Haiti Grants for Nonprofits

NOTE: In recognition of the dire threats posed by carbon emissions and climate change, effective January 1, 2022, Open Road will provide charitable grants only to nonprofit organizations addressing climate change through carbon reduction strategies.

We understand that emergencies can’t wait. We accept applications on a rolling basis. Our full process from inquiry to decision typically takes two to six weeks.

Carbon Reduction 

Open Road is committed to supporting you on your journey to address climate change. 

 Our grants support climate-focused nonprofits overcome unexpected obstacles to impact. We offer grants exclusively to nonprofits that focus on preventing and mitigating the effects of climate change.

From the community solar facility providing clean energy to unelectrified communities in Haiti, to the nonprofit advocating for accelerated carbon reduction targets, our charitable grants ensure critical efforts to address climate change can carry on without interruption.

An Open Road Grant Keeps Impact on Track

Funding Derailments

• New regulatory requirements
• Changes in personnel
• Policy changes
• Delayed disbursements
• Funder strategy shifts
• Third-party partner problems
• World events

Impact Kept on Track

• Reducing carbon emissions
• Advocating for carbon-reduction strategies
• Key climate-related litigation and policy
• Critical research directly related to reaching net-zero carbon
• Direct implementation of programs addressing climate change

Why grants?

Most traditional grant programs are inflexible, restrictive, and slow. Because NGOs cannot access additional capital quickly, even high performing programs are stymied when obstacles are encountered mid-implementation.

To address this issue, Open Road provides grant capital to help NGO’s manage unexpected disruptions. Specifically, we deploy our charitable and recoverable grants when a mid-implementation project encounters an unexpected roadblock or opportunity. We provide the necessary, fast, flexible capital to help organizations meet unanticipated challenges.  

Mission

The mission of the Semnani Family Foundation is to find creative and effective ways of serving the needs of marginal and vulnerable communities around the world, particularly those whose survival and security is at grave risk or immediate danger due to forces and factors beyond their control. Whether it is helping communities recover from disease, famine, earthquake or war, or promoting research, educational and civic initiatives, we focus our giving where we can make the most difference.

About

The Semnani Family Foundation focuses primarily on promoting the health, education and disaster relief for marginal communities in the United States and around the world.

The philosophy of the Foundation is guided by a desire to empower the most vulnerable members of society, where ever they may be. The Semnani Family Foundation seeks to leverage its resources in a cost effective and efficient manner that delivers the maximum benefit to help the most marginal of communities—those who would otherwise be left out, forgotten or neglected, or those who would risk serious and irreversible damage and injury from exposure to natural or man-made disasters such as famine, floods, earthquakes and war.

The Semnani Family Foundation partners closely with organizations and individuals with a demonstrated record of delivering significant, sustainable and lasting change in the field. Over the years, the Foundation has worked with the major international and national as well as local charities to advance its mission. The Foundation’s partners over the past twenty years have included the American Red Cross, UNICEF, LDS Humanitarian, Globus Relief, Global Health Alliance, Special Olympics, the American Cancer Society, the Huntsman Cancer Institute, Habitat for Humanity, High Road for Human Rights, Faith Voices for the Common Ground, the League of Women’s Voters and others.

Program Areas

Social Issues

The Semnani Family Foundation gives grants for projects that address social issues such as homelessness, literacy, hunger, violence and rape. Over the past twenty years, we have supported Oxfam America, Wasatch Homeless Healthcare, the Road Home, Planned Parenthood, Rape Recovery Center, Prevent Child Abuse, and Gun Violence Prevention Center.

Health

Health is the one of the core mission areas of the Semnani Family Foundation. We have supported a broad range of health initiatives from funding research to providing care, from helping institutions build their capacity to train and teach students, pharmacists and nurses to joining partnerships for vaccination campaigns designed to eradicate measles and other crippling diseases. Since 1993, the Foundation has collaborated on a broad range of health issues ranging from AIDS, Alzheimers, Arthritis, Cancer, Diabetes, Cystic Fibrosis, Epilepsy, Leprosy, Multiple Sclerosis, Cystic Fibrosis as well as Mental Health.

Since inception, our partners have included the National Kidney Foundation, Alzheimer’s Association, American Cancer Society, American Leprosy Association, American Diabetes Association, Epilepsy Foundation, Utah AIDS Foundation, Utah Valley Mental Health, the University of Utah, Utah Rural Association of Nurses and others. We have teamed with the Moran Eye Center, Surgical Eye Expedition and others to extend the gift of sight to marginal communities. We have also partnered with Special Olympics, Kostopolous Dream Foundation, Wheelchair Foundation and a number of other organizations to provide assistance for people with disabilities.

Children

Children’s health and welfare is of vital importance to the Semnani Family Foundation. Whether they suffer from disease, hunger, abuse or poverty, the Semnani Family Foundation has made the health and education of vulnerable children a priority. Over the last twenty years, we have partnered with groups such as Primary Children’s Medical Foundation, Save the Children Foundation, Orphan Kids Inc, Odyssey House, National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome, Make a Wish Foundation, Simon Says Foundation, Shriners Hospital for Children, Pediatrics Radiology, Voices for Utah Children and Utah Boys Ranch.

Women

The empowerment of women, particularly in developing countries is one of the Foundation’s leading priorities. Since 1993, we have worked with Mothers without Borders, Women for Women International, Worldwide Organization for Women, Salt Lake League of Women’s Voters and other organizations dedicated to improving the life of women.

Disaster Relief

The Semnani Foundation has partnered with the American Red Cross, LDS Humanitarian Services, Globus Relief, World Food Program, Islamic Relief, Oxfam America and others over the past twenty years, providing disaster relief to victims of earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, famine and other natural disasters. Since its inception in 1993, the Foundation has supported disaster relief efforts in Iran and Haiti following earthquakes, in Indonesia after the tsunami, in Pakistan after the floods, in Ethiopia, Somalia, Yemen and Eritrea following famines, and in the Sudan and Syria following civil wars. We have also supported the New York Firemen 911 Relief Fund.

Iranian American Issues

The Semnani Family Foundation has played an active part in promoting Iranian culture in the United States. The Foundation has supported the Encylopedia Iranica Foundation, Parsa Community Foundation, Persian Heritage Foundation, Hafez Foundation for Literature, Roodaki Foundation, the Iranian-American Society and countless other educational and cultural initiatives. Due to sanctions, the Foundation is unable to support philanthropic projects in Iran at this time.

Religious Tolerance and Interfaith dialogue

Given the importance of religion to the life of many immigrant communities and refugees, the Foundation has worked closely with religious communities and leaders to promote interfaith dialogue, understanding and integration. We have helped immigrant and refugee communities build houses of worship, extend and expand social services, and fight prejudice. The Foundation has worked closely with LDS Humanitarian, Holy Cross Ministries, Islamic Society of Greater Salt Lake, Jewish Family and Children’s Services, Faith Voices for the Common Good and others to promote religious tolerance and bridge cultural divides.

Utah

View the grant page for the Utah priority area here.

What We Support

Children are at the heart of everything we do at the Kellogg Foundation. Our goal is lasting, transformational change for children. As a grantmaker, we recognize that children live in families and families live in communities. Therefore, our three areas of focused work – Thriving Children, Working Families and Equitable Communities – are dynamic and always interconnected.    

Achieving strong outcomes for children happens by connecting what families need – at home, in child care settings, at school, at work and in their communities. As a foundation, we use a variety of change-making tools – grantmaking, impact investing, networking and convening. With our support, grantees and partners work together to make measurable improvements in children’s lives.

Our Interconnected Priorities:

• Thriving Children: We support a healthy start and quality learning experiences for all children.
  • improving access to high quality, early childhood education
  • support healthy birth outcomes
  • quality maternal and infant health care
  • children's early development
  • increase breastfeeding rates
  • expand access to oral health care
  • increase access to fresh, local healthy food
  • improve nutrition for children and families in early child care settings
• Working Families: We invest in efforts to help families obtain stable, high-quality jobs.
  • widen pathways to stable, high-quality jobs
  • more equitable employment opportunities
  • expand support for tribal-, minority-, and women-owned business enterprises
  • accelerate small business growth
  • inform policies and change systems to create greater economic stability
• Equitable Communities: We want all communities to be vibrant, engaged and equitable. 

Embedded within all we do are commitments to advancing racial equity and racial healing, to developing leaders and to engaging communities in solving their own problems. We call these three approaches our DNA and believe they are essential to creating the conditions that propel vulnerable children to achieve success.

NOTE: Unsolicited proposals for grants are welcome at any time throughout the year as long as they meet the geographic and focus areas of the foundation. First time applicants are encouraged to contact the Foundation in advance of submitting a proposal. The Board of Directors reviews proposals quarterly, at the meeting following the deadlines listed above. 

About the Foundation

Light A Single Candle is a private foundation dedicated to the relief of poverty through effective partnerships that target: 

• Food support, food security and food sustainability;  
• Microbusiness and economic development;
• Development of individuals, families, and communities toward self-determination and an improved standard of living.

We believe the need for food and economic sustainability is basic to all poverty solutions. We are motivated by faith in God and values based initiatives and programs, but are not limited to the support of faith-based partnerships.Focus AreasProjects to be funded will address one of the following LASC Focus Areas: Food support, security, and sustainability:This may include:

• emergency feeding and starvation relief;
• subsistence farming, backyard farming, or soil improvement initiatives;
• sustainable and regenerative food programs (ie…aqua farming, greenhouse gardens, beekeeping, fruit tree planting and baking)

Social Entrepreneurship & Microdevelopment:Food related community based initiatives that address poverty, increase income, teach new skills, provide training, and create individual, family and community economic opportunities. Poverty relief:Development of individuals, families, and communities toward self-determination and an improved standard of living. (ie…access to clean water and improved sanitation practices; housing development, animal husbandry) By personal invitation from LASC

CALL FOR DIASPORA PARTNERSHIP CONCEPTS “LEVERAGING PRIVATE RESOURCES AND KNOW-HOW FOR THE RECOVERY AND RECONSTRUCTION OF EARTHQUAKE-AFFECTED AREAS IN THE SOUTHERN PENINSULA OF HAITI”.

Grant-making Philosophy

The Peace Development Fund makes grants to community based organizations working for social justice. We believe that the change in values needed to establish a more just and peaceful world can come about only if it is strongly rooted in local communities that value the importance of building movements to create systemic social change. These are communities that view everyone, especially young people, as a vital force in the transformation of society. We recognize young people’s ability to reshape our society, not only politically, but also spiritually and culturally.

The Peace Development Fund is committed to supporting organizations and projects that recognize that peace will never be sustained unless it is based on justice and an appreciation of both the diversity and unity of the human family. We understand peace to be a consequence of equitable relationships—with our fellow human beings and with the natural environment of which we are a part and on which we depend.

What We Fund

Organizing to Shift Power

• Groups that are creating a power base that can hold leaders accountable to the people who are affected by their decisions.
• Groups that let their membership or constituents take the lead in collective action-planning and decision-making.
• Groups whose leadership comes directly from the people who are most affected by the issues you are organizing around.

Working to Build a Movement

• Groups that organize in the local community, but make connections between local issues and a broader need for systemic change.
• Groups that provide a space for members to develop their political analyses at the same time as taking action for change.
• Groups that break down barriers within the progressive movement, by building strategic alliances between groups of different cultural or class backgrounds or different issue areas.
• Groups that explore the root causes of injustice and have a long-term vision for the kind of social change they are working for.

Dismantling Oppression

• Groups and projects that are proactively engaged in a process of dismantling oppression, confronting privilege and challenging institutional structures that perpetuate oppression (both internal and external to the organization).
• Groups that are proactively making connections between the different forms of oppression (racism, heterosexism, sexism, ageism, classism, ableism, etc.), and its connections with injustice.

Creating New Structures

• Groups that have alternative organizational structures that allow power to flow “from the bottom up.”
• Efforts to create new, community-based alternative systems and structures (economic, political, cultural, religious, etc.) that are liberating, democratic, and environmentally sustainable and which promote healthy, sustainable communities.

Other Funding Priorities

• New or emerging organizations; efforts that have difficulty securing funds from other sources; community organizations working on climate change issues at the local policy level; groups that have a genesis in Occupy or Movement for Black Lives; or issues that are not yet recognized by progressive funders.

General Support vs. Project Support

The majority of grants awarded by PDF are for general support. We believe that the people on the ground know how best to spend the money. However, if an organization’s mission is not within PDF’s priorities but the organization has a program or project that is within the priorities, i.e. if the organization is a direct service organization, but has an organizing component, then we would recommend that groups apply for a specific program or project.