GrantStation Insider: October 12, 2023

Application deadline: November 1, 2023
Geographic scope: United States, with priority given to the states of North Carolina, California, Louisiana, Wisconsin, and Georgia
Grant amount: Up to $250,000
Description: Through the Black Organizing Innovations Project, Black Futures Lab, in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, will provide grants up to $250,000 for Black voter organizing innovations. The grants are intended to supercharge innovative or experimental ideas for how best to engage Black voters to participate civically and to stay engaged in the political process. Grants support innovative or experimental strategies that engage and activate Black men in advance of the 2024 elections. Proposals must engage a minimum of 2,500 Black male voters, with priority given to proposals that focus on the target states of North Carolina, California, Louisiana, Wisconsin, and Georgia. Programs must be run, managed, and evaluated by Black-led, Black-focused organizations that have a track record of engagement and activation of Black community members.

Application deadline: November 15, annually
Geographic scope: United States, including U.S. territories
Grant amount: $3,000 to $10,000
Description: The American Association of University Women's Community Action Grants provide funding for programs that promote education and equity for women and girls in the United States. Project support is available to nonprofit organizations and universities, AAUW branches or AAUW state organizations, and individuals. General operating support is available to nonprofit organizations. Supported organizations and proposed activities must promote education and equity for women and girls.

Application deadline: Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis.
Geographic scope: United States (including U.S. territories and tribal nations)
Grant amount: Up to $2,500
Description: The mission of The Climate Initiative (TCI) is to empower youth voices for climate action. TCI’s Youth Action Grants provide support to youth organizations and individuals for youth-led, community-based action projects that empower youth ages 13-23 to develop climate solutions in their local landscape. The goal is to encourage youth to take action within their communities to better mitigate climate challenges, foster climate change discussion and education, and provide young people with the necessary resources to fill the gaps of climate adaptation in their communities.

Application deadline: The Foundation has a year-round, rolling application process. The last day to submit an application to be considered for the current year is November 1.
Description: The William Talbott Hillman Foundation strives for a future where creativity is nurtured, democracy is upheld, and gun violence is no more. The William Talbott Hillman Foundation supports Pittsburgh- and New York City-based visual arts institutions, as well as national efforts around strengthening gun laws, preventing gun-related suicides, and driving voter and civic engagement, particularly among young people and BIPOC communities.

Application deadlines: January 1 and July 1, annually
Geographic scope: Communities where Big Lots operates stores, distribution centers, and its corporate office
Description: The mission of the Big Lots Foundation is to improve and enrich the lives of families and children. Support is provided to nonprofit organizations in communities where Big Lots operates stores (various locations throughout the continental United States), distribution centers, and its corporate office. Support, which is provided in the form of monetary gifts, gift cards, and merchandise in-kind, focuses on the areas of healthcare, housing, hunger, and education, especially programs serving women and children. Priority is given to projects that have a Big Lots associate actively involved.

Application deadline: Letters of intent will be reviewed on a rolling basis until March 31, 2026, or until funds have been exhausted.
Geographic scope: Washington, DC
Description: The Health Equity Fund, administered by the Greater Washington Community Foundation, aims to improve the health outcomes and health equity of residents of the District of Columbia. The current round of funding seeks to invest in innovative and disruptive models that increase the economic mobility and the community wealth of DC’s most marginalized populations and communities. Support will be provided for demonstration projects that provide proof of concept and determine potential for scalability. The projects must consist of two or more partner organizations working collaboratively in a new and targeted way to implement economic mobility models that increase strategic economic participation and build community wealth for people and communities with the greatest economic and health disparities.

Application deadline: Letters of inquiry are accepted from May 1 to June 1 and from November 1 to December 1, annually.
Geographic scope: Minnesota
Grant amount: $1,000 to $30,000
Description: The Shavlik Family Foundation provides support to Minnesota-based nonprofit organizations and tribal governments for any type of technology project that will improve how they meet their mission. The Foundation does not focus on the size or services provided by a nonprofit; instead, it seeks to fund the best technology projects that will have the greatest impact on an organization or the community it serves. Grants support efforts utilizing technology to improve operations, program efficiency, collaboration, donor support, communication, or service delivery. (Support is not provided for routine replacement of hardware and software.)

Application deadline: June 1 and December 1, annually
Geographic scope: Louisiana and New Mexico
Description: The Frost Foundation provides support in New Mexico and Louisiana to nonprofit organizations for human services, environmental, and education programs. The Foundation wishes to encourage self-reliance, creativity, and ingenuity on the part of prospective recipients, and support is directed primarily to exemplary organizations and programs which can generate positive change beyond traditional boundaries, to encourage creativity which recognizes emerging needs, and to assist innovation which addresses current urgent problems. Within these parameters, the Foundation provides initial impetus to exemplary organizations and programs and provides support for operating funds, pioneering organizations and programs which other institutions might similarly use, and programs which have potential for wider service or educational exposure than an individual community.

Optional draft deadline: November 29, 2023
Application deadline: January 11, 2024
Description: The Public Humanities Projects program supports projects that bring the ideas of the humanities to life for general audiences through public programming. Projects must engage humanities scholarship to analyze significant themes in disciplines such as history, literature, ethics, and art history. The focus is on projects that are intended to reach broad and diverse public audiences in non-classroom settings in the United States. Project categories include exhibitions, historic places, and humanities discussions. Grants are available for planning and implementation.

Application deadline: November 17, 2023
Geographic scope: Western states and territories
Description: The Landscape Scale Restoration Grant Program (West) seeks to encourage collaborative, science-based restoration of priority rural forest landscapes. Desired outcomes of the program include reduced wildfire risk; improved fish and wildlife habitats, including for threatened and endangered species; maintained or improved water quality and watershed function; mitigated invasive species, insect infestation, and disease; improved important forest ecosystems; and improved measures of ecological and economic benefits, including air quality, soil quality, and productivity. The program supports projects with on-the-ground outcomes across western states and territories, including Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, the Territory of American Samoa, the Republic of Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Territory of Guam, the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

Are you tired of spinning your wheels and spending time on grant proposals you know will never lead to funding? Does someone else control which grants you should apply for? Join Foundant Technologies, featuring Amanda Day, GPC, and Kimberly Hays de Muga, GPC, to create a successful grant application strategy.

Register now for this free education webinar on Thursday, October 26 at 10 AM MT to discover:

• the importance of grant calendars;
• how to strategically examine an RFP or grant funding announcement; and,
• how to document your decision-making process.

The pandemic had a profound effect on nearly every facet of society, including the nonprofit sector. Are you curious about how nonprofits have changed because of COVID-19? If so, you might be interested in reading A Shock to the Status Quo: Characteristics of Nonprofits That Make Strategic Decisions During a Crisis. Spanning the years 2020 to 2023, this report by Independent Sector examines the changes nonprofits made in response to COVID-19 and looks at the characteristics of the most adaptive nonprofits.

Webinar date: October 18, 2023, 2:00 to 3:00 PM Eastern Time
Description: This summer, GrantStation ran its biennial Winning Grant Proposal Competition. With over 185 fabulous entries, the judges narrowed it down to three, and from that small pool picked our winner—Soccer Without Borders. Join our host, Alice Ruhnke, President of GrantStation, and esteemed judges Gayle Carpentier of TechSoup, Deirdre Chadwick of the BMI Foundation, and Mike Chamberlain of the Grant Professionals Association in a lively discussion about why this particular proposal was selected as the winner. You’ll learn what made this proposal stand out from the rest of the very well-written entries so you can incorporate these lessons into your future proposals.

Webinar date: October 19, 2023, 2:00 to 3:30 PM Eastern Time
Description: Clear, compelling writing is vital to all your on-the-job writing projects—not just grant proposals. During this hands-on webinar, writing coach and grant professional Maryn Boess will fill your toolkit with a host of simple, powerful techniques that can help you write more clearly, quickly, and confidently, right away. You'll focus on shaping your message in a way that makes it as easy as possible for your reader to understand so you get the results you want!

Webinar date: October 23, 2023, 2:00 to 2:45 PM Eastern Time
Description: If you're like most nonprofit organizations, when asked if your organization is grant ready, you answer with a resounding, "Yes—we are ready to get grant money to support the important work of our organization!" However, while your organization may be ready to reap the benefits of grant awards, many nonprofits have not developed the infrastructure necessary to be competitive in the application process. During this TargetED, GrantStation President Alice Ruhnke will guide you through a process which can help you assess your organization's grant readiness.

I took the long way around to becoming GrantStation’s newest researcher. With a pre-vet degree in animal science, I raised baby racehorses, then added an education degree and became the lone science teacher at a tiny school in northern Quebec. After that, I spent two years as a medical writer for a genomics startup and bought a small farm with three of my friends. With the farm (and the friends) came ambitions of a nonprofit organization of our own, and soon, I was training feral mustangs during my off hours.

Now, I’m part of the team that maintains GrantStation’s U.S. database of funder profiles. In my day to day, you’re just as likely to find me wrapped in a blanket researching funders as saddling up and putting the first ride on a formerly wild horse. Because I run my own NPO, I know all too well how important it is (and how difficult it can be) to find support for your mission. That’s the context I try to bring to my research.

GrantStation is such a cool place to work because everyone cares a whole lot, and everyone gets what it means to put your heart and soul into something that matters to you. That’s why I’m so excited to be here!

Want to stay on top of upcoming deadlines? Check out the weekly Funding Spotlights on the GrantStation homepage.