Grant guidelines

The Foundation places a priority on supporting community organizing and advocacy strategies. While we make grants to groups that utilize multiple strategies, including direct service, preference is given to those moving toward incorporating advocacy and organizing.

All organizations that apply for a grant, regardless of the strategy they utilize or the issue they address, must:

• Involve New York City or a particular neighborhood of the city;

• Address a critical or emerging need, particularly involving youth or the elderly; and

• Articulate how a grant from the Foundation would advance their work.

We define community organizing as bringing people together to identify issues and take joint action to bring about change. Drawing on a broad constituency that shapes and guides their agenda, community organizing groups develop and train leaders, work to promote accountability, and bring about both personal transformation and systemic change.

We define advocacy as a strategy that raises or rallies public attention or action, in order to bring issues into the realm of public concern and effect policy change. Advocacy may be carried out by those directly affected or by others working on behalf of a constituency.

The Foundation places a high value on nondiscriminatory policies, services, and hiring practices of applicant organizations. We review the composition of the board, the staff, and the client profiles of applicant organizations, and look for diversity and inclusiveness in all these areas. In projects serving women, we are interested in programs that offer or provide access to full information on the options available as to whether and when to bear children, and that provide services to women regardless of which of those options they choose.

What we don’t fund
The Foundation never makes grants to individuals or to capital campaigns. We do not consider support of research studies, films, conferences, or publications. We do not consider requests outside New York City except from organizations working on statewide issues of concern to youth, the elderly, or the poor. Our charter prohibits us from making grants outside the United States.