OVERVIEW: The Voya Foundation, an offshoot of Voya Financial, supports STEM education for grades K-8 and financial literacy for grades nine to 12. It supports workforce readiness and career opportunity programs as part of its overall mission to promote financial resilience throughout the United States. The foundation also awards grants to U.S.-based disaster response and relief organizations that work within the United States and abroad.
IP TAKE: Voya is an approachable corporate funder that does not often award multi-year grants to the same groups. Educators and schools should make their projects dynamic, innovative, and student-centered to make it through the application process.
PROFILE: The Voya Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Voya Financial, formerly ING U.S., an investment and insurance company based in New York City. The foundation seeks to make “a meaningful difference in the community by investing in a focused and impactful way” and “support programs with well-defined metrics and measurable outcomes that all work toward the same goal – to help create financially resilient youth.” Its funding initiatives are K-8 STEM learning and financial education curricula for grades nine to 12. However, this corporate funder is also a strong supporter of disaster relief efforts abroad.
Grants for K-12, Higher Education and Work Development
Voya makes STEM education grants to “help youth prepare for the changing talent and skill needs of the employment landscape” and promote “readiness for the 21st-century workforce.” It supports “high quality, experiential STEM learning opportunities for children in grades K-8,” as well as “STEM training and education opportunities to current or aspiring K-12 teachers.” The company’s Financial Literacy supports organizations that provide “financial literacy curriculum to students in high school (grades nine to 12)” that teach young people how to “navigate life’s financial milestones,” such as student debt, credit, home ownership, “investing and understanding of financial products and services,” and family financial planning.
The Voya Teacher Voices program’s grantmaking “reinforces the fact that teachers are leaders by elevating the teaching career, recognizes high-achieving educators, provides training opportunities to expand educator expertise, and grants funding for educators to pursue innovative curriculum design in the classroom.” It also houses the Classroom Grants program and Teacher of the Year award. Finally, the Voya Unsung Heroes award works to help “educators and their schools fund innovative classroom projects.” The Voya Scholars, which supports “students attending institutes of higher education.”
Grants for STEM Education
The Voya STEM Futures program is “focused on providing students in grades K–8 with the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) knowledge vital to be competitive in the 21st century workforce.” It partners with the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) to provide grants to science museums “to develop meaningful, innovative and sustainable programming that has a direct and measurable impact on a child’s interest in pursuing STEM degrees and careers.”
To get a better idea of the types of organizations the foundation supports, grantseekers can look over Voya’s previous grantees here.
Grants for Humanitarian and Disaster Relief
Voya does not have a grantmaking program dedicated to disaster relief, but taxes show that it makes grants in this area. Like most funders of this category, the foundation responds to acute needs wherever disasters occur and does not earmark its funds for disasters that occur in specific regions of the world. According to the foundation’s website, every year it hopes that disaster relief funding will not be necessary, but is “prepared to help our neighbors and employees when a crisis strikes.” The grantmaking focus for Voya sits squarely on natural disasters rather than those with man-made causes, such as conflict.
Though Voya has awarded disaster response and relief grants of $1 million, most tend to stay in the $50,000 to $250,000 range. The foundation largely awards large U.S.-based organizations that work abroad, such as AmeriCares, International Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity and UNICEF.
Important Grant Details:
Voya STEM and financial education grants are awarded in amounts greater than $2,5000. The foundation supports large, national nonprofits as well as many smaller, local organizations. Application for Voya grants is by invitation only. Grantseekers can make general inquiries via the foundation’s contact page.
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