Career Launch Grant

View full Request for Proposal

Please review the entire request for proposal for all the specific grant rules and requirements.

Organization/Applicant Eligibility

Non-profit organizations - 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4), and their partners who are committed to increasing the availability of scholarship dollars for Colorado students, leveraging COSI funds to incentivize new philanthropic monies, and promoting student support best practices aimed at completion are eligible to apply. 

Use of Funds:

Scholarships should not be intended to supplant federal, state, local or non-federal funds. Scholarships should provide support for significant funding gaps in cost of attendance to help close the affordability gap for students pursuing postsecondary credentials. To maximize COSI, the matching funds, and support students across the state, students should only receive scholarship funds from one COSI grant per academic year. 

COSI recommends the use of the Last Dollar Plus model in the awarding of funds.

Program Participant Criteria

• Participants must demonstrate financial need:
  • This can be determined using Pell eligibility a must be between 0 and 100% or between 101% and 250% of the maximum permissible income to determine eligibility for Pell grants.
  • If you are unable to determine a student’s eligibility using FAFSA, the COSI Eligibility Verification Guidance is a resource for alternative ways to ensure a student meets the financial need threshold.
• Colorado residents for tuition purposes (includes ASSET students);  students); 
• Attending public area technical colleges, community colleges, four-year institutions of higher education, and research institutions in Colorado.
• Funds can be used for a student’s Cost of Attendance.

Grant Term

Grant terms are two years in length. COSI has the following grant term requirements:

• For 2025-2026 awards, grantees will be required to start disbursement of their funds no later than Fall 2027 and complete spending funds by June 30, 2029.

Grant Awards

Career Launch grants are competitive. Funding will be contingent upon annual appropriations by the State Legislature and any other further discretion at the jurisprudence of the grantor. The Career Launch grant requires that both the COSI award and matching funds serve the same student population. Funded proposals will be eligible for continued funding in the subsequent years of the grant cycle after successfully demonstrating the following: 

• Submission of all required evaluation materials. 
• Adequate progress toward successfully meeting annual objectives; and
• Full matching and distribution of scholarship funds as outlined in the agreement; and
• Completed annual report to demonstrate fidelity to proceed in subsequent years.
  

All proposals must be submitted by the date(s) indicated in the Timeline section. The proposal consists of the areas outlined below: 

Proposal-consists of seven sections and can be accessed in the COSI portal. A Proposal Review is provided in this RFP. 

1. Organization Information
2. Program Design
   • Essentials-COSI’s minimum eligibility requirements and any criteria set by the organization that a student must meet to receive a scholarship.
   • Pick The Focus- Identify any of the grant priorities you intend to support and the credential type. 
   • Pick The Grant Timeline- identify the grant term, including start term, length, and first semester funds will be disbursed.
   • Scholarship Type- Is your scholarship renewable? If so, what are the requirements for scholars to renew?
3. Scholarship Disbursement & Payment Schedule
   • Scholarship Disbursement – Share plan to disburse funds for each year of the grant term. 
   • Payment Schedule - This will be automatically generated by based on how you plan to disburse funds as outlined by the scholarship disbursement table. This schedule will be generated for every proposal, but will only apply to those disbursing funds to students prior to June 30, 2026. 
   • Reporting Deadlines – Determine your reporting deadlines based on when you distribute scholarships 
4. Narrative: Detail your strategies in each of the following areas. This section will be graded on a scale. 
   • Program Focus
   • Program Goals
   • Student Support
   • Matching Funds
5. Reporting Requirements-acknowledgement and commitment to reporting requirements
6. Assurances- certify acknowledgment of assurances.
7. Letter(s) of Support (Optional)- Share support from industry partner or organizations.

COSI encourages organizations to familiarize themselves with the requirements, process, proposal process, and attend the informational webinars and proposal support sessions outlined in the Timeline section.

• Late or incomplete proposals will not be accepted.
• For assistance, please review the proposal the informational webinar and attend proposal support opportunities if you have questions. 
  • Access the FAQ document and submit questions to cosi.info@dhe.state.co.us.
• Proposals are accepted via the COSI portal.
  • Complete the portal registration at any time. For support contact: Marie Snow at marie.snow@dhe.state.co.us.
  • If the organization has a SurveyMonkey Apply account, please use that account to apply.

All proposals submitted to the Colorado Opportunity Scholarship Initiative and the Colorado Department of Higher Education are public records and should not contain confidential data. CDHE is subject to the Colorado Open Records Act and must release full proposals when requested.

Proposal Evaluation

• Career Launch Proposals will be evaluated using the scoring rubric in the Request for Proposal.
• Career Launch Scholarship Grant proposals will be reviewed using the process defined in Rule 2.03. 
• Career Launch proposals are competitive and will be reviewed by the COSI staff, the cross-department team, and the COSI Advisory Board. 
• COSI staff will review to ensure the proposals contain all components required by the request for proposal and align with COSI strategic plan and goals. 
• The cross-department team will present final recommendations to the COSI Advisory Board.
• The COSI Advisory Board will make final decisions regarding grant recipients and award amounts.
  • If the organization is a current or prior grantee, the Board will consider the organization’s successful completion or progress toward the identified goals and outcomes in their review.
  • In the event the total amount requested by competitive proposals exceeds the available funds, COSI staff will use a normalization scoring process to determine the maximum amount each applicant can receive. This will be presented to the COSI Board, with the Board having the authority to make the final decision.

Proposal Review Process

After the initial proposal deadline, COSI will offer Technical Assistance (TA Support). During this process, COSI Staff will review all proposals and reach out to the applicant contact with questions and suggested edits. This process allows COSI to make sure that your proposal addresses all the questions properly before it is scored. 

Please consider the following;

• All proposals must be complete. COSI will not review or move any proposals forward that are not fully completed. 
• Applicants with have a second deadline in which their proposals will be opened back up for edits. 
• It will be the applicant’s responsibility to go back into the proposal portal and make edits. 
• Applicants that do not make edits by the deadline will be moved on to scoring as is. 

Please carefully review the proposal timeline as late submissions and incomplete proposals will not be accepted. 

View the Proposal Informational Webinar which is a recorded session that walks you through the grant and proposal process. COSI staff will also be available to answer your questions in our series of Proposal Support Sessions listed in the table below. 

• July 8, 2025, at 2 pm Registration
• July 24, 2025, at 10 am Registration
• August 4, 2025, at 10 am Registration

• August 12, 2025, at 1 pm Registration