Mini-Grants

Occupational & Life Skills students raise their hands in class.

What Are Mini-Grants?

BC Foundation Mini-Grants are open to faculty, staff, and administrators and are given to support ongoing projects, one-time projects, and new programs that may not be eligible for support through other college funding sources. Preference is given to projects that are consistent with the college’s strategic plan, as well as the President’s and Foundation’s priorities and goals. The program is funded by donors to the BC Foundation, including many BC faculty and staff.

The Foundation funds Mini-Grants in the following areas:

  • Instructional Enhancements: computers, software, website development, maps, research, books, guest speakers, etc.
  • Community Engagement: workshops, lectures, events that promote BC and its students within the community, etc.
  • Faculty/Staff Professional Development: workshops, conferences, etc.
  • Special Projects: priority projects that do not fit into the three previous categories.

Mini-Grants fund projects and programs across campus. They have proven to be an essential avenue of support for projects and programs that department budgets do not have the capacity to fund on their own. Staff and faculty apply for these grants using an annual application process.

The 2024-25 Mini-Grant Application closed in November 2024 and awardees were announced in December.

The 2025-26 Mini-Grant application will open in Fall 2025.

Additional Application Information

Awards range from $300 – $3,000, and applications are open to all College employees. If selected, funding is available from January 1st through December 31st of the following year.

Preview a PDF of the entire application here.

Have a question? Contact us at foundation@bellevuecollege.edu.

And the Mini-Grant Goes to…

Congratulations to our 2024-25 Mini-Grant recipients and thank you to all who applied! Mini-Grants are one of the Foundation’s signature programs and we are proud each year to read about our staff and faculty members’ inspiring projects.

The Academic Success Center (ASC) requests funding to create and install a student-made mural representing the major student diversity groups on campus. This project aims to enhance the ASC’s aesthetics, making it more inviting and reflective of Bellevue College’s diverse student body. This initiative aligns with BC’s strategic goals of promoting student success, equity, and inclusion by creating a welcoming environment that celebrates diversity and fosters student engagement.

Liz Warfield – Academic Success Center

This mini grant will be used to obtain a certification in ADHD to better support OLS students and their executive functioning needs.

Justin Sanders – Occupational & Life Skills (OLS)

This project will bring two animation artists from the PNW, to campus to give master classes on the visual and audio design, as well as a community film screening of their work, in May of 2025. Event is prepared for students in Arts and Humanities division, the Digital Media Art program, various campus student clubs, prospective students and their families, and the general community.

Li Liu – Communication Studies

This funding request is for the purchase of 2 large Arboretum zonal signs, welcoming community members to the space and educating on plants located there. These signs will enhance the Arboretum, help define the zones, and raise awareness about the Arboretum’s locations on campus.

Branden Ellsworth – Campus Operations

Sara Holzknecht – Office of Sustainability

The project will support the cost of attending the National League for Nursing Summit focused on the use of artificial intelligence in nursing education. The conference will support professional development and innovation to use AI in curriculum development, virtual simulation, simulation and exploring strategies to build global student/faculty connections using virtual reality to internationalize curriculum.

Teaessa Chism – Nursing

In the 2025 issue, Bellezine, the literary zine published by students at Bellevue College, will feature multilingual poetry and prose as well as essays and other creative works that explore the theme of language. This grant will allow us to increase distribution to 1200 copies in order to showcase student work, integrate writing about language across the curriculum, and support student zine-making in collaboration with the Library Media Center.

Cassie Cross – English

To construct a relevant, accessible battery of tests that align with course objectives and are consistent with rigor, approach, and, the following work will be engaged: Identify appropriate texts at course level and Lexile level; Confirm accessibility and legal use of texts; Develop tests that are consistent with each other and with other exit tests in terms of: Theme, Length, Number of questions, Type of question.

Glenn Jackson – Center for HS Programs

Teaching Squares are a coaching and reflection professional development model. This project creates faculty member teaching squares and funds a facilitator to design and facilitate the teaching squares. Partipants will create inclusive learning environments as a result of this project which will benefit faculty, students, and the community.

Mandie Mauldin – Faculty Commons

This Mini-Grant will fund the establishment of an outdoor recreation component for the BC Wellness program that introduces salmon fishing and crabbing to the BC community. Fishing offers students an opportunity to unplug, create meaningful connections, build self-esteem, and overall improve their quality of life. This request for funding would help in the purchase of fishing/crabbing equipment to be able to guide small groups of students, faculty, and/or staff on salmon/crab excursions in the waters of our beautiful state.

Ricardo Chavez – Mathematics

With the return of the Florestan Ensemble, this Mini-Grant will fund a multi-day musical experience that will engage both Bellevue College music students and the campus/Bellevue community at large. The proposed activities will include a public score reading of original music composed BC student composers, a public panel discussion with the ensemble members focusing on collaboration & interpersonal skills with Q & A, and ending with an evening performance by the ensemble.

Brian Cobb – Music

The human fossil record is consistently growing as new finds are made and new discoveries are made public. This grant request is to update the BC Anthropology Department’s Fossil record collection with several new fossil casts that have become available over the last couple of years.

Anthony Tessandori – Anthropology

Interactive eLearning will send our team to Instructurecon, Instructure’s (Canvas’s) annual conference that brings together thousands of educators, instructional designers, instructional technologists, and IT professionals to discuss trends in education, ed tech, AI, data, and Canvas. The July 2025 conference will be in Spokane, WA. Given its location, we anticipate that all other SBCTC eLearning teams will be represented.

Betsy Zahrt Geib – Interactive eLearning

This Mini-Grant will fund our OLS College Bound event, an outreach resource fair hosted by OLS geared towards providing valuable information and resources for students with disabilities pursuing a college education. Funding will cover costs for parking reservations, event staff, space rentals and event incidentals.

Jessica Salak – Occupational & Life Skills (OLS)

This Mini-Grant will fund staff attendance at the Umoja Learning Institute, a 3 day event in Northern California, to learn from the Umoja Community the practices and philosophy of Umoja in order to better support Umoja staff, faculty and students.

Adria Harris – Student Affairs

PBL is a recognized high-impact practice that improves student success and prepares students for further education and future jobs by practicing skills such as collaboration, time management, and public presentations. This Mini-Grant will provide funding for faculty to participate in a PBL workshop.

Katie Austin-Miranda – English

The Social Justice Center (SJC) is a brave space that offers Bellevue’s Faculty, Staff, and Students strategic resources that leverage opportunities to inspire courageous dialogue, initiate relationships, celebrate a diversity of identities, listen, learn, and build partnerships toward a socially just community. This Mini-Grant will fund the purchase of wire shelving, a mini-fridge, and a pull-cart for resources to offer the students who frequent the social justice center with a stocked and provisional snack center.

Hasaan Kirkland – Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Voices of Action: A Climate Themed Living Documentary is a mini conference planned for Fall 2025.  It will flow from speakers telling their environmental journey about problem-solving issues for climate justice. The event will offer educational opportunities and workshops that promote Bellevue College and its students within the community. We will examine how local residents are impacted by Climate change, discuss solutions, and bring awareness to Bellevue College’s Climate Action Plan.

Nancy Lane – Earth & Space/Life Sciences

The Voices of BaTS podcast will spotlight the journeys of students from the BaTS department, focusing on their pathways from English language learning to academic and career success. The podcast will amplify BaTS students’ voices, inspire current and future students, and underscore the significance of college pathways in supporting student achievement.

Weina Sun & Timothy Chang – Basic & Transitional Studies (BaTS)

Last Updated December 18, 2024