Search Through Grants for Journalism in the U.S.

American Journalism Project

What we fund

Our primary goal is to increase the resources for local news

We invest in the business capacity of digital newsrooms so they can grow sustainably, and we provide personalized coaching and access to training on best practices.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion

We believe that every community deserves access to high-quality local news. We especially encourage inquiries from organizations that are led by and serve traditionally underrepresented communities. We know there are great entrepreneurs and organizations who won’t fit everything described in our grantmaking rubric or who provide important public service to their communities that we have not considered. We welcome a conversation about your organization and how it is serving local information needs.

What to expect

Working with a venture philanthropy can be a new experience for some. Our model is built to provide bespoke support based on grantees’ biggest strategic challenges alongside our investment in organizational revenue and operations capacity. Read more about our support here.

What we look for

In addition to the core criteria listed, which must apply to all our grantees, we consider strength in core organizational areas as outlined in this rubric. We do not expect organizations to be strong across all pillars but we do expect our grantees to have a compelling track record, and demonstrate the commitment and capabilities to strengthen in each area.

 Asia Program

The Henry Luce Foundation has been working to deepen understanding and strengthen relationships between Asia and the United States for more than 80 years. In keeping with our founder’s vision, we believe that a more peaceful and collaborative future can be forged by finding common ground across borders and cultures. With an emphasis on the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and ideas, we seek to promote trust and understanding among Americans and Asians and to increase awareness of Asian American experiences.

Responsive Grants

Responsive Grants provide opportunities to build knowledge and increase understanding of East and Southeast Asia through scholarship and exchange, with an emphasis on strengthening capacity in the United States. They typically support research and training, the creation of scholarly and public resources, and intellectual and cultural exchange between Americans and Asians.

The Responsive Grants category is deliberately broad, allowing the Asia Program to respond to new ideas and keep abreast of trends, needs and priorities relevant to Asia-focused work in our three grantmaking areas (academic work, foreign policy, public education). The Asia Program primarily awards grants to colleges, universities, think tanks, museums, and other non-profit organizations based in the United States, while recognizing the need to support the growing capacity and increasing desire for knowledge creation within Asia.

Our interests include:

• Asia-focused teaching and research initiatives, typically for multi-year projects whose benefits extend beyond a single institution to advance the broader field of Asian studies. The majority of our funded work is in the humanities and qualitative social sciences, including projects that seek to reexamine the conventional area studies model and explore new approaches to training and research.
• Development and dissemination of library, archival, research and pedagogical resources, including digital resources.
• Research, dialogue and engagement with policy relevance, particularly in areas with limited channels of communication.
• Efforts to educate and inform non-specialist audiences about Asia, through museum exhibitions, journalism and media offerings, and cultural programming.
• Next generation training and leadership development.
• Collaboration, exchange, and border-crossing initiatives, including across geographic, disciplinary, institutional and/or sectoral divides. This may include work that spans the divides of our own grantmaking areas, such as projects that bridge the gap between academic and policy work, or between scholarship and broader public education.

Mission Statement

The Commonwealth Fund — among the first private foundations started by a woman philanthropist, Anna M. Harkness — was established in 1918 with the broad charge to enhance the common good.

Today, the mission of The Commonwealth Fund is to promote a high-performing health care system that achieves better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency, particularly for society’s most vulnerable, including low-income people, the uninsured, and people of color.

The Fund carries out this mandate by supporting independent research on health care issues and making grants to improve health care practice and policy. An international program in health policy is designed to stimulate innovative policies and practices in the United States and other industrialized countries.

Commonwealth Fund Grant

The mission of the Commonwealth Fund is to promote a high-performing, equitable health care system that promotes better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency in health care, particularly for society’s most vulnerable, including people of color, people with low income, and those who are uninsured.

The Fund carries out this mandate by supporting independent research on health care issues and making grants to improve health care practice and policy. In its more than 100 years, the Fund has pursued its mission by:

• demonstrating pioneering approaches and evaluating their results to identify levers for change 
• convening experts across backgrounds and disciplines to spark innovation and facilitate learning 
• publishing the results of our research and disseminating evidence to spur change
• investing in tomorrow’s leaders and their capacity to promote equitable outcomes both in the U.S. and abroad.

Programmatic Areas

• Health Care Coverage, Access and Tracking
• Health Care Delivery System Reform
• Advancing Health Equity
• Controlling Health Care Costs
• Federal and State Health Policy
• International Health Policy and Practice Innovations
• Advancing Medicare
• Medicaid
• Behavioral Health
• Climate Change and Health Care

Examples of activities we fund include:

• Research projects, including data analyses, surveys, evaluations, and focus groups
• Policy projects, including convenings, analyses of policy barriers, and development of policy options
• Pilot studies and technical assistance efforts, including work to test new models or provide guidance to stakeholders to assist with implementation
• Communications and media grants to promote high-quality health journalism or develop video, print, or broadcast products
• Workshops and conferences to promote dissemination of grantee work
• In limited circumstances, the Fund will provide general operating support.
  • This is done on an invitation-only basis

Please see FAQs for additional guidelines.

Funding

Letters of inquiry are accepted on a rolling basis.

• Typically, projects recommended for approval by the Commonwealth Fund board (requests for more than $200,000) are in development for a few months before a funding decision is made.
• Small grants ($50,000 or less) and intermediate grants ($50,001 to $200,000) are approved on a monthly basis.

Democratic Practice 

The Democratic Practice program seeks to strengthen the vitality of democracy in the United States and in global governance. The program’s core ideas—that for democracy to flourish and deliver on its promises, its citizens must be engaged, empowered, and assertive, and institutions of governance must be inclusive, transparent, accountable, and responsive—provide a frame for the Fund’s Democratic Practice work in the United States and on global challenges.

Democracy in the United States

Democracy in the United States is facing myriad challenges as persistent and deep divisions continue to undermine the nation’s social, economic, and political vitality. The current U.S. political system suffers from outsized influence of money in politics, extreme partisanship, retrenchment of voting rights, issues with outdated and inefficient election administration, and concentrations of power in narrow segments of society not reflective of the larger population. Alternatively, new opportunities for systemic reform are developing and gaining traction. The nation is seeing a resurgence of grassroots political activism, protest, and a democratization of both traditional and social media. Digital resources are fueling different kinds of engagement and activism that are reaching people in entirely new ways. Further, the ability to leverage creative investigative and solution-based journalism and broadly available government and election data to improve both democratic systems and grassroots civic engagement provides exciting opportunities to build a vital and inclusive 21st-century democracy.

The Fund recognizes that the gaps between rich and poor, and white and non-white, are widening, while the diversity of elected officials remains misaligned with the electorate, fundamentally undermining the quality of representative democracy. Exorbitant amounts of private money spent on political campaigns and lobbying by a very small percentage of the electorate profoundly distort the political system. Others without the financial resources to influence public policy are further marginalized, undermining the ability of voters and constituents to hold elected officials accountable and fostering public cynicism and distrust of elected officials and public institutions.

The quality of our political culture continues to deteriorate. Consequently, there are fewer and fewer examples of true bipartisanship and constructive compromise in state and federal legislatures. Additionally, partisan actors, with a goal of achieving partisan supremacy rather than ensuring democratic fairness, exert disproportionate control over voting rights, poll access, and redistricting. Participation in national elections remains below that of most advanced democracies, and turnout for local elections is persistently low. Moreover, fair, efficient, and effective election administration is undermined by inaccurate voter rolls and outdated processes and technology. In addition, eligible voters have been kept from the polls by restrictive voting laws, or worse, by overt voter-suppression efforts.

Meaningful and informed public participation in all phases of democracy in the United States provides the foundation for a truly vibrant democracy. The Fund believes that innovation in traditional grassroots organizing strategies, development of opportunities for underrepresented populations in civic leadership, and effective integration of digital media and communications into civic life are promising ways to improve public participation in governance. Authentic public participation in democracy lays the groundwork for substantive policy reforms that are a true reflection of our representative democracy.

Goal: Advance a Vital and Inclusive Democracy in the United States

In the United States, the Fund supports innovative strategies to strengthen and broaden participation in the practices and institutions of democratic governance, foster greater transparency, accountability, and responsiveness of government institutions, and promote social, economic, and racial justice in our democratic systems.

Strategies:

• Supporting innovations in systems and practices to strengthen equality of representation and disrupt corruptive influences, including money and privileged relationships.
• Increasing opportunities for meaningful citizen participation in democratic systems through election and voting reforms, including improvements in voting rights, election laws, redistricting processes, and election administration.
• Supporting movement-building strategies for systemic reform of democratic institutions to advance economic and racial justice.

The Democratic Practice–U.S. program works to enhance the quality of American democracy through support for high leverage opportunities at the federal, state, and local levels (including New York City as the Fund’s home).

Global Challenges

The dramatic increase in cross-border flows of capital, goods, and people and their values and ideas—“globalization”—is producing deep interdependencies and changes in power relations. It is a defining process of the 21st century, offering both challenges and opportunities.

Public engagement in decision making across all levels of governance must contend nowadays with powerful global actors, forces, and institutions, presenting profound challenges to democracy. Economic interests have largely overshadowed democratic practices, social equity, and environmental concerns in the evolution of global institutions. Powerful international trade and financial institutions remain opaque and exclusive, and the power and reach of multinational corporations often escape public scrutiny or effective regulation. Thus, although the impact of global forces on peoples’ lives is growing, they face enormous impediments to both defend their existing rights and engage to meet new global challenges.

At the same time, globalization has opened up new opportunities for building cross-border, citizen-based coalitions, which are finding innovative ways to frame, address, and resolve global problems. Evolving understandings of planetary limits and the drivers of climate change have given rise to citizen groups pressing for economic and environmental rights. Common experiences of inequality and the erosion of democracy have led to demands for changes in how rules of the global economy are written—and in whose interest. New technologies and ways of organizing undergird citizen networks working across languages, geographies, and cultures. These novel combinations of grassroots, professional, public, private, intergovernmental, and nongovernmental organizations are analyzing global processes, articulating alternatives, and advancing in democratic practice and accountability to address global challenges.

The Annals of Botany Company has traditionally awarded grants and donations in support of individual activities within botanical science. However, the Company's view has increasingly become that its support for freely-distributed products such as BotanyOne and The Week in Botany offers greater and more general benefit to plant science than does the awarding of single grants. These two free titles together consumed £74k of expenditure in 2023.

Any applications should be concise and include a sentence or two in response to the following six questions. The third question is decisive, as funding is largely restricted to events which, at least in part, are likely to promote the journals themselves. At the conclusion of any project which receives our funding, an article for BotanyOne is also expected.

About Us

When humanity is united, we can act together to create a powerful force for human dignity.

Our Work

At HU we are focused on cultivating the conditions that can transform human exploitation and violent conflict to enduring peace and freedom.

Forced Labor & Human Trafficking

Within our Forced Labor and Human Trafficking Work at HU, we focus on three themes that cut across all of our efforts, Safer Labor Migration, Worker Power, and Corporate Accountability. These themes are embedded into Global Supply Chains, the Asia-Pacific Seafood, and the Nepal/Qatar Migration Corridor program tracks.

Peacebuilding

The Peacebuilding portfolio seeks to support the agency and power of proximate peace actors, as they determine what peace should look like in their contexts. We invest in transformative relationships in Agency for Collective Action, Innovative Pathways for Peace, Inclusive Peace Processes, Healing, and Well-Being, through Learning, and Geographic Commitments.

Public Engagement

The Public Engagement Portfolio supports the strengthening of power among proximate actors and aims to shift power dynamics within the systems in which we work, by Centering Communities With Lived Experiences and Influencing Policy Outcomes. These themes are embedded into our program tracks that focus on Independent Journalism & Media, Strategic Communications, and Policy & Government Relations.

Racial Justice & Equity

Humanity United accompanies our partners to advance racial justice and equity. These extraordinary organizations work tirelessly to build the power of Black, Indigenous, and Persons of Color (BIPOC) communities and address the conditions that have long harmed BIPOC lives.

Please see FAQs for additional guidelines.

Journalism & Media Grant

The Journalism and Media program seeks to promote and amplify just and inclusive news and narratives, based on the belief that accurate and compelling media plays an important role in informing, engaging, and activating individuals and groups to take part in democratic practices and processes.

To build and strengthen organizations creating and disseminating just, accurate, and inclusive news and narratives, the program supports work in three areas:

• Professional Nonprofit Reporting
• Nonfiction Multimedia Storytelling
• Participatory Civic Media

In each of the three areas, the program pursues the following objectives:

• Build strong, independent, and sustainable organizations and networks that exemplify leadership and innovation in a rapidly changing media ecosystem and comprise the media infrastructure required to meet the democratic ideals of a multiracial, multiethnic America.
• Address barriers that limit the creation of, access to, or participation in media activities, including the legal, safety, digital security, and technological challenges facing organizations and individuals.
• Promoting learning, leadership, innovation, and field-building opportunities that explore timely and emerging issues related to the production, dissemination, and engagement with journalism and media.

Our Journalism and Media program supports U.S.-based nonprofit institutions with national reach and influence. In a few cases, we support regional and place-based organizations that are exemplars in their fields and provide a model for others to replicate.

We also support journalism and media in Chicago, where the Foundation is located, and in 2021, in partnership with MacArthur’s Technology in the Public Interest Program, we began supporting a small portfolio of organizations and activities focused on combatting racialized disinformation and conspiracy.

Our Mission

Knight Foundation is a national foundation with strong local roots. We invest in journalism, in the arts, and in the success of cities where brothers John S. and James L. Knight once published newspapers. Our goal is to foster informed and engaged communities, which we believe are essential for a healthy democracy.

Program Area: Journalism

Building a sustainable future for local news.

What We Fund

Our objective is to foster the expansion of news organizations for sustained growth. We envision a future defined by revenue diversification, market expansion, strategic partnerships and innovative product development, all contributing to financial stability and ongoing success. To shape a thriving journalism landscape, we also emphasize technology that facilitates community engagement with journalists to drive positive change in local contexts.

Key Areas

Our investments are geared towards solutions. At present, Knight is focusing on four key areas that align with our strategy.

• Sustainability and Revenue Development: Knight’s overarching goal is driving the business sustainability of independent publishers. To do that, we need more revenue solutions and business innovation to ensure sustainable models. We seek fresh ideas to diversify revenue streams, lower operational costs, scale successful pilots across communities and catalyze repeatable models for producing and distributing news and information. Reaching sustainability provides newsrooms the independence they need to most effectively serve their communities.
• Strengthening Talent and Leadership: The success of newsrooms relies on the skills, expertise and collaborative culture of the individuals who work within them. Our talent and leadership efforts encompass several key goals, including attracting and retaining top talent, fostering an inclusive and equitable workforce and promoting a culture of innovation, creativity and continuous learning. It also involves providing comprehensive training and development opportunities to empower journalists to thrive in their roles. By prioritizing talent acquisition and cultivating strong and diverse leadership, news organizations can build a dynamic and resilient workforce that is a core component to any successful newsroom.
• Technology and Product Innovation: The pace of technological innovation continues to accelerate, and keeping up with these changes has been a struggle for local journalism. But, to meet people where they are, news organizations must fully embrace and integrate new technologies. That’s why Knight supports key areas currently driving change, such as artificial intelligence for producing more quality journalism, visuals as essential storytelling elements and data’s power for compelling narratives. We’re looking to identify the places and programs where these technologies can shine. 
• First Amendment and Journalist Safety: Safeguarding journalists is pivotal for upholding a free press. Knight’s commitment extends to shielding journalists from legal and physical threats. We recognize the paramount importance of legal services in preserving press freedom and nurturing sustainable local news endeavors. Our support encompasses organizations offering litigation aid, assistance with Freedom of Information Act requests, pre-publication review, entity establishment, intellectual property protection and business operations. Additionally, while journalists ideally operate without fear of physical harm, this isn’t the reality in many regions. We stand by those facing such threats, backing organizations that provide support.

Our values align closely with the First Amendment’s core tenets of press freedom and free speech. We’re dedicated to exploring innovative approaches that uphold these fundamental rights while actively ensuring a secure environment for journalists to pursue their vital work.

Background

Freedom House is founded on the core conviction that freedom flourishes in democratic nations where governments are accountable to their people.

Our vision is a world where all are free.

Our mission is to expand and defend freedom globally.

Freedom House was founded in 1941 to rally policymakers and a broadly isolationist American public around the fight against Nazi Germany, and to raise awareness of the fascist threat to American security and values. In the decades since, Freedom House has established itself through its advocacy, programs, and research as the leading American organization devoted to the support and defense of democracy around the world.

We work across political divides to advance policies that strengthen democracy and protect human rights. We support a vast, trusted network of activists and advocates who are leading the struggle for democratic change in their countries. When these courageous individuals are attacked for their activism, journalism, or opposition to tyranny, we strive to keep them safe so that they may continue their important work.

Lifeline Embattled CSO Assistance Fund

The Lifeline Embattled CSO Assistance Fund provides emergency financial assistance to civil society organizations (CSOs) under threat or attack and rapid response advocacy and resiliency grants to support CSOs in responding to broader threats against civic space. Lifeline supports a variety of human rights CSOs, including human rights organizations, journalist associations, student groups, labor unions, think tanks, and others.

Types of Grants

• Emergency Assistance
  • Through Freedom House and Front Line Defenders, Lifeline provides small, short-term emergency grants to CSOs threatened because of their human rights work.
  • Emergency grants can address security, medical expenses, legal representation, prison visits, trial monitoring, temporary relocation, equipment replacement, and other urgently needed expenses.
• Advocacy Grants
  • Lifeline rapid response advocacy grants give local CSOs the resources to push back against closures of civic space as they arise.
  • Lifeline advocacy grants are highly flexible, and can support a wide variety of activities, such as community mobilization, policy and legal analysis, civil society coalition building, strategic litigation, awareness raising campaigns, and advocacy capacity building.
• Resiliency Grants
  • Lifeline rapid response resiliency grants provide support to threatened CSOs to avoid or mitigate the threats they face and help them continue to work.
  • These grants are flexible and support a range of activities including digital or physical security training; technical training on how to respond to restrictive legislation; building peer support networks, or establishing temporary collaborative spaces.

Investing in nonprofits that are advancing a new, transformative system of justice with the core values of racial equity, economic well-being, and fundamental fairness for all.

Grants Overview

Public Welfare Foundation awards grants to nonprofits that honor the Foundation’s core values of racial equity, economic well-being, and fundamental fairness for all. The Foundation looks for strategic points where its funds can make a significant difference and improve lives through policy and system reform that results in transformative change.

Our Work

Public Welfare Foundation aims to catalyze a transformative approach to justice that is community-led, restorative, and racially just.

• Adult Criminal Justice
• Youth Justice
• Legacy Initiatives
• Jurisdictions

Working in Communities, With Communities

Public Welfare Foundation believes that the best ideas bubble up from communities so we work to engage deeply in and with the communities we fund.

We work with communities to drive transformation from multiple angles including policy advocacy, organizing, leadership development, and demonstration projects. Public Welfare Foundation is committed to funding innovative solutions and investing in the leadership of those most proximate to the issues facing this nation.

Focusing our efforts on criminal justice and youth justice reforms allows us to achieve greater impact in the overhaul of the systems that were created to marginalize and contain our nation’s most vulnerable populations.

Grants Process

The Public Welfare Foundation has a two-step application process that includes both a Letter of Inquiry (LOI) and a full proposal. We invite full proposals after reviewing letters of inquiry. We only consider full proposals we have invited that fit within the program guidelines and available resources.

Current focus areas include:

• Organizations and projects with a focus on structural and systemic changes in the U.S. criminal justice system.
  • The Foundation does not typically fund direct service work (ex. individual support services, case management).
  • However, the Foundation will consider initiatives that aim to further a demonstration project to make the case for non-carceral alternatives and transformative approaches to justice reform.
• Organizations, projects, or special initiatives with a focus on reducing harm and violence using community-centered interventions.
• Reframing the narrative and fostering greater transparency and urgency around the U.S. criminal justice system through storytelling, journalism and other targeted efforts.

Grant Types: How We Fund the Work

General Support Grants

• General support grants are for day-to-day operating costs or to further the work of your organization. These grants are not earmarked for a particular program or project.

Program or Project Support Grants

• Program or project support grants support a specific program or activity of the organization. These are restricted grants and must be used for that program or project.

Special Opportunities Grants

• The Special Opportunities Program supports projects reflecting the Foundation’s mission and underlying values. These are one-time only grants that are especially timely and compelling. At times, this kind of grant serves as a laboratory for new ideas.

About Us

The Foundation is a Chicago-based family foundation that provides strategic grants to support social justice, the arts and investigative journalism both in Chicago and around the world.

Dedicated to lasting support for the founders’ powerful and eclectic mix of grants, our directors each contribute their own unique interests to our granting range.

Reva and David Logan Foundation Grant

The Reva and David Logan Foundation grants in three main areas: Social Justice, Journalism and the Arts.

We base our grant making decisions on these key qualities:

• Originality
  • The proposal encompasses a unique approach, proven or experimental, that is likely to deliver outstanding and reliable results.
• Potential (Impact)
  • The applicant’s process will significantly change their field or expand the audience to broaden debate while promoting positive outcomes, wide availability and access to all.
• Feasibility
  • The proposal contains clear and reachable goals, a reasonable timeframe, a fully-specified plan, and a realistic budget.
• Capacity
  • In conjunction with the funding and logistical support of our foundation, the applicant has all the necessary resources to accomplish their proposed goals and to carry out the project successfully.
• Engagement and Continuity
  • The applicant understands the importance of sustained commitment to the people they serve.

The Company of Biologists is a not-for-profit publishing organization dedicated to supporting and inspiring the biological community. We are run by distinguished practicing scientists. We exist to profit science, not shareholders. We inspire new thinking and support the community of biologists. The focus of our activities is:

• publishing leading peer-reviewed journals
• facilitating scientific meetings and communities
• providing travel grants for young researchers
• supporting and funding research societies

Scientific Meeting Grants

Scientific Meeting Grants are available to help finance a range of charitable activities including (but not limited to) meetings, workshops, and conferences in the fields relevant to our journals.

Grants can be used to cover expenses such as a plenary or keynote speaker, to assist with travel for early career scientists, or to reduce (or waive) registration fees.

Grants are typically awarded on a sliding scale — for example meetings with fewer than 100 people may receive up to £2,000, whereas a meeting with 400 people may receive £4,000. Grants in excess of £6,000 are only awarded in very exceptional circumstances.

We encourage organisers to include a virtual element in their event, making them more accessible to a larger and more diverse audience and promoting inclusivity, accessibility, and sustainability

Our Mission

Our mission is to continue and further the philanthropic legacy of Gardner Cowles, Jr. and the Cowles family, which includes promotion of education, social justice, health, and the arts.

The Founder

The Cowles Charitable Trust was first established in 1948 by Gardner “Mike” Cowles, Jr. (1903-1985). Born into the Cowles publishing family of Des Moines, Iowa, Mike was the youngest of Gardner Cowles and Florence Call Cowles’ six children. A newspaper editor and publisher by trade, he was committed to his family’s traditions of responsible, public-spirited, and innovative journalism as well as philanthropy. 

The Cowles Charitable Trust supports the arts, education, the advancement of ethical journalism, medical and climate research.

Making a Difference in Real-World Bioethics Dilemmas Grant

The Greenwall Foundation is requesting proposals for the Fall 2025 cycle of its bioethics grants program, Making a Difference in Real-World Bioethics Dilemmas. The Making a Difference program supports research to help resolve important emerging or unanswered bioethics problems in clinical, biomedical, or public health decision-making, policy, or practice.The Foundation’s vision is to make bioethics integral to decisions in health care, policy, and research. Our mission is to expand bioethics knowledge to improve clinical, biomedical, and public health decision-making, policy, and practice. Projects funded under the Making a Difference program should promote the Foundation’s vision and mission through innovative bioethics research that will have a real-world, practical impact.In addition, the Foundation is committed to building a broad and inclusive bioethics that welcomes everyone, elevates many perspectives, asks a wide range of questions, and learns from diverse voices.

Priority Topics

While we welcome all innovative proposals that will have a real-world impact, we are particularly interested in proposals that address the ethical issues raised by the following priority topics:

• Trust in science, medicine, and public health;
• Bias and discrimination in health care, which may be based on a broad range of characteristics;
• Public health crises (related to, for example, emerging infectious diseases, climate change, and the opioid epidemic), including their impact on mental health;
• Healthcare access, costs, and resource allocation.
• Recent changes to the federal health and biomedical science policy and funding landscape.

Proposals for projects that address other real-world, practical bioethics problems are also welcome.

Mission Statement

Park Foundation is a family foundation dedicated to advancing a more just, equitable, and sustainable society and environment, both nationally and in our local Ithaca community. We are principled, strategic and fearless in our grantmaking, collaborative with our partners, and nimble and innovative in our approach. We are committed to challenging the powers that threaten an independent media, a robust democracy, and the future of our planet.

Our Funding Priorities

The Park Foundation funds a variety of non-profit partners, from local Tompkins County grassroots programs to initiatives with national impact.

• Environment
• Civic Participation
• Media
• Democracy
• Community Needs
• Sustainable Ithaca
• Animal Welfare
• School Food & Nutrition

Media

The Foundation supports public interest media that raises awareness of critical environmental, political, and social issues to promote a better-informed citizenry in the U.S. It supports quality, non-commercial media that is substantive, fair, and accurate.

Program priorities include:

• Investigative Journalism:
  • Investigative Journalism supports excellence in reporting on nationally significant public affairs issues in the U.S. Competitive proposals will show evidence of groundbreaking content employing multi-platform media tools with the potential to achieve broad distribution and social impact.
• Media Policy:
  • Media Policy supports nationally significant initiatives that promote fair and open media systems and policies in the U.S. The Foundation supports projects that advance universal access to communications, a "neutral" Internet, diverse and independent ownership, public interest media, and the future of journalism.
• Public Broadcasting:
  • Public Broadcasting supports nationally distributed and aired television and radio programming.
• Documentary Films:
  • Documentary Films supports a very limited number of small grants to individual documentary projects related to civil society and democracy, the environment, and animal welfare. 

About Us

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) is an independent, nonprofit research organization that seeks to empower patients and others with actionable information about their health and healthcare choices. We fund comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER), which compares two or more medical treatments, services, or health practices to help patients and other stakeholders make better informed decisions.

Since its authorization by Congress in 2010, PCORI has awarded more than $3 billion to fund nearly 2,000 research and related projects (explore our research portfolio). PCORI-funded research studies produce important results that are published in leading medical journals and presented at major scientific meetings. Results from studies we have funded are also taken up in a variety of clinical guidelines. We post results from every study we fund, with versions for both patients and clinicians. 

In 2019, PCORI’s funding was reauthorized, with additional research priorities—intellectual and developmental disabilities and maternal morbidity and mortality—and a mandate to consider, as appropriate, the full range of outcomes data, including the potential burdens and economic impacts of the use of medical treatments, items, and services for different stakeholders in the research we fund.

PCORI is committed to transparency and a rigorous stakeholder-driven process that emphasizes patient engagement. PCORI uses a variety of forums and public comment periods to obtain public input to enhance its work. PCORI helps people make informed healthcare decisions and improves healthcare delivery and outcomes by producing and promoting high-integrity, evidence-based information that comes from research guided by patients and other stakeholders.

About The Memorial Trust

In 1975, two years after his death, The John Ben Snow Memorial Trust was established in New York. The four original trustees were a member of the Snow family, a lawyer, a publishing associate and a corporate trustee, the Irving Trust Company, now BNY Mellow N.A.. The current Trustees continue this legacy being well aware of the donor and his beliefs, values and ideals. The John Ben Snow Memorial Trust strategically focuses funding within specific geographic regions of the United States across a range of program areas. They meet once a year, usually in June.

The John Ben Snow Memorial Trust

The Memorial Trust strategically focuses funding within specific geographic regions of the United States across a range of program areas (prioritized below and visually depicted here) while responding to the ever-changing needs of various segments of the population, especially to the needs of youth and people who are disadvantaged economically, emotionally, or physically.

Dating back to the inception of the Trust in 1973, the primary and overarching grant making priority has been and continues to be programs that focus on education.

• Education: Targets funds to organizations that provide educational opportunities or academic assistance to individuals who demonstrate an intellectual aptitude and a financial need. Examples include scholarships, fellowships, academic tutoring or counseling, literacy, and journalism.

Secondarily, the Trust considers proposals within the areas of Arts and Culture, Community Initiatives, and Youth Programs. The Board’s objective is to extend the primary educational focus by providing funding support within these additional program areas.

• Community Initiatives: Provides funding for programs or services that directly improve the quality of life within the geographic focus areas that we serve. Examples include support for libraries, food pantries and shelters, and neighborhood revitalization. Generally, the Trust does not seek proposals for health care initiatives or animal welfare programs.
• Arts and Culture: Offers grants that promote arts education and appreciation, particularly for young adults, via the development of educational curriculum and professional instruction including visiting artists and performance support for targeted populations.
• Youth Initiatives: Offers grants that provide character education or enrichment opportunities via mentoring or after-school programming

As a third priority, the Trust does consider proposals in the areas of Disabilities and Universal Access, Environmental, and Historic Preservation. As these are not core focus areas, funding is often limited. Priority will be given to proposals with an educational focus.

• Disabilities and Universal Access: Offers grants to organizations in complying with ADA requirements within their facilities (e.g. elevator, handrails, automatic doors, and ramps) or offering services targeted for individuals with physical, mental, or emotional disabilities.
• Environmental: Provides funds for organizations that strive to protect strategic parcels of land and bodies of water as well as programs that educate the general public on key environmental issues such as conservation and water management.
• Historic Preservation: Provides funding for organizations that preserve historical artifacts (e.g. sites, structures, objects) and accounts (e.g. events), and educate the greater community on their significance. Examples include museums, historical societies and educational programming.

Nicholas B. Ottaway Foundation 

The Nicholas B. Ottaway Foundation (NBO Foundation) is committed to improving communities and impacting lives through unique philanthropic committees, The Community Impact Fund, The Education Committee and the Journalism Committee. The NBO Foundation will make grants to qualified, registered 501(c) 3 organizations.

Community Impact Fund

The Community Impact Fund program support areas are listed below. Programs that have a direct impact on a specific number of beneficiaries within the community. The focus of your programs should be under served or disadvantaged populations in the areas of:

• Disaster Relief
• Sexual Health: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender programs and Sexual Abuse Prevention
• Visual Impairment ServicesThe average Community

The average Community Impact Fund grant runs from $3,000-$20,000. The Community Impact Fund typically makes a small grant to first time applicants for a specific project. 

Grant Timetable

The Nicholas B Ottaway Foundation accepts online grant applications between November 1st and March 31st. The NBO Fund requests letters of inquiry to initiate the grant application process, and does not wish to review full proposals from first time applicants without first receiving a letter of inquiry. First time applicants are encouraged to submit letters of inquiry using our online form. Letter of inquiry applicants are typically contacted within two months of receipt. The Executive Director will contact applicants if a full application is requested. Any grant application received after March 31st will not be considered for the current year.

The Nicholas B. Ottaway Foundation (NBO Foundation) is committed to improving communities and impacting lives through unique philanthropic committees, The Community Impact Fund, The Education Committee and the Journalism Committee.

Education Committee Grants

The Education Committee makes contributions to education programs or institutions that support educational opportunities for the economically disadvantaged. Examples of this would include afterschool education based programs, tutoring programs, college testing preparation (PSAT/SAT), college visits, internship programs, and college/financial aid application assistance programs. 

About Us

The Nicholas B. Ottaway Foundation (NBO Foundation) is committed to improving communities and impacting lives through unique philanthropic committees, The Community Impact Fund, The Education Committee and the Journalism Committee. The NBO Foundation will make grants to qualified, registered 501(c) 3 organizations.

Journalism Committee Grants

The Journalism Committee makes contributions to journalism programs or projects which improve the quality of journalism in all of its forms. We also support programs that defend freedom of the press globally.

To improve the quality of journalism in all of its forms, the foundation has made modest grants to American journalism schools, investigative journalism projects, and new news websites for local communities and state-wide investigative reporting.

To defend freedom of the press anywhere in the world, the foundation has made modest grants to international press freedom groups, and organizations that protect and defend journalists under threat in civil wars and totalitarian states.

The Artificial Intelligence Journal (AIJ) is one of the longest established and most respected journals in AI, and since it was founded in 1970, it has published many of the key papers in the field. The operation of the Editorial Board is supported financially through an arrangement with AIJ’s publisher, Elsevier. Through this arrangement, the AIJ editorial board is able to make available substantial funds, (currently of the order of 160,000 USD per annum), to support the promotion and dissemination of AI research. Most of these funds are made available through a series of competitive open calls (the remaining part of the budget is reserved for sponsorship of studentships for the annual IJCAI conference).

In providing this funding, AIJ aims to:

• promote & raise awareness of AI research & practice
• encourage the timely and widespread dissemination of AI research results, techniques, and tools
• promote interaction and exchange of ideas between AI researchers, practitioners, and students
• foster diversity and inclusion in the AI community;
• promote the exploitation of AI research results, techniques, and tools

We strongly encourage the submission of proposals for activities that are fundamentally new, and likely to lead to the establishment of a new direction for AI research. Up to 20% of the budget available for this call will be reserved to fund new activities.

About Us

Founded over a century ago, the BES was the first Society in the world committed to understanding our earth through ecology, the science studying the relationship between living things and their environment. That commitment remains today with a global community spanning 120 countries and a strategic mission to find ecological solutions for a planet under threat.

With the scientific foundation of our seven world-class journals, the BES has a unique ability to convene the ecological community – bringing the right people together to seek solutions for some of the most pressing challenges of our time. In particular, we support policymakers and business by providing the evidence needed to ensure scientifically robust outcomes. 

About The Grants

Providing funding of up to £2,000 for individuals, teams and organisations to engage public audiences with the excitement of ecological science.

Engaging public audiences with the relevance and importance of ecological science and careers is vital.

This grant will support BES members to deliver independent outreach, public engagement and science communication activities that engage public audiences with the excitement, importance and relevance of ecological science or enhance the experience and skills of others to communicate ecology with public audiences.

The grant will support diverse formats that reach and engage public audiences in innovative, creative and impactful ways, whether through in-person events, digital formats, or physical resources.

All Grants must be for projects that meet at least one of the top-level BES aims:

• Communicate evidence-based messaging for what ecology is, how nature works, and the use of ecological science as a solution to local and global challenges.
• Raise awareness and public understanding of ecological careers, their relevance and importance, breadth, and diversity, and show that anybody can become an ecologist.
• Share how individuals can take action to benefit the environment, themselves, and society.
• Increase the ability of others to deliver the above aims through outreach and engagement activities.

Value

The maximum award is £2,000. However, the award may be used as part-funding for larger projects involving other sponsors.

If the BES grant is being used to part-fund a project, there must be a guarantee that other funding has already been secured. If other funding has been secured for this project, the additional BES funding should add a distinctive element/activity that would not happen otherwise that will greatly enhance the outreach activities, including increased engagement and impact.

Examples of costs that can be covered

• Travel costs.
• Small equipment and IT costs.
• Marketing.
• One-off hiring costs (e.g. a freelancer to deliver an activity, a logo designer).
• Venue hire.
• Evaluation costs.

Reading is Fundatmental Matching Grant

Since our founding in 1966, RIF has fostered local partnerships to bring books and literacy materials to children in under-resourced communities to create a culture of literacy and foster opportunities for children to read, learn, and grow. RIF is committed to providing high-quality, diverse books in print and digital formats that provide opportunities for children to see themselves represented in the books they read and extend their worldview through diverse characters and experiences. Our matching grant program enables local literacy partners to double their impact by partnering with RIF to drive reading outcomes for children in their community. Through our matching grant program, RIF matches 100% of local dollars to bring books and literacy resources to children that need them most. The matching grant program empowers local innovation and long-term sustainability to create collective impact centered on providing critical access to diverse books and literacy resources. All educational institutions and youth-serving organizations are eligible to apply.

Explore the Grantee Spotlights below to see how our program is making a difference in communities nationwide. The Matching Grant program is now open for applications for three RIF programs:

• Books for Ownership,
• Read for Success, and
• Skybrary.

RIF’s matching grant program maximizes your impact by doubling your dollars through RIF’s support. The grant program can benefit your organization from two different perspectives:

• The RIF grant award doubles the amount of money you have to purchase RIF programs for the children you serve with RIF’s match equal to your local investment.
• The RIF grant award enables you to purchase high-quality RIF programs at just half the cost. For example, RIF books cost $4/book but with the matching funds, you’ll be able to obtain the books at just $2/book.

Read for Success 

Read for Success is an interactive supplemental read-aloud program that uses high-quality, diverse, interdisciplinary books with evidence-based strategies and activities to engage children in the reading experience and encourage a passion for reading. Read for Success also provides books for students to build home libraries and is aligned with RIF’s philosophy that having access to books combined with an increased interest in reading can improve reading proficiency. When applying for the Read for Success grant, please note that a single Read for Success program provides resources to support up to 25 students with 6 books to take home and own, a student journal, and a tote bag. Program facilitators will also receive a collection of 15 read-aloud titles, a program guide with extension activities tied to the read-aloud books, and professional development resources.

Funding

RIF will have an ask ceiling of $30,000 meaning RIF will match up to $15,000 due to high demand. Remit payment to RIF for your organization’s local match (50%) amount of the grant award by the set deadline.

The matching grant is provided in the form of a Read for Success program to serve 25 students. Each individual program costs $1,150 and supports a classroom of up to 25 students.

Each dollar requested from RIF must be monetarily matched by the grantee. The entire dollar amount (local match plus RIF grant award) will be converted into a RIF program award.

American Cancer Society

The mission of the American Cancer Society is to improve the lives of people with cancer and their families through advocacy, research, and patient support, to ensure everyone has an opportunity to prevent, detect, treat, and survive cancer.

Background

Societal conditions where people are born, grow up, live, work, worship, and age, have a profound effect on their health, access to cancer care, and ability to act on health care recommendations.

Addressing the root causes of cancer health disparities in the context of these social and structural drivers of health is essential to accelerate progress in equitable cancer prevention and care research.

Health outcomes are impacted by intersecting factors of wealth, discrimination, education, employment, geography, language, neighborhood, health systems, insurance coverage, and access to care. For equitable access to high-quality cancer care and the most effective ways to achieve optimal outcomes, there is a critical need for research that understands the context surrounding these health disparities, proposes and tests tangible solutions, and values community input.

Scientific Scope

Successful applications will propose well-designed research projects poised to make an impact on their local community within the framework of a coordinated center approach that’s focused on demonstrated health inequities. Projects may span the cancer continuum and include health promotion, cancer prevention, screening, treatment, access to care, care delivery, and/or survivorship.

Community engagement is vital for successful implementation and should be central to the development of the CHERC. The description of the CHERC should clearly present the center’s overall scientific agenda, magnitude of the health inequity(ies) being addressed, thematic connections across presented research, and how the CHERC achieves more as a unit, than as independently conducted projects.

There are many examples of health inequities affecting the population in the United States. ACS has identified the following priority areas (additional topics may be considered with appropriate justification by the applicant):

• Rural Communities/Access to Health
• Early Onset Cancers    
• Racial/Ethnic Disparities - American Indian/Alaskan Native, Black, Asian, Hispanic, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander
• Immigrant Populations 
• Sexual/Gender Minorities
• Age-specific Needs (pediatrics, adolescents/young adults, older adults)
• Environmental Justice (radon, climate change)
• Physical and Mental Disabilities

This RFA is a call for solution-based research addressing cancer health disparities that will enable fair and just opportunities to prevent, detect, and survive cancer for everyone. Due to the complexities associated with the social and structural drivers of health that are responsible for cancer inequalities, we encourage multilevel models and research that address these interrelated factors. Applicants should demonstrate their ability to reach populations of interest and describe how the proposed methodologies will produce meaningful results.

In support of its overall mission, the CHERC should establish a Supportive Core that is managed and coordinated by the Principal Investigator (PI). The Supportive Core should include operational and scientific activities designed to develop, promote, and enhance the scientific agenda of the CHERC, creating an optimal environment to address health equity research. Acceptable activities may include developing commonly used methods and tools, sharing resources, collaborations, facilitating relevant mentoring and training, pilot projects, community engagement, and disseminating research findings. Proposed evaluation metrics to monitor the progress and successes of the Core should be included in the application. 

Project Budget and Subaward Mechanism(s)

These awards support a total budget of $4.07M ($3.7M direct costs plus 10% indirect costs) for a 4-year project period that includes research subawards and CHERC Supportive Core activities. The PI may propose any combination of subawards and Core costs as long as they do not exceed specified budget limits. There is no designated budget cap for the CHERC Supportive Core, but all activities must be included in the budget justification.

Research subawards include the following ACS research grant mechanisms:

• Clinician Scientist Development Grants (CSDGs) provide support for protected time to allow faculty who are involved with patient care to develop as independent clinician scientists through mentoring and research training. Applicants cannot have an independent research program or R-level funding at the time of application. CSDG applicants can propose 3- or 4-year projects, at $135,000 direct costs per year. If this subaward is at a secondary institution, 8% indirect costs per year may be claimed by the secondary institution.
• Research Scholar Grants (RSGs) provide support to independent, self-directed researchers for 4 years at $215,000 per year direct costs. To be eligible, subaward PIs must have a full-time faculty position and a doctoral degree. If this subaward is at a secondary institution, 10% indirect costs may be claimed by the secondary institution. For this RFA, faculty may have any rank. The research must be multi-level and involve 2 or more social determinants of health.

Scripps Howard Fund

Fund grants support journalism education that gives students hands-on experience as well as training to help professional journalists refresh their skill sets.

The Scripps Howard Fund is offering more than $350,000 in journalism grants to universities and nonprofits through two new programs that help advance investigative journalism and increase diversity and inclusion in the industry.  

Diversity and Inclusion in Journalism Grants

The Scripps Howard Fund is seeking innovative ideas to get post-secondary students from diverse backgrounds invested in journalism and foster environments where all journalism students can actively participate and feel welcome.

Diverse backgrounds include but are not limited to race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, gender identity, military background and or membership in another group that is under-represented in journalism.

Grant Purpose

The purpose of these grants is to: 

• Advance equity, diversity and inclusion in student media, journalism education and the journalism pipeline.
• Prepare students for professional and public challenges and pressures they may face as journalists of color or members of other under-represented groups. 
• Equip students to deliver inclusive journalism that ensures all voices in a community are represented.
• Establish and share best practices for increasing diversity, equity and inclusion in journalism.

Proposals may address any of these purposes or a combination of them.

Press Forward’s first open call will address the longstanding inequalities in journalism coverage and practice in the U.S., by investing in small, local newsrooms that provide original reporting in underserved communities.

Through this Open Call on Closing Local Coverage Gaps, at least 100 newsrooms will receive around $100,000 each over two years in unrestricted funds. News organizations with budgets of up to $1 million are eligible.

In the U.S., the news media has not adequately represented, reached nor uplifted the voices of under-represented groups in their coverage. As a result, entire communities are left out of the conversation on the issues that most affect their lives, resulting in lower levels of voting and civic engagement, deeper polarization and a higher cost for government services.

Press Forward wants to ensure that local coverage meets the needs of communities of color, linguistically diverse communities, low-wealth rural communities, and others not adequately served, reached or represented. This open call offers funding to smaller news organizations that are providing the hyperlocal, original reporting people need to make important decisions.

The Greenwall Foundation is requesting proposals for the Bridging Bioethics Research & Policymaking grant initiative, which supports the innovative and practical integration of bioethics into policy. This initiative does not fund bioethics research but, rather, supports bioethics researchers, policymakers, and others to take the next step and bridge the divide between research results and policymaking.

Rapid developments in healthcare, science, and technology raise exciting possibilities to advance our health and well-being, but also raise complex ethical dilemmas. Strengthening the relationship between bioethics and policy can help decision-makers navigate conflicting points of view and find the best way forward.

Guidance for Proposals

Relevant policymaking under this initiative can occur at the federal, state, or local level. The Foundation intentionally is not prescribing the mechanisms it will fund through this initiative and welcomes creative ideas and applications. For illustrative purposes only, such mechanisms might include making actionable bioethics research readily available to policymakers in digestible and accessible formats or scaling up an evidence-based policy solution. They are unlikely to include publishing in an academic journal. 

Consistent with its status as a 501(c)(3) private foundation, the Foundation will not fund direct or grassroots lobbying (i.e., attempts to influence specific legislation) under this initiative, but education, nonpartisan analyses/reports, and other similar efforts are appropriate. 

We understand that proposed projects might benefit from varied professional expertise on the project team, for example, expertise in policy, communications and media relations, data visualization, or other fields. Therefore, applications from or partnerships with policymakers and others outside of academia are encouraged. 

Grants under this initiative will be capped at $50,000.