Grants for Science Teachers

NOTE: Our Board of Directors continues to follow a “no new net grants” policy. Under this policy, new grants will be made only as existing grants are transitioned from our portfolio and our financial resources permit.

This policy along with current volatility in the investment markets make it unlikely that we will add a meaningful number of new grantees to our grant portfolio in the near future. To the extent that we are able to consider grant inquiries, we will continue to be highly selective and focus only on those that involve programs that closely align with our interests and fill gaps within our focus area portfolios.

If a grantseeker believes its request matches one or more of our grantmaking priorities and focus areas which we are currently funding, an inquiry can be made by submitting our Grantseeker_Information_Form.

Mission

The Brinson Foundation is a privately funded philanthropic organization that provides an opportunity to focus our family’s common interests in encouraging personal initiative, advancing individual freedoms & liberties and positively contributing to society in the areas of education and scientific research.

Vision

We envision a society that cares for all of its members and endeavors to enhance individual self-worth and dignity. We also envision a world where every individual is a valued and productive member of society, where all people are committed to improving their lives and the quality of their environments.

Priority Areas

Education

Education is essential to the human mind and spirit and provides the basis for people to reach their full potential.

We believe education provides people with the opportunity to expand their talents and capabilities. Through our grantmaking, we hope to inspire them to reach their full potential both as individuals and as contributing citizens of a greater community. We are especially interested in programs that make quality education accessible to those who are personally committed.

Our Education Grants fall into five focus areas:

Scientific Research

Science, scientific research and rational thinking should always receive the Foundation’s attention and grantmaking support.

We are interested in programs on the cutting edge of research in specific areas of interest to our Directors that are underfunded or not yet eligible for funding by governmental programs. These programs are typically sponsored by top research institutions which provide quality assurance oversight and accountability that may not be possible in a less structured environment. Further, the programs often involve predoctoral and postdoctoral scientists who are beginning their research careers. In addition to promoting the work of young researchers, we are particularly interested in programs that encourage them to remain engaged in research in their field of interest.

Our Scientific Research Grants are made in the following focus areas:

Scientific Research

Medical Research

We partner with leading medical research institutions to fund programs that seek to develop new, innovative clinical interventions for chronic conditions as well as highly treatable conditions which negatively impact the productivity of large segments of the population.

In all cases, we focus our medical research funding in areas that improve the quality of life as distinct from solely extending life.

The Foundation does not accept grantseeker inquiries in medical research.

Geographic Priorities

Education Programs

The Foundation’s education grants are generally made to organizations that serve individuals and communities in the greater Chicago area. We also consider leading U.S.-based programs that reach broader populations across the U.S. and internationally or have the potential to have a meaningful impact on best practices at the national or international level. See, however, Legal Requirements – U.S. and International Grantmaking.

Organizations that do not serve populations in the Chicago area and do not meet the foregoing standards are rarely considered by the Board. As a result, we generally discourage them from submitting inquiries to the Foundation. If you have a question as to whether your organization or program qualifies for consideration, please call our office and speak to a program officer about whether it is appropriate to submit a Grantseeker Information Form.

Scientific Research Programs

The Foundation’s physical science research grants are made to leading organizations across the United States. In this priority area, the location of the program is less critical than the match with the Foundation’s grantmaking priorities.

NOTE: Letters of inquiry are accepted on a rolling basis; there are no deadlines. Please note that we do not seek, and rarely fund, unsolicited grant applications.

Our Goal

American public education prepares all students with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions they need to be active participants in a robust democracy and to be successful in the global economy.  

Read more about the Education Program.

Focus Areas

New Designs to Advance Learning

Our grantmaking funds school- and classroom-based innovations to better support student learning and holistic youth development, with an emphasis on meeting each student’s unique needs, ensuring deep mastery of content and skills, and improving academic outcomes.

Schools today are charged with preparing students to thrive in an increasingly complex world. This extends beyond supporting academic success and includes equipping young people to actively engage in our democracy and workforce. In order to meet this challenge, schools of the future will need to be places where learning is deeply personalized, instruction is focused on mastery of core skills, competencies, and knowledge, and holistic youth development is woven into the student experience. Our investments support schools, school districts, charter management organizations, and other school support organizations in catalyzing and implementing these changes. 

Pathways to Postsecondary Success

We invest to reimagine pathways to educational and economic opportunity for high school graduates. This includes initiatives to improve college access and completion, particularly for low-income and first-generation students, as well as efforts to better align K–12 learning, higher education, and careers.

Given the changing nature of the economy, it is more imperative than ever for students to attain some postsecondary education to thrive in the global economy. This requires American education to collaborate with the labor market in the design of better pathways to opportunity for all students beyond high school graduation. By providing a diversity of options and flexibility necessary to accommodate the range of student needs and ambitions after high school, we can improve outcomes for all students, especially those who have faced historic barriers to opportunity. To meet that need, our grantmaking supports initiatives to improve postsecondary access and completion, and to expand the range of postsecondary pathways available to students, and to ensure that K–12 and higher education collaborate with the labor market to prepare young people for the future of work.

Leadership and Teaching to Advance Learning

We work to ensure that all students benefit from content-rich, standards-aligned instruction by funding efforts to strengthen teaching and school leadership, including the development of high-quality instructional materials and curriculum-based professional learning.

Educators today are tasked with holding all students to high academic standards in mathematics, English language arts/literacy, and science, requiring an increase in both the rigor of instruction and the level of student engagement in order to achieve those expectations. As a result, teachers adapt teaching to meet students’ diverse needs while helping them master the academic content, skills, and habits of mind required for success in school and life. To help educators meet these challenges, the Corporation invests in the development of high-quality instructional materials and curriculum-based professional learning for teachers and instructional leaders. It also supports a wide range of initiatives to advance the knowledge, skills, and practices that educators need to support student success, including clinically rich teacher preparation, coaching and mentoring, and ongoing professional development for teachers and school leaders.

Public Understanding

Our grantmaking aims to build a shared understanding about the changes needed to ensure that all students excel in school and life, including efforts to foster collaboration among families, educators, community leaders, and students as true partners in achieving that vision.

Research shows that students thrive when families have a meaningful role in their education and schools are stronger when they have close ties to their communities. But not all children experience the benefits of strong community and family engagement at their schools. At the same time, the perspectives of families and educators are often neglected when school reforms are being developed and implemented, which can lead to frustrations that compromise the success of those initiatives. Our grantmaking aims to reverse those trends by bringing together families, communities, students, educators, policymakers, and the public in support of an equitable and educational system and high-quality learning experiences for all. These efforts include initiatives to elevate the concerns and priorities of families and educators, empowering them to shape educational policy and practice. We also fund programs to bridge the gap between home and school. This work ensures that all families have access to the information and best practices they need to navigate and support their children’s education and that they are able to act as effective advocates for change. Because we believe an informed public is vital to ensuring educational equity, we also support media organizations to encourage national and local conversations about issues that matter most to families and educators.

Integration, Learning, and Innovation

Our grantmaking is designed to ensure that everyone invested in improving our nation’s schools works together more effectively to design and implement improvement strategies within complex systems. This includes efforts to reduce fragmentation, foster collaboration, and build cultures of continuous learning, as well as sharing lessons learned with the field.

School systems in the United States are exceedingly complex, encompassing great diversity and competing demands. New initiatives are often introduced without engaging the people who will be most affected by them or considering how changes in one area might have ripple effects in others. As a result, the field of education has often struggled to put promising ideas into practice, slowing the pace of progress for students. Two central challenges have been the tendency to design and implement improvement strategies in isolation, and the limited or ineffective sharing of knowledge across the field. The Corporation seeks to change these patterns by catalyzing integrated approaches that are better suited to improving complex social systems. Our grantmaking also supports initiatives to help people in schools, districts, and states learn from one other and from their own work, paying particular attention to creating a collective vision, designing and managing change effectively and inclusively, and fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement.

Global Impact Cash Grants

Cisco welcomes applications for Global Impact Cash Grants from community partners around the world who share our vision and offer an innovative approach to a critical social challenge.

We identify, incubate, and develop innovative solutions with the most impact. Global Impact Cash Grants go to nonprofits and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that address a significant social problem. We’re looking for programs that fit within our investment areas, serve the underserved, and leverage technology to improve the reach and efficiency of services. We accept applications year-round from eligible organizations. An initial information form is used to determine whether your organization will be invited to complete a full application.

Social Investment Areas

At Cisco, we make social investments in three areas where we believe our technology and our people can make the biggest impact—education, economic empowerment, and crisis response, the last of which incorporates shelter, water, food, and disaster relief. Together, these investment areas help people overcome barriers of poverty and inequality, and make a lasting difference by fostering strong global communities.

Education Investments

Our strategy is to inclusively invest in technology-based solutions that increase equitable access to education while improving student performance, engagement, and career exploration. We support K-12 solutions that emphasize science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) as well as literacy. We also consider programs that teach environmental sustainability, eliminate barriers to accessing climate change education, and invite student engagement globally to positively affect the environment.

What we look for:

• Innovative early grade solutions using the internet and technology to bridge the barriers preventing access to education for underserved students globally.
• Solutions that positively affect student attendance, attitudes, and behavior while inspiring action by students to improve learning outcomes, whether they participate in person, online, or in blended learning environments. 
• Solutions with high potential to replicate and scale globally, thereby increasing the availability of evidence-based solutions that support student-centricity, teacher capacity in the classroom, and increased parental participation to help students learn and develop.

Note: Cisco does not provide direct funding to schools.

Economic Empowerment

Our strategy is to invest in early stage, tech-enabled solutions that provide equitable access to the knowledge, skills, and resources that people need to support themselves and their families toward resilience, independence, and economic security.

Our goal is to support solutions that benefit individuals and families, and that contribute to local community growth and economic development in a sustainable economy.

We target our support in three interconnected areas:

• Skills development to help job seekers secure dignified employment and long-term career pathways in technology or other sectors, including environmental sustainability/green jobs.
• Inclusive entrepreneurship with small businesses as engines of local growth as well as high growth potential start-ups as large-scale job creators nationally and internationally, in technology or other sectors, including environment sustainability/green businesses.
• Banking the unbanked through relevant and affordable financial products and capacity building services.

Cisco Crisis Response

We seek to help overcome the cycle of poverty and dependence and achieve a more sustainable future through strategic investments. We back organizations that successfully address critical needs of underserved communities, because those who have their basic needs met are better equipped to learn and thrive.

What we look for:

• Innovative solutions that increase the capacity of grantees to deliver their products and services more effectively and efficiently
• Design and implementation of web-based tools that increase the availability of, or improve access to, products and services that are necessary for people to survive and thrive
• Programs that increase access to clean water, food, shelter, or disaster relief and promote a more sustainable future for all
  • By policy, relief campaigns respond to significant natural disaster and humanitarian crises as opposed to those caused by human conflict. Also by policy, our investments in this area do not include healthcare solutions.

Hearst Foundations' Mission

The Hearst Foundations identify and fund outstanding nonprofits to ensure that people of all backgrounds in the United States have the opportunity to build healthy, productive and inspiring lives.

Hearst Foundations' Goals

The Foundations seek to achieve their mission by funding approaches that result in:

• Improved health and quality of life
• Access to high quality educational options to promote increased academic achievement
• Arts and sciences serving as a cornerstone of society
• Sustainable employment and productive career paths for adults
• Stabilizing and supporting families

Funding Priorities

The Hearst Foundations support well-established nonprofit organizations that address significant issues within their major areas of interests – culture, education, health and social service – and that primarily serve large demographic and/or geographic constituencies. In each area of funding, the Foundations seek to identify those organizations achieving truly differentiated results relative to other organizations making similar efforts for similar populations. The Foundations also look for evidence of sustainability beyond their support.

Culture

The Hearst Foundations fund cultural institutions that offer meaningful programs in the arts and sciences, prioritizing those which enable engagement by young people and create a lasting and measurable impact. The Foundations also fund select programs nurturing and developing artistic talent.

Types of Support: Program, capital and, on a limited basis, general and endowment support

Education

The Hearst Foundations fund educational institutions demonstrating uncommon success in preparing students to thrive in a global society. The Foundations’ focus is largely on higher education, but they also fund innovative models of early childhood and K-12 education, as well as professional development.

Types of Support: Program, scholarship, capital and, on a limited basis, general and endowment support

Health

The Hearst Foundations assist leading regional hospitals, medical centers and specialized medical institutions providing access to high-quality healthcare for low-income populations. In response to the shortage of healthcare professionals necessary to meet the country’s evolving needs, the Foundations also fund programs designed to enhance skills and increase the number of practitioners and educators across roles in healthcare. Because the Foundations seek to use their funds to create a broad and enduring impact on the nation’s health, support for medical research and the development of young investigators is also considered.

Types of Support: Program, capital and, on a limited basis, endowment support

Social Service

The Hearst Foundations fund direct-service organizations that tackle the roots of chronic poverty by applying effective solutions to the most challenging social and economic problems. The Foundations prioritize supporting programs that have proven successful in facilitating economic independence and in strengthening families. Preference is also given to programs with the potential to scale productive practices in order to reach more people in need.

Types of Support: Program, capital and general support

Note: If you have thoroughly reviewed the Foundation’s priorities and grantmaking activity on the website and you believe your organization is a good match for our mission, you can fill out an information form here. Please be aware that the Foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals or formal letters of inquiry and rarely makes grants to organizations that we first learn about through the information form—so we urge you to carefully review your fit with our organization’s priorities before investing time in filling out our information form. Full applications may be submitted by invitation only.

Laird Norton Family Foundation

The Laird Norton Family Foundation (LNFF) is a private family foundation in Seattle, Washington, with a mission to 1) honor and reflect the family’s shared values through giving and 2) engage the family in philanthropy as a platform for strengthening family connections. 

The Laird Norton Family

The Laird and Norton families, related to each other from their pioneer origins in Pennsylvania, settled in Winona, Minnesota, in the mid-1850s. There, William Harris Laird and his cousins, Matthew G. Norton and James Laird Norton, formed the Laird Norton Company.

The pioneer logging and lumberyard operation was the first of several family-owned companies, first in the Midwest, later in the Pacific Northwest, and finally all over the West, including Alaska. Today, Laird Norton Company, LLC is still a privately owned and operated family business, committed to contributing value to its family and community.

A seventh-generation family, the Laird Norton family now includes approximately 500 living family members. Family members live throughout the world and occupy a wide array of professions. We come together every year to share skills and interests, and strengthen our connection to each other and our shared history.

Programs

Arts in Education

Goals and Strategies

The goal of the Arts in Education program is to increase arts education and to improve pre-K through grade 12 student learning through the arts. Funding will be directed toward programs that seek to enhance students’ educational outcomes rather than to simply increase participation in, or appreciation for, the arts.

Approach

The Arts in Education program will consider funding programs that:

Why Take This Approach?

There is clear evidence to suggest that arts-integrated curricula and/or arts-rich environments are beneficial to student learning. Although we value the arts as a stand-alone experience, programs are most successful when:

• They have the support of an entire district and in-school leadership
• Teacher professional development is included in the program
• Partnerships with high-quality arts organizations are created and nourished
• Arts lessons are aligned with other student learning goals, and
• Student progress is effectively monitored

Guidelines

With the above lessons in mind, we have established the following guiding principles. ​

• K-12 public schools (or pre-K programs that receive public funding) must already have traction in arts programs (i.e. some arts education has already been established in the school, policies are in place to support arts in education, principals want a more robust arts program, and schools have support from parent groups (PTAs) to strengthen their arts programs). 
• Programs must focus on positively impacting students’ learning.  
• Programs must focus on students “doing” art, as opposed to observing art. Programs should enhance comprehensive, sequential delivery of arts instruction and can include all arts: performing, music, visual, theater, literary (poetry & writing), folk, media, and emerging art fields. 
• Applicants should be able to demonstrate their program has been designed and is managed with an understanding of cultural competencies appropriate to their student demographic. 

Climate Change

Goals and Strategies

Climate change poses a significant global threat, one which we are addressing by striving to ensure an equitable, resilient, habitable, and enjoyable world for current and future generations. While our work is focused on climate change, we believe in the value of ecosystems services and in the stability and resiliency of healthy natural systems. We also believe it is essential that the cost of externalities be incorporated into lifestyle, policy, and business considerations.

Approach

As a small funder addressing an enormous issue, we aim to make grants that offer potential for leverage and scalability — as well as “opportunistic” grants where our ability to move quickly may positively impact a project’s outcome. We are particularly interested in policy and research work, demonstration projects, and finding ways to address critical gaps. We are also interested in expanding our own learning (we are not experts, nor do we aspire to be).

Why Take This Approach?

We believe in persistence and prefer to invest in ongoing work with a long-term focus. Although our grants operate on a one-year cycle, we take a partnership approach to our grantmaking and prefer to support organizations and projects that take a long-term view and can demonstrate progress toward goals each year. We are also interested in projects that have the potential to be self-sustaining in the long run.

Guidelines

Currently, our grantmaking is focused on efforts to hasten the demise of coal, and on work that increases the abilities of the forests, agricultural lands, and estuaries of the Pacific Northwest to sequester carbon. We are looking to support leverageable, measurable work focused on:

• Regenerative biological systems that influence the carbon cycle (“biocarbon”)
• ​Reducing dependency on fossil fuels, and promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency.  

Human Services

Goals and Strategies

The goal of the Human Services program is to support, empower, uplift, and create opportunities for long-term success and a brighter future for unaccompanied youth and young adults (age 12-24) who are in crisis, have experienced trauma, or are aging out of the foster care system. We want to support these youth and young adults in their journey from surviving to thriving.

Approach

We will consider funding organizations or programs that provide support for youth/young adults suffering from trauma, mental illness, or addiction, with priority given to homeless youth and those impacted by the foster care system. While the full spectrum of services for youth in crisis is essential, we expect to do the bulk of our grantmaking in two areas:

Why Take This Approach?

We believe treatment and support for mental health issues and trauma can help prevent homelessness and addiction later in life. We also believe supporting youth/young adults as they transition out of foster care and into independent living increases their odds for a positive future.

Guidelines

Organizations must meet at least one of the following criteria in order to be considered:

• Have leaders and/or staff that are representative of the community they serve. We believe that the best programs will have mentors and leaders that truly understand and can identify with those they serve (e.g., staff that have been homeless or in foster care or are open about their own mental health, trauma, or addiction struggles). We value organizations or programs that emphasize connection to and even emanate from the communities they seek to serve; those that embrace the mantra "nothing about us without us” in all aspects of their work.
• Organizations or programs that include or connect to wrap-around services for youth/young adults. For example: organizations that identify and connect youth to community resources, offer job/skills training and/or provide case management. We value organizations that partner with others in the community to ensure all of a young person’s needs are met.

Sapling Fund

Goals and Strategies

The Laird Norton family continually promotes the advancement of intellectual growth, business experience, and philanthropic focus in order to ensure the excellence of its youngest generations. Through the Sapling Fund, young Laird Norton family members (ages 14–21) come together to learn about grantmaking, the nonprofit sector, and family philanthropy. The Sapling Fund provides young family members a chance to identify and support causes that resonate with them, and endows future family leaders with a sense of fiscal and social responsibility.

Approach

Sapling Fund grants are guided by a “for kids, from kids” philosophy. Grants support programs and organizations that cater specifically to youth and specific priorities change each year as new cohorts of Sapling members collectively identify shared priorities for the year’s grantmaking.

Why Take This Approach?

Sapling Fund committee members gain valuable experience by organizing an annual campaign to raise money for their grantmaking activities through contributions from Laird Norton family members. The annual budget supports three to five grant awards each year and an all-family service project organized by members of the committee.

Watershed Stewardship

Goals and Strategies

Watersheds have social, ecological, and economic significance. The goal of the Watershed Stewardship program is to create enabling conditions for long-term social and ecological health and resilience in places of importance to the Laird Norton Family.

Approach

We take a long-term view on healthy watersheds and invest in organizational capacity with an eye to future resilience. We encourage our partners to focus not on single-species recovery or restoration to historical conditions as a primary end-goal, but to also consider the potential value of significantly altered — but functioning — ecosystems as we continue to face the impacts of climate change and other natural and human-caused changes into the future.

​We seek to add value not just by making financial investments in organizations advancing place-based ecological and social outcomes, but also by building relationships in watershed communities, spending time listening and gaining experience in the watersheds in which we invest, and fostering partnerships, convenings, and additional investment from other funders.

Why Take This Approach?

We believe the wellbeing of the people who live in a place must be considered alongside ecological goals; understanding the diverse interests and values of a watershed’s human inhabitants is an important component of long-term success. ​

Guidelines

Organizations or programs we partner with should:

• Possess the organizational capacity and skills to be well-positioned to secure much more significant funding for projects than we would ever be able to provide.
• Be open to the Foundation removing barriers to entry for public funding and get projects to a shovel ready position.
• Provide us with opportunities to invest in their abilities to develop strong governance structures, collaborate, mediate, facilitate, tackle sticky challenges, get paperwork in order, maintain momentum on big projects, and otherwise lay the groundwork for success.

While we don’t specifically commit to a set term of investment in any watershed, we believe that investing in a place long enough to really understand the work is important, and we believe that sustained and flexible funding enables greater long-term success for our partners. Although we make grants on a one-year cycle, we take a partnership approach to our grantmaking and hold a long-term view on the work being done in the watersheds we prioritize, but we do move on when we no longer have a necessary role to play.

Note: Grant applications are by invitation only. You can contact your local community relations manager (search managers here) to see whether you are eligible to apply or learn other ways to get involved in your community.

Giving and Grants

Our funding priorities are aligned around Digital Inclusion, Climate Protection and Human Prosperity. New applications are by invitation only.

The Verizon Foundation is all inclusive.

As a matter of policy, the Verizon Foundation does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, age, religion, national or ethnic origin or physical disability. As a company with a highly diverse workforce serving an equally diverse set of customers, Verizon through its Foundation, supports a wide range of programs through direct and matching grants that benefit diverse communities, including minorities, veterans, gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender and others. The Verizon Foundation expects all of its grant recipients to comply with all applicable laws, including those governing tax-exempt status and non-discrimination laws. 

The applications are reviewed regularly and accepted through the deadline above for the current year.

About

The Robert & Toni Bader Charitable Foundation was created in 2010 to provide philanthropic support to help make the world a better place. Based in Indianapolis, Indiana, our mission is to help further Jewish ideals in the areas of education, science and the arts. 

Since our beginning, we’ve funded projects from New York to California, Michigan to Florida. We have helped teachers educate, helped children learn, helped feed the hungry, helped people earn a living, helped provide work for the unemployed, and helped find new ways to treat illness and improve quality of life. If you are engaged in any of these activities, let us hear from you.

Our logo, the Tree of Life, is a universal symbol of growth and re-growth, providing benefits to the present and future. The circle represents unity and continuity within our communities and our lives.

Guidelines

The Robert & Toni Bader Charitable Foundation (rtbcf) was created to help achieve the Jewish Ideals of improving the world through Science, Education and the Arts.

We do not have minimum or maximum grant amounts. Grants are made based on our evaluation of your project, the number of grants we are considering, and the amount of funds we have to distribute.

The foundation, as stated in its bylaws, will make contributions to qualified exempt organizations under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code for, but not limited to, the following purposes: 

• literacy
• Jewish education
• nationwide recycling programs
• alternative energy
• classical musical education
• public radio & television
• museums
• wildlife conservation
• theater
• music education
• HIV/AIDS research
• Hemophilia research
• food for the hungry

Our Mission

The Sorenson Legacy Foundation is a non-profit corporation established by the late biotechnology pioneer and entrepreneur James LeVoy Sorenson and his wife, education philanthropist Beverley Taylor Sorenson, for the purpose of promoting charitable, artistic, religious, educational, literary and scientific endeavors. The foundation is based in Salt Lake City, Utah and is qualified under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

The Sorenson Legacy Foundation was created to improve the lives of others and the world in which we live. The foundation supports a wide range of endeavors, from community development and education to health care, scientific and artistic pursuits.

What We Fund

Education

As a teacher, Beverley believed the arts are essential to broadening our children’s minds starting in elementary. She helped promote legislation so Utahn children would be exposed to more of the arts. She saw the arts as equal in importance in the development and success of children as sciences and math. Education continues to be a focus area for the foundation because she was a champion for the cause.

The foundation continues to support seven major universities in the development of elementary arts studies. The goal of education funding will always be to improve the breadth and depth of the art education and experiences of young students. Whether that be by supporting elementary programs or teachers who develop the talents of students.

Health Care

Having never fulfilled his dream of becoming a doctor, James devoted much of his fortune to provide better medical assistance for saving lives and alleviating pain and suffering.

Grants are awarded to facilities that work toward improving these aims as well as medical research, medical technologies, and other innovations that provide safe health care and quick recoveries.

Innovation

James was always interested in how to improve products or processes and never settled for the status quo. His 60+ patents are proof of his desire to innovate areas in order to improve quality of life and equality of experience.

Grants are awarded to organizations that share the same passion for technological advances and care for humanity. Unlike the other areas funded, grants for innovation are open to any category or sector where innovative ideas and technologies can change the lives of people for the better.

Community

Both James and Beverley Sorenson were committed to improving the lives of those in their communities. From a young age, James served others including through a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The foundation recognizes the ways to help our communities are vast. Grants are given to programs that focus on protecting and preserving the environment, assist the disenfranchised of society, and promote understanding and tolerance in our world.

Projects

Ideas include, but are not limited to, projects and programs which: 

Education

• promote the development of the arts, including art education in schools
• assist promising young artists
• support performing arts organizations
• promote education and job training

Innovation

• enhance the quality of life of all humankind
• promote the development of science, culture, and recreation
• protect and enhance the environment
• promote the development of parks and green spaces

Health Care

• promote medical research
• develop innovative medical technologies for saving lives
• alleviate pain and suffering

Community

• encourage and support the long-term preservation of families and children;
• assist the disenfranchised of society, such as abused spouses and children
• promote community development and security and adequate and affordable housing
• promote law and order generally
• provide youth with alternatives to gangs, crime, and socially nonproductive behavior
• promote world peace and unity through greater understanding and tolerance
• advance the mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

About the Motorola Solutions Foundation

At Motorola Solutions, we are good citizens by design. Our work makes a difference in the critical moments that shape lives, businesses and the world, but our contributions don’t end there. The Motorola Solutions Foundation acts as the charitable and philanthropic arm of Motorola Solutions and focuses on giving back to the community through strategic grants, employee volunteerism and other community investment initiatives. The Foundation is one of the many ways in which the company lives out its purpose to help people be their best in the moments that matter.

Grant Program Focus

The Motorola Solutions Foundation, which has donated $100 million over the past 10 years, aims to partner with organizations that are creating safer cities and thriving communities, and prioritizes underrepresented and/or underserved populations, including people of color and women, within the three focus areas below:

• Technology and engineering education
• First responder programming
• Blended first responder programming and technology/engineering education programs

Overarching Priorities

• Reach people of color, women and other underrepresented and/or underserved populations within our focus areas
• Leverage robust partnerships with other nonprofit organizations and institutions
• Support organizations that exhibit strong financial health
• Support organizations with data-driven evaluation methods, including quantifiable metrics

Focus Areas

First Responder Programming(The term First Responders includes: law enforcement personnel, firefighters, EMT and frontline healthcare professionals.)

• Provide leadership development and training opportunities for underrepresented first responders, including people of color and women
• Provide mental wellness and stress management trainings for first responders and their families
• Provide wellness and scholarship support to families of fallen first responders
• Prepare youth and young adults for careers in public safety through outreach, scholarship and educational programs
• Offer safety preparedness and response training to schools, adults, students and first responders
• Lead safety and disaster preparedness trainings for the public

Technology & Engineering Education

• Engage students in innovative, hands-on technology and engineering activities, such as design, coding and robotics
• Provide vocational skills, scholarships, certifications and workforce placement opportunities in engineering, information technology and data science
• Equip teachers with the skills and training necessary to enhance instruction in technology and engineering
• Prioritize school-aged students ages 8-18, college/university students and young adults