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Grant Guidlines

Grants may be made for the following charitable purposes:

♦ Arts and Humanities
♦ Children and Youth
♦ Education
♦ Elder Care

♦ Environment
♦ Health & Medicine
♦ Recreation
♦ Social Welfare

No grants are made to or for:

♦ Individuals
♦ Religious Organizations for religious purposes
♦ Dinners, Balls or other Ticketed Events
♦ Political Purposes

♦ Lobbying Activities
♦ Replacement of Government Grants or Funding
♦ Endowments or Other Discretionary Pools

Requests from public school systems must come from the superintendent's office. If the request is for an individual school, it must be for a pilot project that, if successful, would be duplicated in other schools in the system. 

Requests from large organizations with many branches or departments (e.g. colleges, universities, the YMCA and public libraries) must come through the development or president's office and have the approval of the head of that office.

WHAT WE LOOK FOR
The Walker Area Community Foundation has limited funds with which to make grants since the request for qualified grants greatly exceeds the grant funds available. 

Applicants will not be funded on an ongoing annual basis unless the terms of the grant specifically provide for multi-year funding. 

In order to make the greatest impact with the funds available, we prefer requests that address a critical community need. 

• Get at the root causes of a problem
• Do not duplicate existing services unless they serve a population not already being served 
• Are pilot projects which, if successful, can be expanded to serve a wider population or be duplicated by other organizations
• Involve collaboration and cooperation with other organizations and agencies
• Include an effective mechanism for measuring the impact of The Community Foundation’s investment.

Ordinarily, we do not make grants for: 

• Operating expenses unless they are for the initial stages of a pilot project. 
  
• Program expenses that occur on a regular basis. (e.g. annual workshop series, regularly needed medical equipment or patient care) 
• Regularly supported activities of fundraising organizations.
  

The requesting organization should: 

• Demonstrate the expertise and experience necessary to accomplish the project
• Operate under sound financial principles
• Have a future funding plan
• Have a solid base of community and financial support to insure the future of the organization and program

We prefer requests for partial funding of projects rather than full support. Because we cannot provide ongoing support, plans for future funding are critical. We believe that sound and realistic financial planning must underlie any request.

FREQUENCY OF APPLICATION

• Organizations that have received grants must wait one calendar year before submitting another request.
• Ordinarily, an organization receiving multi-year support may not apply for another grant until the final payment on the multi-year grant is made.
• Applicants who are not successful in receiving funds must wait at one year to reapply, and should not reapply at that time unless the terms of the request have changed materially from the original request.