Nine community colleges from across the nation came away from the 8^th Annual Conference of the National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship (NACCE) with a total of $107,400 in possible funding from Elevator Grants provided by the Coleman Foundation, a private, independent grantmaking foundation whose interests include entrepreneurship education.

Elevator grants are small grants targeted to specific projects. Targeting specific projects, and not general operating support or capital, encourages new initiatives and allows the funding impact to be more easily identified. Each winning school received a base grant of $7,500, totaling $67,500 granted to the nine colleges. Then, this year for the first time, entrants were encouraged to generate financial support from entrepreneurs in their communities by December 1, 2010. The Coleman Foundation will match these funds up to a maximum of $5,000 per college, meaning the individual schools were eligible to receive as much as $12,500 from the foundation.

"The matching funds aspect of this year’s competition was quite exciting,” says NACCE Executive Director Heather Van Sickle. "Encouraging the grant seekers to obtain financial support from their local entrepreneurs adds a strong element of entrepreneurialism to the grant process. The winners did a terrific job at this as can be seen by the matching funds they earned.”

Colleges receiving grants from the Coleman Foundation were: