Act 1 · What happened in 2025
Summit Scholarship: proven demand
The 2026 cycle drew 2,150+ applications from 82 countries — more than double the prior year. We could say yes to 14. The constraint is dollars, not interest.
Applications
2,150+
Countries
82
Scholarships
14 · 8 programs
Funded rate
<1%
14 funded against 2,150 asking is the clearest possible case for the plan's funding-first phase. Every new dollar visibly converts to more women we can say yes to.
Reach, validation & partners
244k+ campaign views last cycle
1,485 consented, high-intent partner leads
Business Insider feature on the work
New partners: Title Nine, CAMP USA
LOWA 2027 expansion conversations underway
Gear: LOWA, Fjällräven, Deuter, LEKI, Nite Ize, Uphill Athlete
A sponsorship model, not charity. Partners don't just donate — they get a marketing asset back: consented warm leads, in-context content all season, and the partner portal. That flywheel is why Title Nine and CAMP joined and why LOWA is leaning in.
Built for scale, behind the scenes
AI-assisted application review Infrastructure
Scoring used to be brutal. This cycle we ran an AI-assisted first-pass review on top of real investment in the backend data infrastructure — the "piping" behind applications and scoring. That's what made a doubling of demand (to 2,150+ applications) manageable without a matching jump in effort. It's the AI-forward thesis in practice: a tiny team punching far above its weight, and the reason we could grow this fast without breaking.
Founder investment, off the books. Beyond her $12k ED stipend, Sunny personally pays for the Summit Scholarship's content strategist (Rachel Ross, ~$40/hr × ~20 hr/mo ≈ $9.6k/yr) — it isn't on the P&L. It has noticeably lifted the Summit Scholarship's content and social presence, and it's part of the founder-subsidy and ED-comp question the board takes up Saturday.