Grant Guidelines

We give grants to 501(c)(3) organizations, churches, schools, agencies and governmental units serving the greater Mason County area. Grant applications must be submitted electronically, via our NEW online application system, GLM.  For more details about applying for a grant, click here.  Foundation staff and Grant Review Committee volunteers carefully review all applications. The Board of Trustees makes all final funding decisions. Our grants are usually one-time awards. However, we do consider multi-year requests for projects with a large impact.

  • Qualities of the best grant proposals:

    • Collaborative, comprehensive, and sustainable
    • Designed to prevent problems, rather than simply addressing the effects of problems
    • Provide start-up or seed funding for innovative projects
    • Leverage grant dollars to bring in additional funds; have multiple sources of funding

    The strongest proposals are submitted by organizations who have:

    • Adequate staff/organizational capacity to achieve the proposal goal
    • Sound fiscal policy and responsible financial management
    • Staff and board of directors reflective of the organization’s audience
    • Ability to measure the impact of grant money and report the results
    • Proven record of cooperating with other organizations
    • Capacity to understand and explain how the project will relate to other area services/organizations
    • Broad base of community support

    The Foundation does not usually award grants for:

    • Regular operating expenses
    • Vehicles
    • Conferences, camps or media
    • Conference speakers
    • Special events and endowment campaigns
    • Religious programs that serve, or appear to serve, specific religious believers or require participants to practice or adhere to specific religious beliefs
    • Individuals
    • Individual school buildings or districts

Applying for a Grant

All applications for grants must be submitted to us electronically, via our online application process, GLM.

Learn More

Past Grant Awards

View a complete listing of our previous grant awards, including the organization, project, amount and grant fund.

Learn More

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