Foundation Awards $416,700 in Impact & Seed Grants, more than $900,000 to Date

Grants focused on increasing access to STEM training and developing hire-ready job candidates

The Encantado Foundation recently announced the recipients of their 2023 Impact Grant during the opening session of the New Mexico Tech Council’s 2023 Summit held in Albuquerque, NM. The grantmaking organization has selected three recipients of their Impact Grants: Adelante’s Development Center’s DiverseIT which received $100,000; Cultivating Coders, which received $156,950; and Santa Fe Community College’s PROTEC program, which received $91,000. The Foundation has also awarded $68,750 to the Computer Science Alliance’s QCaMP. Now in its second year of grantmaking, The Encantado Foundation has distributed more than $900,000 to organizations that help to cultivate a hire-ready digital workforce and increase access to technology careers in Central and Northern New Mexico.

“The Foundation received a tremendous number of applications for very exciting and innovative projects geared toward strengthening our local high-tech eco-system and growing the STEM workforce in Central and Northern New Mexico,” said Jay Galvan Heneghan, Executive Director of The Encantado Foundation. “We are very proud to support these very worthy projects via our Impact Grant program. In addition, our new Board-directed Seed Grant Program will serve as a mechanism for funding additional projects that align with our mission but may not fit the criteria of either our Impact or Community-Based Grant Programs.”

Organizations seeking funding through The Encantado Foundation must be a non-profit in good standing and must serve either Central New Mexico, Northern New Mexico, or both. Priority is given to projects that help to increase the representation of women, people of color, native people, or people with physical or other limitations in the high-tech workforce. More information about The Encantado Foundation’s grantmaking programs and funding priorities can be found at www.theencantadofoundation.org.

• Albuquerque-based Adelante Development Center received $100,000 to help cultivate a STEM workforce among people with developmental and other disabilities through its DiverseIT training program which provides an Intro to Tech training track and a Google IT Certification track. Adelante seeks to provide a continuum of services to program participants, such as job coaching and job readiness skills.
• Cultivating Coders, the recipient of a $156,950 grant, will use the funding to support its award-winning project-based IT certification bootcamp. Learners will earn CompTIA A+ certification during an 8-week course for up to 21 diverse participants from underrepresented communities in STEM careers.
• Santa Fe Community College’s PROTEC program, which received a $91,000 grant, will prepare students for jobs key to expanding New Mexico’s Broadband and Fiber Optic network by training students outside of Santa Fe and Luna Counties via its Fiber Optic Technician Training Program.
• The Computer Science Alliance received $68,750 Seed Grant to support its QcaMP, a week-long camp aimed at the high school level, in which students are introduced to quantum computing concepts. Separate
  programs for high school teachers train them on how to infuse their STEM curricula with Quantum
  concepts as well.

About The Encantado Foundation:
The Mission of the Encantado Foundation is to stimulate the development of hire-ready candidates for STEM-related positions, particularly in the areas of cyber security, application development and management, and IT operations. It seeks to foster the professional development of individuals who wish to be a part of the digital workforce — including those from underrepresented communities in tech careers such as women, people of color, native people, and people with physical limitations — while also reshaping the way that workforce resources are acquired by technology-related employers. More
information can be found at www.theencantadofoundation.org.

About Adelante Development Center:
Adelante is a nonprofit organization that supports people with disabilities, seniors, and disadvantaged populations by providing employment, residential and day services, and other community resources. www.GoAdelante.org. DiverseIT is a program of Adelante that is encouraging and building diversity in tech, especially for people with disabilities, seniors, people of color, and people with disadvantages. DiverseIT is addressing the digital divide with training, from the basics to high level certifications, and by providing free computers to people with disabilities and nonprofits in our community.

About Cultivating Coders:
Cultivating Coders was created to provide technical education to underserved rural, tribal, and inner-city areas where resources are not currently available for this type of training. Cultivating Coders provides hands-on training opportunities for all students, everywhere, within their home communities. By increasing access to technology, and sparking the untapped potential of young New Mexicans, Cultivating Coders aims to increase quality of life by laying the foundation for both short and long-term social and economic benefit. Its model was built to provide technical training on everything from basic digital literacy all the way through high-level Computer Science education to youth who are often left out of the tech sector. Specifically, Cultivating Coders offers customized and cutting-edge training courses in web development technologies to ensure students are always learning the optimal curriculum for success and employability upon completion. Their complete calendar of camps can be found at www.cultivatecoders.com

About Santa Fe Community College:
For more than 35 years, Santa Fe Community College has been the gateway to success for individuals and the
community by providing affordable, high quality educational programs that serve the social, cultural, technological, and economic needs of a diverse community. SFCC is a designated Best for Vets and Military Friendly school. The college serves more than 12,000 students per year in its credit, noncredit and adult programs. For more information about the PROTEC program contact SFCC Continuing Education program at 505-428-1676 or ce@sfcc.edu.