Innovation Funds

The College of the Redwoods Foundation provides funding for faculty, staff, students, and members of the community to create innovative projects through three Presidential Innovation Funds. The funds were established to support the College’s Mission by providing grants for projects which impact one or more of the initiatives in the College of the Redwoods’ Education Master Plan.

Frequently Asked Questions

For All Innovation Grants

Can applicants provide additional documentation outside of the application form?
If the application questions are all identified and answered in order, applicants may use a separate document to pull together their responses.

How long are the Innovation Grant funds good for?
CR's Presidential Innovation Grant funds must be utilized within eighteen months of receiving the award. After eighteen months, unused funds may have to be returned to the CR Foundation.

For Economic Development Grants

What is meant by "positive economic impact on both the Redwoods Community College District and the community" in the Economic Innovation Grant application?
The Economic Innovation Grant application requires thoughtful estimates of the expected fiscal impact of a given project for both CR and for the community.

How often can one apply for an Economic Innovation Grant?
One can apply once every eighteen months for an Economic Innovation Grant.

For Faculty & Staff Grants

Can College of the Redwoods students receive remuneration through Innovation Grant funded projects?
Yes, College of the Redwoods students potentially can receive remuneration through Innovation Grant funds given they are hired as a student employee of the district to work on a staff or faculty innovation project.

Are faculty and staff able to receive stipends through Innovation Grant funded projects?
Currently stipends for faculty and staff are not available.

Will Deans and/or Vice Presidents be made aware of Innovation Grant applications in their respective areas?
Yes, Deans and/or Vice Presidents will be made aware of applications in their respective areas. The Foundation encourages applicants to discuss potential innovation projects with their supervisors before submitting.

How often can one apply for an Innovation Grant?
One can apply once a semester for an Academic or Staff Innovation Grant.

CR PRESIDENTIAL INNOVATION GRANT AWARDEES
as of September 2025

Economic Innovation Grant Awardees

Fall 2022                     Lost Coast Ventures                  Entrepreneurship Mentoring Program

Mentoring, direction, and experiential learning for aspiring CR entrepreneurs with novel early-stage, scalable business ideas. Through Lost Cost Ventures (“LCV”), we will provide entrepreneur mentorship to faculty, students, and staff who attend either CR or Cal Poly Humboldt.  Your donated funds will be deployed to directly fund deserving entrepreneurs associated with either CR or Cal Poly Humboldt.  LCV’s Board of Directors will make all such funding decisions.  LCV's staff are comprised of seasoned technology business executives and faculty or staff serving at CR and/or Cal Poly Humboldt. LCV staff also leverage their personal networks as well as local resources like SBDC to deliver persistent and meaningful engagement to aspiring entrepreneurs. For more information, please see our website at www.lostcoastventures.com

Fall 2022                     Trevor Hartman                          E-Club Creation

Through cross-disciplinary cooperation, we will unify business, information technology, and manufacturing students into a triad of disciplines joined together under an e-commerce umbrella, where they will learn to identify products of value, scale manufacturing, track and acquire sales leads, develop marketing strategies, learn SEO and targeted advertising, deliver real value to customers, all while exceeding operational expenditures.

Fall 2023                     Nursing Program                        Cohort Expansion

Enhance the infrastructure necessary to expand CR’s nursing program by enabling the addition of a new student cohort each year.

Sring 2023               True North                                    Partnering w/Multicultural Center Mentoring Program

CR’s Multicultural Center will partner with True North Organizing Network to pilot a yearlong Student Success program for twelve 7th-12th grade students from historically underrepresented communities in the Eel River Valley who wouldn’t normally see themselves pursuing higher education. This initiative will provide intensive, cohort-based support for students’ academic and social-emotional development over the course of the entire school year with the goals of preparing students for high school in a culturally affirming environment and ensuring they graduate well prepared for college at CR and Cal Poly Humboldt and/or workforce opportunities.

Academic Innovation Grant Awardees

Fall 2022                     Valerie Elder                                 Carbon Mapping

CR’s school forest can be part of climate solution by developing a peer reviewed carbon offset pilot project positioning us for collaborative partnerships. Using the standardized inventory methodology from the Climate Action Reserve, students will be trained to quantify carbon sequestered in the College of the Redwoods school forest. The Project Team consists of CR Forestry and Natural Resources Faculty Maddie Lopez, Tim Baker and Valerie Elder, and Cal Poly Humboldt Forestry Professor Pascal Berrill, forest manager Kevin Boston, and Climate Action Analyst Morgan King. This project includes faculty development of the pilot plan and description, student training, and paid work experience. The results will be a proof of concept for a collaborative offset projects that provides educational and research opportunities for students, faculty, and staff.

Fall 2022                     Karen Reiss                                   History Collection Cataloging

The project aims to prepare the online database for the College of the Redwoods Natural History Collections (CRNHC) to be converted to the publicly available Arctos system. The CRNHC includes over 8,000 specimens of plants and animals. Arctos is a publicly accessible online platform for natural history collections. CR would be one of the first community colleges in the state to have a publicly available collection. With the CRNHC available on Arctos local educators and environmental organizations could view our holdings and borrow suitable specimens while the greater scientific community would be apprised of valuable research-grade specimens. Students will be involved in the work of ground truthing the database to real specimens, preparing the database for Arctos conversion, and preparing informational materials and loan forms for community members.

Fall 2022                     Ruth Rhodes                                Story Map for Faculty Work

Proposal that CR creates a "storymap" that graphically illustrates full-time faculty work. Working with The Grove, a Bay Area consulting firm that specializes in graphic facilitation, a core group of CR stakeholders from both the Administration and the faculty would create a detailed visual representation of the work full-time faculty do throughout the academic year--and when they do it.

Spring 2023               Katie Terhaar                               Large Tank for Marine Samples

Providing a 50-gallon cold water, saltwater  aquarium to temporarily house organisms from the local marine environments would increase the educational experience of many CR students. The above-identified aquarium would allow students the opportunity to observe and interact with live species in the classroom environment. Living representations of nearly all taxonomic phyla are available in our local intertidal marine environments, therefore ensuring abundant species for collection. The tank would also provide additional opportunities for some students to gain experience in marine organism husbandry and tank maintenance.

Spring 2023               Levi Gill                                           Design Thinking Workshop

Host a one-day Design Thinking Workshop. Students will be introduced to the concepts of design thinking through a guided, firsthand experience with community partners who will bring their expertise and engage the students in work with a challenge that the community partner(s) are familiar with.

Spring 2023               Reed Elmore                                Native American Running Camp

Develop a running camp for Native American Students that utilizes running to help teach environmental science along with Native Traditional Ecological Knowledge. This camp intends to form community around running and science that will support the creation of a more robust local native running community.

Fall 2023                     Shannon Sullivan                        Stand Our Ground

Stand Our Ground Next Time 2.0 - College of the Redwoods has been the site of legendary Karuk artist Brian Tripp's Stand Our Ground Next Time since 1996 when he constructed the driftwood and found object sculpture behind the old Creative Arts complex. Before his death in 2022, Brian Tripp made it clear to family and fellow artists that he wanted his works to be restored when needed. The family decided the sculpture should be located within a similar proximity to the new CR building. We have an opportunity to partner with Alme Allen and Pimm Tripp-Allen, who are Brian Tripp’s family and are the caretakers Tripp's (BDT) art estate. Our students will collaborate with their instructor, Ben Funke, to assist Alme, Pimm, and a crew of select native youth to restore, and reinstall this sculpture at the new location. Specifically, our students will receive a background lecture from Alme and Pimm providing context for the project while outlining the career of Brian Tripp and sharing some of the sacred customs and ideas of Karuk culture that are communicated through BDT's work. Students will work alongside Alme to dig and polish rocks, resurface wood, categorize, label, and sort both stones and wooden parts. Professor Funke and his students will assist Alme and the native youth volunteers in carefully putting the pieces back together during the installation process. 

Spring 2024               Valerie Elder                                 Carbon Mapping Project

The Chancellor’s office’s climate and sustainability policy requires the college to inventory and plan for our impact on the environment. Our school forest can be part of climate solution by developing a peer reviewed carbon offset project positioning us for collaborative partnerships. Using the standardized inventory methodology from the Climate Action Reserve, students will be trained to quantify carbon sequestered in the College of the Redwoods school forest. The project team consists of CR Forestry and Natural Resources Faculty Valerie Elder, Cal Poly Humboldt Forestry Professor Pascal Berrill, forest, and Climate Action Analyst Morgan King. This project includes expansion of our pilot to formalize and continue with inventory of the school forest, expand student training and paid work experience. The results will be a proof of concept for a collaborative offset projects that provides educational and research opportunities for students, faculty, and staff.

Spring 2024              Shannon Sullivan                        Kiln Building Course

Create an opportunity to invite CR students, Cal Poly Humboldt students, our mutual alumni, the existing students enrolled in CR's Adult and Continuing Education Veterans Clay Class and interested community members to participate in the re-construction of the CR wood fire ceramics kiln at the new Creative Arts Complex. 

Fall 2024                     Evan Hatfield                               Accessibility Capacity Project

Through experimentation with tools and presentation of professional development, the Accessibility Capacity Project would strengthen College of the Redwoods’ capacity to provide two vital interpretive services for students with disabilities: Closed captioning, which is an essential service that is required by law to present the audio content of a video to people who are deaf or hard of hearing; it also has the universal value of benefiting numerous other identities, including students with learning disabilities, students with cognitive disabilities, and students for whom English is not their primary language. And image description, another essential required service, which is the description of visual content in a manner that makes it accessible to students who are blind or have low vision.

Staff Innovation Grant Awardees

Spring 2023               Ashley Mitchell                           Equipment for Café

There is a need to improve technology in the Cafe to meet students’ expectations. A self-service kiosk set up in the Cafe would allow students to order on their own without cashier assistance. A self-service kiosk will eliminate waiting time and allow students to order food even when they have limited time in between classes as they will not have to wait in cashier lines. A payment cube is a way to improve the overall payment experience in the Café for students, staff, and faculty. A payment cube allows contactless payment, as students can swipe, tap, or insert their own card for payment. The payment cube also allows for Apple payment which the Cafe currently can’t accept as we do not have a payment cube. Barcode scanners would speed up the time per transaction at the Cashier station. If each cashier had a barcode scanner, they could scan each item instead of having to search the POS for each item. This would speed up each transaction, creating shorter waiting times. 

Spring 2023               Gustavo Vasquez                       3D Printer Learning Lab

Maker Spaces are popping up in educational institutions, as well as in community settings. This kind of space allows students and community members to be exposed to and learn about new technologies, as well as build skills related to fields in STEM (sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics). Rural low-income communities, like Del Norte County, provide little-to-no access to items like 3-D Printers or Maker Spaces. By funding this Maker Space project at College of the Redwoods Del Norte, it would provide additional ways for students and the community to learn about possibilities and related pathways there are to technology. Additionally, the Maker Space will provide an opportunity for students to better connect with their college campus, college experience, and with other students on campus.

Fall 2024                     Montel Vanderhorck                Virtual Internships

Rural communities lack many opportunities for work-based learning which can be found in larger population centers. As part of a regional project-in-common, Virtual Internships (https://www.virtualinternships.com/) are now available for up to four CR students per year at no cost to CR. The CR Career Center will work with key faculty to oversee recruitment, intern selection, and guide students throughout the process. VI Internship supervisors and success coaches offer additional support throughout the internship.