How We Work

Our hope is to be responsive and adaptable in our grantmaking while maintaining a consistent commitment to our nonprofits and the communities they serve. We value the expertise of our grantees working in the areas we care about and trust that they know how to best serve their constituents.

All of our grantmaking is currently by invitation. We scan the landscape to identify organizations aligned with our initiatives and look to relevant research to inform our approach. We also reach out to community leaders to learn about community needs and characteristics, and to direct us to potential grantees.

How We Fund

We strive to apply best practices in philanthropy to our grantmaking. To that end we work toward the following:

Mission Alignment

We prefer not to restrict grants to specific programs, but rather to offer general support to organizations that squarely align with our initiatives.

Flexible Funding

We provide flexible funding, typically in the form of general support grants, and may offer capacity building, capital, and other types of grants as well.

Longer-Term Funding

We consider multi-year support for some of our grantees, acknowledging the benefits of securing stable, longer-term funding.

Minimal Requirements

We are mindful of the time and effort we request from grantees throughout the funding process and attempt to minimize procedure and reporting requirements.

After a Grant is Made

We try to be as minimally invasive as possible so our grantees can do their best work. We do not require any reporting, presentations, continued site visits, or donor cultivation. Given the number of grantees we have, and their scattered locations, we conduct one follow up call with each grantee per year — typically within three months of their grant renewal date. We do not attend fundraisers, galas, or other events.