised through the new scholarship challenge to the 23 schools, using a formula in which 60% of the money will be distributed equally across all of the institutions, while the remaining 40% will be distributed based on student enrollment, capped at the first 2,000 students at each college. Most of the funding is expected to be distributed this spring to enable the schools to award the initial scholarships in the fall.

Going forward, the foundation has already gotten interest from other Iowa companies that would like to become co-sponsors next year, and Finn said he is hopeful that ICF will be able to expand the initiative in the next fiscal year.

“We do have some funds available here at the foundation that are reserved for special projects like this,” he said. “Most of the match dollars that we receive, we try to do most of that by finding co-sponsors. So we’ll probably go back to the three that we have this year, and then we’d like to add some as well. Again, I’d like to see this fund continue to grow and become larger.”

For more information about the DEI Opportunity Challenge, contact Ed Finn by email at ed@iowacollegefoundation.org or by calling the Iowa College Foundation at 515-282-0473.