CAL Poly Pomona Foundation Inc.

CAL Poly Pomona Foundation Inc., a tax-exempt nonprofit foundation supporting California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, operates as a prime recipient on federal research grants and cooperative agreements across 70 customer agencies, delivering aerospace engineering, STEM education, materials science, and agricultural research services to NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Education, and the Department of the Air Force.

The foundation's primary activity is research and educational programming anchored to university partnerships. Recent awards demonstrate concrete capability in spacecraft systems, applied materials science, and workforce development. CAL Poly Pomona Foundation received a $1.17 million cooperative agreement from NASA's Shared Services Center (awarded August 5, 2025, completing August 4, 2028) for knowledge advancement in Earth systems and environmental change alongside student learning opportunities; a $4.5 million Air Force Defense Research Sciences Program cooperative agreement (September 20, 2024) supporting exploration and space technology research; a $7.5 million NSF Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST) Phase I award (September 15, 2025) for the Center for Smart Manufacturing, integrating digital twins, human-robot collaboration safety, cybersecurity, and advanced manufacturing training; and a $283,286 National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke grant (July 1, 2026) for the ENDURE-LA training initiative building neuroscience career pathways for first-generation students from resource-limited institutions. The foundation also holds significant NSF funding for cybersecurity education equipment ($500,000+ range), online particle physics curriculum development, and undergraduate research training across civil engineering, chemistry, materials science, and computer systems.

Customer concentration is diffuse across federal research agencies. The National Science Foundation leads by award count (58 awards), followed by the Department of Education Office of Postsecondary Education (54 awards) and the Federal Highway Administration (40 awards). By dollar magnitude, NASA's Shared Services Center commands the largest combined potential value at $2.9 million across 21 awards, with the Air Force Defense Research Sciences Program contributing $4 million in obligated funding. The top five customer agencies account for 49% of award count; when ranked by potential value, these same agencies plus NSF represent 72% of combined potential dollars. The foundation's obligated funding ($263.9 million) substantially exceeds combined potential value ($4.1 million), a signal typical of mature, long-running grant programs with annual continuation funding overlapping multi-year project periods.

Activity has declined from a peak of 43 awards in 2024 to 20 in 2025 and 6 through late September 2026, but the foundation maintains a steady recompete exposure of $1.2 million in combined potential value across 24 awards reaching ultimate completion in the next twenty-four months. The foundation serves primarily as a prime recipient (88% of awards); its subcontract footprint is secondary, with named roles under University of Texas at Arlington, Oregon State University, and Cornell University on NIH and NSF maternal health research, food safety, and machine learning training sub-awards.

Performance takes place at CAL Poly Pomona's campus in Pomona, California, with infrastructure including the Armamentarium Vector Core (ARMVC) for adeno-associated virus research and student-run security operations centers for cybersecurity training. The foundation's award posture is full-and-open competitive across NSF, Department of Education, and civilian research agencies, with no SBA set-aside designations. Its capability portfolio emphasizes hands-on undergraduate research integration, equity-focused training (serving first-generation and underrepresented minority students), and technology transfer from university labs to federal research priorities in aerospace, renewable energy systems, food safety, and computational sciences.