The Challenges of Funding STEM Outreach
From Megan Rokop
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always found that the single biggest challenge of running a STEM outreach program is funding. Before I launch into the challenges of the field, let me first say that there is no question what the best thing is – the people. Obviously the students are amazing (I mean, if you don’t love interacting with students, this field is not the best choice for you!). But something I hadn’t thought about before joining the world of STEM outreach was how I was about to join the most wonderfully supportive group of colleagues out there. So I do want to take a moment to give a huge kudos to all of my fellow outreach folks, who are invariably kind, thoughtful, inventive and hard-working. Between them and the students, being in this field is truly a delight for me on a daily basis.

Now that we’ve all warmed our hearts, I will return to the topic at hand. My hope is that compiling possible challenges in funding in this way will be helpful to those thinking about starting a STEM outreach program, or thinking about how to approach a new round of post-pilot funding. To that end, below are my thoughts on what makes this the biggest challenge of an otherwise glorious field.

Challenges that are independent of specific funding mechanisms:

• Out of all the different ways one can do STEM outreach, the most expensive ones are often the most impactful but the least scalable. For example, hands-on lab experiences are clearly inspiring to students, but are some of the most expensive experiences from a perspective of money spent per person reached. A lot of funders are wowed by numbers of people impacted, even though the extent of impact for different activities varies greatly.
• Measuring impact of a STEM outreach program can be incredibly hard. Because the students are young, it requires long-term tracking of outcomes and influences on the student that are not easily quantitative. Of course, just because something is hard to measure doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it. But it does mean that it takes extensive (and thus expensive) evaluation processes to compile enough data to document the impact we are having.
• STEM outreach is a rapidly growing field containing a lot of small programs, so it can be hard even to figure out which programs are already in the area, and which niches they fill. Having mechanisms to learn about each other and get together will promote the formation of collaborations that will help each program accomplish more than they could alone.
• STEM outreach is a relatively new field, so there aren’t a lot of models yet for long-term sustainable funding of such a program.
• STEM outreach programs often occur outside of school (afternoons, weekends, summers), but this is when low-income students are working so that they can contribute to their family’s income. Thus we must think very carefully about how to engage students in ways that allow equal access to these students, as to other students who do not need to earn money during their time outside of school. Providing stipends is one mechanism for this, but is an expensive option.

Challenges with grants from government agencies and other very large organizations:

• Many of the big science outreach grants out there – the ones that are in fact large enough to implement lab-based hands-on programs – are funded by organizations like the NIH and NSF. However these organizations are research-focused, and thus typically fund grants centering on researching the efficacy of education & outreach programs, not the implementation of them.
• There seems to be a trend that these big funders are moving away from K-12 and focusing more on older audiences who are considered to be trainees rather than students. This appears to be a response to the difficulties of measuring impact of K-12 outreach programs (see my comments above). Despite these difficulties, it is critical to remember that this pool of trainees will be larger, the more mechanisms there are to inspire them to go into science in the first place.

Challenges with private & corporate foundation grants and donations:
I personally commend any foundation and donor who takes on the challenge of STEM outreach. Things to consider when pursuing funding from those thoughtful and brave enough to take the plunge include:

• It is wonderful to fund exciting new efforts, but it is also wonderful to fund the more seasoned programs that have a history of success through evaluation, and have been shown to be “tried & true.” A frequent occurrence in science outreach is that a wonderful program is funded for its pilot, and then maybe one or a couple of subsequent rounds. But once the program is established and respected, funding options for its continuation become limited without proposals of large-scale program changes or expansion.
• STEM research grants tend to be very large, but education grants tend to be small. When considering grant size for STEM outreach, therefore, it is important to note that funding hands-on lab-based efforts are going to be expensive. Some physics & engineering hands-on activities can utilize generalized work spaces, but most biology & chemistry activities require expensive lab surfaces & spaces for both use & storage of reagents.

Challenges with mandatory outreach components of research grants:
A recent trend of research grants is to include a mandatory outreach component. The basic principles behind this are highly commendable, but some challenges do result:

• This system puts decisions about STEM outreach into the very talented but very busy hands of research professors who are focused on many tasks all at once (research, mentoring, teaching, and now providing K-12 STEM outreach opportunities). It is hard enough for those in the STEM outreach field to know each other (see my comments above), so it is certainly possible that it will be even harder for busy PIs to know which pre-existing outreach programs to connect with at their institute, for advice and information about best practices.
• Because each grant has a very small outreach component, each research group may feel pressure to create a small program to do what they can with the small amount of time or money they have. This may lead to a propagation of the current state of STEM outreach, with lots of smaller programs, and thus potential for effort duplication and independent discovery of best practices.

So what do we do – just lay down our hats? Of course not! STEM outreach programs play an integral role in inspiring students’ excitement about science and science careers, engaging students in hands-on research, and developing their skills in experimental design, analysis and problem solving. So it is imperative that we think through each of these challenges carefully, and brainstorm ways to navigate and work through each one. Stay tuned for my thoughts on this topic, but in the meantime, I would love to hear your feedback. Feel free to email me with comments, questions and suggestions at <rokop@alum.mit.edu>.

Megan Rokop is Educational Outreach Program Director at the Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard

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