KickStarter is an NSF sponsored technical assistance program that prepares community-college Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) to compete successfully for federal funds intended for student recruitment, retention, transfer, and completion in STEM fields. KickStarter provides HSIs with a blueprint to build and sustain a strong STEM foundation, augmented with innovations in STEM education.  These innovations may involve culturally relevant pedagogy, undergraduate research experiences, project based learning, service learning, equity, diversity and culturally responsive practices, advising, mentoring and non­academic support systems, and STEM academic structure and related support systems, to name a few.

 The program begins with an application to KickStarter, which uses NSF guidelines, and helps applicants develop sustainable approaches grounded in STEM. Next, KickStarter uses the STEMx™ endorsed STEM Pathways Model and Guide to assist community colleges in assessing their STEM capabilities, developing strategies that take into account these capabilities and increasing recruitment and retention of students in STEM career and transfer pathway programs.  KickStarter then guides participants in developing evidence-based and knowledge-generating research project(s) proposals. 

The KickStarter website contains the training and resources provided to four cohorts of 2-year HSIs to develop STEM Plans, identify STEM research concepts and define competitive STEM proposals to NSF. It also includes links to recordings of cross cohort meetings that represent HSI Community interactions and topics of interest, where KickStarter HSIs shared challenges and practices used to increase the success of Latinx students in STEM. 

This resource is useful if you are seeking to establish a strategic, sustainable STEM outlook at your institution, a portfolio of STEM education research prospects, or structure to help develop specific research ideas into strong research projects to submit for federal funding.  It can be used in self-service mode, within a KickStarter Cohort, or as a fee-for-service model if high touch technical assistance is desired outside of an NSF-sponsored KickStarter Cohort.

Keywords: KickStarter, HSI, Hispanic, Hispanic Serving Institution, STEM Strategic Plan, STEM Assessment, Research Study Approach, RSA, Proposal Writing, Competitive Proposal Writing, NSF Proposal, Professional Development, Culturally Relevant, inclusive, equity, undergraduate research experience, STEM academic structure, non-academic support, mentoring,  HSI community, Latinx, Latino, intellectual merit, broader impacts