The intent of Summer Now! is to strengthen and improve the quality, dosage, stability, and student impact of summer learning experiences across the ESUSA network. The grant program supports ESUSA member organizations in creating meaningfully stronger summer outcomes for young people than would exist in the absence of this support, through a program design that prioritizes organizational readiness, strengthening, and learning.

The Summer Now! grant program is intended to support students across a wide range of musical experience and skill levels. The program is not designed to prioritize elite or pre-professional training models, but rather to expand access to meaningful, high-quality summer learning for young people wherever they are on their musical journey.

Within Summer Now! quality and innovation are understood as complementary and ongoing, rather than sequential or mutually exclusive. Innovation is defined as thoughtful, creative approaches to addressing the challenges and constraints that shape summer programming (e.g., access, staffing, transportation, dosage, partnerships, and cost) and is expected to be present at every stage of an organization’s summer learning work.

Summer Now! is grounded in ESUSA’s existing Pillars and Membership Criteria, which articulate a shared definition of quality across the network. These pillars guide both program design and grant decision-making:

• High-Quality Practice: Quality summer learning reflects informed program design, appropriate intensity, meaningful program length & coverage throughout the summer, strong teaching practice, and the organizational infrastructure needed to support student growth. Funding is intended to strengthen conditions for excellence, not simply expand activity.
• Equity and Access: Quality is inseparable from equity. Summer Now! is intended to support students who face barriers to access, including financial, geographic, systemic, or structural barriers. While some summer programs may include tuition or fees, the core goal is to expand access regardless of a student’s ability to pay. Strong programs demonstrate proactive strategies—such as scholarships, sliding scales, partnerships, or fundraising—to ensure that cost does not exclude participation.
• Holistic Impact: High-quality summer learning supports young people as whole humans. While music is the primary vehicle for learning within the grant program, ESUSA recognizes that high-quality summer programs often incorporate complementary non-music components. Programs may thoughtfully integrate academic enrichment, sports, outdoor learning, wellness, or other youth development activities that strengthen student engagement, wellbeing, and overall impact.

Summer Now! is grounded in ESUSA’s existing Pillars and Membership Criteria. Building from this criteria Summer Now! is shaped into three focus areas, defined below.

• Program Dosage: Program dosage refers to the overall intensity of the summer learning experience, including the number of hours per day, weeks offered, and consistency of engagement. Meaningful number of students served  is understood relative to an organization’s context and student population, rather than as a fixed threshold.
• Quality Summer Learning: Quality summer learning reflects intentional program design, appropriate intensity, meaningful program length, strong teaching practice, and the organizational infrastructure needed to support student growth. Quality is not defined by scale alone, but by coherence, feasibility, and alignment with student and community needs.
• Innovation: Within Summer Now!, innovation is defined as thoughtful, creative approaches to addressing the challenges and constraints that shape summer programming. Innovation may include new approaches to access, staffing, partnerships, scheduling, curriculum, or delivery, and is expected to be present across all stages of summer learning work, not only in new programs.