Grants
All grant applicants must be educators/adminstrators/employees of the School District of Waukesha with a district email. Students, parents, parent groups, and district community partners are not eligible to apply for grants through the WEF.
The 2024 Grant Window will OPEN on Monday, February 12, 2024 and CLOSE on Monday, April 8, 2024 at 11:59pm.
2024 Application Link
This link will be live on Monday, February 12, 2024. In the meantime, please feel free to review the resources available on this page to prepare for your grant request.
Please see the Grants link on the right side of this page for a list of our previous winners!
In 2023, the Waukesha Education Foundation, Inc. was pleased to present a record breaking $50,000 in grants. This is not possible without donors and supporters who make it possible. The available grant dollars for 2024 will be announced in February.
Our funds come from a variety of generous donors & donor advised funds, including restricted and unrestricted funds, managed by the Waukesha County Community Foundation, where WEF has been designated as the beneficiary of these funds.
Special thanks to:
Grace & Merlin Birk Fund
Schmidt Family Fund
Sally Jo Michalko Fund
Wiesner Family Fund
WEF Business Fund
Bob Duckett Memorial Fund
Rupple Fine Arts Fund
Ken Hollub Memorial Fund
Kristine K Diener Technology Fund
Van Beek Library Fund
South HS Alumni & Family Fund
WEF General Endowment Fund
The WEF is also the beneficiary of a the Casual for a Cause fundraising program run through the School District and district staff. We appreciate the positive impact this program has on our ability to fund additional grants each year. 100% of the donations from this fundraiser go right back to classrooms in the same granting year. We love the concept of teachers helping teachers!
In addition, grants are funded through the fundraising efforts and endowed funds run by the Waukesha Education Foundation, Inc. Special thanks to our business partners, donors and supporters, as well as our volunteer Board of Directors and volunteers.
In 2024, the WEF has once again received an additional gift from Generac Power Systems, via our Classroom Connect program, which provide additional funding to fund STEM related grant requests.
THANK YOU!
(Want to get involved? Call us at 262 970-1143 to learn how to help us impact classrooms across our District)
Grant Seeker Resources
Waukesha Education Foundation Grant Program Information
To support the Foundation so that even MORE educators will hear the words "YES! You've been funded!" please visit our donations page or sign up to attend one of our upcoming events! (Please see our event list on our website)
Each year in the early spring, the Waukesha Education Foundation solicits grant applications from teachers, administrators, and staff with proposals for programs for the following school year.
The Foundation awarded its first grants for the 2004-2005 school year. Since its inception, WEF has granted over $445,000 to support projects and initiatives that directly benefit the students of the School District of Waukesha and over $330,000 in scholarships for graduating seniors.
We encourage all district faculty and staff to consider a proposal! Proposals are reviewed by a sub-committee of the Foundation Board.
Successful proposals will meet the following criteria and objectives:
That they be of a dollar amount that is reasonable to fund given the dollars available to fund grants
That in total, programs impact as many kids in the district as possible
That there be evidence of need for the program
That the proposal is clearly articulated and is feasible within the grant timeframe
That the program show promise of sustainability beyond the period of the grant
That the programs have a clear objective that is aligned with the target areas of funding for the Foundation
That there be clear measures of success for the programs
That to the extent possible, the grants be spread across grade level, school and department within the district, also considering previous recipients of grants in previous years
That the grants are in alignment with District standards and policies and not funding activities that should be covered by ongoing district operating budgets.
Recommendations are made to the full board in May, and grant awards for the following year are then announced. All applicants will receive word after the process is completed. If you have questions, please contact our Grants & Scholarships Chair.
What happens if my grant request is declined?
While we would love to "say yes" to every eligible request that we receive each year, we unfortunately are unable to do so. Given that we have limited resources, some requests will not receive funding from WEF. We usually receive requests for triple the amount we have to award. It is a very competitive process.
You will be informed via email in late May if your request was declined. You will then have the opportunity to meet with our Grants Committee Chair to discuss why your application was declined and gain some helpful insights that you can use when writing future grant applications. We want to be able to support your great ideas, and sometimes a few edits or improvements can make a difference in the overall quality of an application. It is also helpful to review the scoring rubric while writing your request so you can make sure you address all of the pieces that are scored.
If your request gets declined, please don't be discouraged from submitting an application in the future! We encourage you to try again. You can choose to apply the following year using the same grant request with some edits/changes made or submit an entirely new request for a different project. If you need a copy of a previous grant request (from the last few years), please call our office.