Marketing Grants for Nonprofits

NOTE:  This program is NOT a grant, but rather a matching funds program.

About Elevation

Mission

Traditionally, technology and nonprofits have existed in separate worlds. At Elevation, we are bridging this longstanding gap by combining these two ostensibly different industries into one. We believe that technology is a catalyst that can propel nonprofits into making a greater impact. Our team at Elevation is that bridge and our solutions are the driving forces behind nonprofits generating quantifiable change and inspiring others to do the same. This idea is the foundation of how we do business every day.

Read more about mission & values here. 

Our Approach

At Elevation, we are united under one goal – provide quality digital solutions to nonprofit organizations so they can continue generating measurable change in their communities. In order to fulfill this mission, we have fostered a design process that is customized, flexible, and results-driven. Our clients receive fully functioning, efficient websites, and more. Your website is a tool and an integral part of fulfilling your nonprofit’s mission. When developed with the right team and ideas, you’ll be able to reach broader audiences and transmit a greater positive impact.

Read more about Elevation's team & clients here.

1 for 1 Matching Fund

For every dollar your nonprofit invests in Elevation’s in-house services, we will match that dollar with one of our own.

Born out of our mission to elevate nonprofits’ impact, our 1 for 1 Matching Fund helps us to provide otherwise out-of-reach services to eligible nonprofit partners.

What is the 1 for 1 match?

Making professional design & web services affordable

For every dollar your nonprofit invests in Elevation’s in-house services, we will match that dollar with one of our own.

Born out of our mission to elevate nonprofits’ impact, our 1 for 1 Matching Funds program helps us provide otherwise out-of-reach services to eligible nonprofit partners.

How can your organization participate?

If you are a nonprofit with a project and would like to apply for assistance, please complete our brief online application.

Are there Additional Requirements? 

We work with all sectors, from religious to environmental, provided that their missions align with the values listed on Elevation's "About Us" page. For logistical purposes, we do rely on a point of contact based in the US, Canada, or Europe, but past recipient organizations have been located across the Americas and Africa as well.

Which Projects are Eligible? 

• Website Design & Re-design in WordPress
• Copywriting
• CRM Integrations in WordPress
• Branding & Graphic Design
• Marketing & Google Grants
• On-going WordPress Support
• Website Hosting

Is there a maximum benefit? 

We match what you raise, up to a 50K project. (For a 50K project, we’ll fund up to 25K. For a 16K  project, we fund up to 8K, etc.) We consider projects over 50K to be appropriate for well-established organizations and thus are not eligible for this program. We still strive to provide all nonprofits with the best results for every dollar they spend.

Why do we need other funding for the first half of our project?

We understand that nonprofits are under-resourced. We include a stipulation about additional funding to support an organization's commitment to finishing a project, which we have found to work best when additional parties are invested. If you feel the project minimums are unachievable for your organization but you can provide empirical data showing strong community support, please include that information in your application.

What is the timeframe for projects? 

The minimum timeframe for projects is 4 months, though most projects take 5 to 6 months to complete. Projects that take longer than 6 months due to delays from the client incur an extraordinary fee.

What is the time commitment required from our staff? 

On average, website clients can expect their staff to dedicate 10 labor hours each week in order to make adequate progress. The amount of time required from your staff members depends on how much they split up the work and how much support your organization has for creating content, writing copy, and accessing hosting and integration information from the other technologies you use. Significant, actionable progress on a project must be made within two weeks of a request from the Project Manager, or your project will be placed on hold.

Our Story

F.Y. Eye came to be during bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Major Deegan en route to a Yankees-Mets baseball game. As we inched along the Expressway, we noticed a series of billboards advertising things that we did not need or want. With nothing to do but feel some sense of road rage, we reflected on how beneficial it would be to have a billboard that promoted public service announcements (PSAs).

The idea of having one billboard transformed into a network of hundreds of digital screens and partnerships with storefronts, community centers and online and in-print advertising slots that provide extensive coverage of PSAs throughout the five boroughs of NYC and beyond.

That night, not only did the idea behind F.Y. Eye hatch, but also, in case you were wondering, the Mets won.

About Us

F.Y. Eye is a nonprofit advertising organization that works with other nonprofits, government agencies and community based organizations to communicate important mission-driven messages to your target audiences regardless of budget.

F.Y. Eye helps clients build stronger brand awareness, implement free and low-cost outreach campaigns, and facilitate effective engagement with its constituents. We offer strategic message distribution and effective, affordable content development to ensure that no good community program, service or announcement is lost in the shadows.

Since 2005, our clients have entrusted F.Y. Eye to develop, enhance and distribute their communication campaigns. Our vast network of partners throughout NYC coupled with our strong grasp of the New York market enable us to position your important public service announcements strategically, creatively and affordably.

PSA Network Criteria

F.Y. Eye promotes social impact messages that aim to protect or empower a vulnerable population, a community-driven effort, an environmental resource and/or our democracy. We do not communicate commercial or fundraising messages for free on the PSA Network. 

PSA Distribution Overview

F.Y. Eye will distribute your PSA to all nonprofit partners in the PSA Network. Our nonprofit partners have the right to refuse any message that they do not believe is relevant to their audience or conflicts with their interests or values. While we encourage our nonprofit partners to display all F.Y. Eye messages, we cannot guarantee distribution in any one location.

Create Your Campaign

Advertising is an art and a science. We will work with you to craft a high-impact message that will result in direct action, behavior change or a meaningful shift in perception.

Need creative support? F.Y. Eye works with talented impact artists that can help turn your idea into a reality at a rate you can afford. If you are producing the campaign independently, contact us for details on design guidelines, creative specifications and formatting.

Consider reaching more people by translating your campaign into different languages! F.Y. Eye also provides translation services in Korean, Chinese and Spanish for free through our partnership with the Asian/American Center at CUNY Queens College.

NOTE: Nominations for the Civil Society Awards are now closed. However, the Manhattan Institute welcomes award nominations on a rolling basis. To tell us about an outstanding nonprofit leader—and their organization—who is contributing to a vibrant civil society in your community, please email: [email protected]

About

History has shown that free markets are the best way to organize economic activity. But the Manhattan Institute understands that in a healthy society, markets are complemented by charitable and philanthropic enterprises, which both help those in need and prepare people to realize their full potential. Since its founding, the United States has been characterized by a vibrant civil society in which nonprofit, nongovernmental organizations—with the help of volunteers and private philanthropy—work to address social challenges.

To support and reinvigorate this tradition, the Manhattan Institute established the Social Entrepreneurship Initiative in 2001, now known as the Tocqueville Project. Directed by MI Senior Fellow Howard Husock, it combines research, writing, events, and conversations with scholars, practitioners, government officials, and community leaders to make the case for the value and benefits of a strong civil society. The goal of the Civil Society Awards program is to find and recognize the best of America’s new generation of nonprofit leaders.

Tocqueville wrote that “Americans of all ages, all conditions and all dispositions, constantly form associations... religious, moral, serious, futile, enormous or diminutive.” This combination of association and philanthropy has given us everything from the Boy Scouts to Big Brothers Big Sisters.

Just as we have private entrepreneurs, we also have social entrepreneurs, who address societal challenges and find private funds to do so. These individuals develop solutions to emerging needs and problems, while helping to keep our social fabric from fraying. It is their work that the Civil Society Awards highlight and encourage.

Manhattan Institute welcomes nominations for our Civil Society Awards on a rolling basis. To tell us about an outstanding individual—as well as their nonprofit organization—who is contributing to a vibrant civil society in your community, please visit our nomination page. 

NOTE: We are shifting to a rolling process for identifying and vetting organizations. This will allow us to revisit some of the most promising ideas in our existing pool and see how they are progressing, while also searching for new ideas.

If your organization meets the above criteria and you believe your idea is a fit for The Audacious Project, we encourage you to complete the brief survey. We will review every submission on a rolling basis and the link will stay open all year; over time, we may contact a small number of survey responders to submit an application.

About

Housed at TED, which has a long track record of surfacing ideas worth spreading, and supported by The Bridgespan Group, the project is a unique partnership between some of the most respected organizations in philanthropy and the public. The Audacious Project attempts to address a major frustration faced by the world’s change-makers. Without access to venture capital or stock markets, social entrepreneurs have to pitch donors one-by-one, often a deeply inefficient process for all involved. The Audacious Project aims to: (1) encourage the world’s greatest change-agents to dream bigger than ever before (2) shape their best ideas into viable multi-year plans and (3) present those ideas in a compelling way to potential supporters. Our goal is to make philanthropy more collaborative, more inspiring — and more effective.

Launched in 2018, The Audacious Project has already shown what humanity can accomplish when bold ideas meet real resources. From the thousands of people in the US awaiting trials from home because of The Bail Project’s fast growth, to the hundreds of thousands of smallscale farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa enjoying better harvests because of One Acre Fund’s increased capacity, The Audacious Project is empowering social entrepreneurs and nonprofit leaders to take on the world’s biggest and most urgent challenges.

The Process

Every year, The Audacious Project works with proven change-makers to surface their best, boldest ideas for tackling global problems.

Each candidate goes through a rigorous ideation and due diligence process, with research and vetting done by teams at both TED and The Bridgespan Group. From the initial spark of an idea to a completed project proposal, the candidates are narrowed down to a group of finalists whose ideas feel truly audacious with a clear and viable path to execution. These finalists are presented privately to groups of donors and unveiled at the annual TED conference. The goal is that each attracts a community of supporters, from both the philanthropic space and the public.

Then the hard work starts. Ideas that are part of The Audacious Project typically have a timeline of three to five years. While public supporters give meaningful donations online, donors typically commit financial support paid annually, provided project milestones are met. We offer regular updates and pass on all supporters' ideas, messages of encouragement and offers of other resources. Several years on, we will celebrate success together — or learn from failure. Either way, we will have participated in a new form of philanthropy.

National Environment

Program goals: to mitigate climate change; make communities more resilient to climate change; protect public health from the hazards of toxic chemicals and pollutants; and preserve biological diversity.

Grants are made to promote more environmentally sustainable, resilient, and just communities that:

• Mitigate climate change by:
• promoting energy efficiency and alternative sources of energy for buildings;
• shifting to electric or low-emission vehicles and greater use of mass transit;
• promoting a smarter, more resilient grid and distributed (on site) generation;
• reducing emissions from existing fossil fuel-powered facilities and extraction activities; and
• establishing regional programs, performance standards, and regulations that help reduce emissions.
• Make communities, especially the most disadvantaged, more resilient to a changing climate by:
• creating infrastructure that reduces storm-water run-off and absorbs storm surges;
• protecting shoreline communities by conserving or enhancing natural barriers;
• encouraging more sustainable building design and land use through policy reforms; and
• better planning and preparation for weather-related emergencies, especially for low-income and other vulnerable residents.
• Protect public health from the hazards of toxic pollutants by:
• supporting targeted scientific research that can be used to develop policy;
• promoting safer chemical and heavy metal policies and practices, especially for infants, children and other vulnerable people;
• eliminating toxic chemicals from products through market campaigns focused on retailers and manufacturers;
• enhancing protections for low-income communities near polluting facilities; and
• minimizing the hazards of new and expanded fossil fuel extraction on nearby communities.
• Preserve biological diversity through habitat conservation by:
• establishing, enhancing, and monitoring wildlife migration corridors; and
• supporting functional connectivity between fragmented habitat that enables species to move and live safely.

We encourage initiatives that cut across these program areas, especially those focused on smart growth, sustainable agriculture and regional food systems, and sustainable production.

International Environment

Each year, we make only two or three international grants to U.S. organizations that are building the capacity of government, academic institutions, private sector entities, and nonprofits to:

• Protect biodiversity;
• Improve environmental health; and
• Reduce greenhouse gases around the world.

Our Mission

Delta believes data is powerful and anyone should be able to use it for change in their community. We partner with non-profits and communities all over the world to build technical capacity that generates positive social impact.

Background

Delta Analytics is community of 90+ data scientists, economists, analysts, and software engineers seeking to leverage their data skills for the welfare of the community. While our primary background is in the private sector, we apply our skill set to facilitate progress in the nonprofit world. We find the data questions of the social sector fascinating and address them with an eye towards high impact and sustainability.

Delta Data Grants

Every year, Delta Analytics partners skilled data scientists, engineers and analysts with nonprofits around the world for free. We provide a wide range of data-related services catering to non-profits big and small. Very few projects are straightforward but all start off with a question. Where is my funding coming from? How did my free after-school mentoring program impact test scores? How many people have we reached in the past 6 months?

Armed with a clear question, we can decide what services best illuminate an answer. That is why we start off with an application -- we want to work with nonprofits who have a well-defined sense of what they want to achieve. Our potential services are described in more detail below.

Data Management

If you have data but are unsure what to make of it, we can help transform the data into something meaningful. We can set up data management systems that let you pull important insights from the information at your fingertips.

Data Analysis

Delta can run statistical analysis to help assess impact on measurable variables. For instance, we can tell an environmental organization how much waste it has reduced per dollar spent.

Marketing Metrics

Understanding who you work with is crucial to maximizing your influence; Delta can analyze data to help you categorize your market. For example, we can track characteristics of donors, clients, or volunteers, and provide insights on the demographics of stakeholders.

Data Visualization & Presentation

Delta creates engaging graphs, charts, and tables to help you visualize data. These can be utilized for internal processes or to show off your organization's impact to the world.

NOTE: The Unfunded List is not a typical grant opportunity but may result in networking opportunities that could lead to funding.

Background

In 2015, founder Dave Moss started the Unfunded List in order to harness the power of the honorable mention and to bring added attention, recognition and funding to ideas that would otherwise have gone unnoticed.

We founded the Unfunded List with a simple mission:

to provide feedback and recognition to unfunded grant proposals. What started as an informal effort to support social entrepreneurs with feedback has evolved into a vision of unlocking the value of an abundant and underutilized resource – well-conceived but unfunded proposals.

There is no shortage of great ideas and potential solutions out there, but new programs need better support and the funding community needs a better way to identify and move new solutions forward.

Every submission receives detailed feedback on their proposal from our talented Evaluation Committee. Feedback could include introductions to other potential funders, suggested improvements to the proposal, potential partnerships, etc. and will be tailored to each individual application. Proposals from small nonprofits that have been submitted yet gone unfunded might also be published to the Unfunded List.

Why do you charge $100

Finding a dozen relevant experts to read and review a grant proposal takes time and effort and money. It costs us about $1,000 per proposal review and our funders cover the majority of the costs of the program. In consideration, we do ask a small application fee to help cover these overhead costs and to ensure that we can continue to provide high quality feedback to unfunded ideas. The fee also ensures our applicants have some skin in the game and keeps the pool of proposals we receive at a manageable size. From experience, we have found that the fee leads to higher quality submissions.

If the $100 fee is an absolute impossibility for you and the only hurdle to submitting a proposal please contact us and we will work it out.

This is a one-time fee. If you pay it once then you are eligible to submit to us every round without the fee. Every round we reach out to past applicants with a special link to submit for free.

About Us

A Community Thrives is a grantmaking and crowdfunding program from the USA TODAY NETWORK, which includes USA TODAY and Gannett’s hundreds of local media brands. The initiative is part of the Gannett Foundation and supports nonprofit organizations with projects focused on community building. Since 2017, the program has helped to distribute more than $6.5 million from donations and grants across the nation.

Let's build change, together!

We started A Community Thrives, a nationwide grantmaking and crowdfunding initiative, because your great ideas for how to improve your community need a great big network of people to bring them to life. A Community Thrives offers a way to get your neighbors, friends, family, and peers excited to support your community-building ideas, and most importantly, a chance at +$2,000,000 in grants to get them off the ground and running.

There are three types of grants in the A Community Thrives program. 

• National Project Grants can be awarded to any applicant accepted to the challenge after the organization meets the fundraising minimum. Grants will range from $25,000 to $100,000.
• Local Operating Grants can be awarded to any applicant that serves a local Gannett market, accepted to the challenge, after the organization meets the fundraising minimum. Minimum grants will be $2,500.
• Incentive Grants will be awarded based on fundraising success. A total of $200,000 will be awarded during the Fundraising phase of the Campaign to those qualifying organizations that raise the most funds or activate the most unique donors. See full description below. 

• Tier 1 organizations will be those organizations that entered an Annual Operating Budget of less than $500,000 in their application, and must raise $3,000.

• Tier 2 organizations will be those organizations that entered an Annual Operating Budget of $500,000 or more in their application, and must raise $6,000 minimum.

OUR TOWN: Grant Program Description

• Bring new attention to or elevate key community assets and issues, voices of residents, local history, or cultural infrastructure.
• Inject new or additional energy, resources, activity, people, or enthusiasm into a place, community issue, or local economy.
• Envision new possibilities for a community or place - a new future, a new way of overcoming a challenge, or approaching problem-solving.
• Connect communities, people, places, and economic opportunity via physical spaces or new relationships.

The National Endowment for the Arts plans to support a variety of projects across the country in urban, rural, and tribal communities of all sizes.

Project Types

Our Town projects must integrate arts, culture, and design activities into efforts that strengthen communities by advancing local economic, physical, and/or social outcomes. Projects may include activities such as:

Arts Engagement

Artist residency: A program designed to strategically connect artists with the opportunity to bring their creative skill sets to non-arts institutions, including residencies in government offices, businesses, or other institutions.

Arts festivals: Public events that gather people, often in public space or otherwise unexpected places, to showcase talent and exchange culture.

Community co-creation of art: The process of engaging stakeholders to participate or collaborate alongside artists/designers in conceiving, designing, or fabricating a work or works of art.

Performances: Presentations of a live art work (e.g., music, theater, dance, media).

Public art: A work of art that is conceived for a particular place or community, with the intention of being broadly accessible, and often involving community members in the process of developing, selecting, or executing the work.

Temporary public art: A work of art that is conceived for a particular place or community and meant for display over a finite period of time, with the intention of being broadly accessible and often involving community members in developing, selecting, or executing the work.

Cultural Planning

Cultural planning: The process of identifying and leveraging a community's cultural resources and decision-making (e.g., creating a cultural plan, or integrating plans and policies around arts and culture as part of a city master planning process).

Cultural district planning: The process of convening stakeholders to identify a specific geography with unique potential for community and/or economic development based on cultural assets (e.g., through designation, branding, policy, plans, or other means).

Creative asset mapping: The process of identifying the people, places, physical infrastructure, institutions, and customs that hold meaningful aesthetics, historical, and/or economic value that make a place unique.

Public art planning: The process of developing community-wide strategies and/or policies that guide and support commissioning, installing, and maintaining works of public art and/or temporary public art.

Design

Artist/designer-facilitated community planning: Artists/designers leading or partnering in the creative processes of visioning, and for solutions to community issues.

Design of artist space: Design processes to support the creation of dedicated spaces for artists to live and/or to produce, exhibit, or sell their work.

Design of cultural facilities: Design processes to support the creation of a dedicated building or space for creating and/or showcasing arts and culture.

Public space design: The process of designing elements of public infrastructure, or spaces where people congregate (e.g., parks, plazas, landscapes, neighborhoods, districts, infrastructure, and artist-produced elements of streetscapes).

Artist and Creative Industry Support

Creative business development: Programs or services that support entrepreneurs and businesses in the creative industries, or help cultivate strong infrastructure for establishing and developing creative businesses.

Professional artist development: Programs or services that support artists professionally, such as through skill development or accessing markets and capital.

Strengthening Communities

Through Our Town projects, the National Endowment for the Arts Endowment intends to achieve the following objective: Strengthening Communities: Provide opportunities for the arts to be integrated into the fabric of community life.

Our Town project outcomes may include:

Economic Change: Economic improvements of individuals, institutions, or the community including local business growth, job creation/labor force participation, professional development/training, prevention of displacement, in-migration, and tourism.

Physical Change: Physical improvements that occur to the built and natural environment including beautification and/or enhancement of physical environment, new construction, and redevelopment (including arts, culture, and public space).

Social Change: Improvements to social relationships, civic engagement and community empowerment, and/or amplifying community identity including civic engagement, collective efficacy, social capital, social cohesion, and community attachment.

Systems Change: Improvements to community capacity to sustain the integration of arts, culture, and design into strategies for advancing local economic, physical, and/or social outcomes including, for example: establishment of new and lasting cross-sector partnerships; shifts in institutional structure, practices or policies; replication or scaling of innovative project models; establishment of training programs; or dissemination of informational resources to support the creative placemaking field.