Note: While we’re open to new ideas and projects, funding for unsolicited requests is very limited.

Education - Advancing Afterschool

We work to increase access to quality educational opportunities for all children — particularly those from low-income families and underserved communities.

Preparing a child for the future doesn’t end when the school bell rings.

How it Works

The hours before and after school — and during the summer months — provide opportunities for children and youth to engage in learning, and the space for the kinds of activities that encourage curiosity, creativity and confidence.

Students who attend afterschool and summer programs are better prepared for work and life. They attend school more, make gains in reading and math, improve their grades and have higher graduation rates. And they develop positive social skills and improve their behavior during the school day.

Our interest in afterschool and summer learning programs spans 85 years of support, from the early development of community schools through our partnership with the U.S. Department of Education’s 21st Century Community Learning Centers program. Now serving more than 1.7 million children and youth at 11,000 sites across the country, these local programs provide a wealth of practical information and data on the impact of and need for afterschool and summer learning opportunities.

Mott is dedicated to making afterschool and summer learning programs available for every child and family who needs them. Through our support of afterschool networks in all 50 states, as well as key national education organizations, our grantmaking helps to inform policies, develop partnerships and shape practices that will sustain and increase the quality of local programs across the U.S.

Currently, our grantmaking focuses on three areas:

Building an Afterschool Infrastructure

Our grants support a national infrastructure of organizations dedicated to increasing the quality of afterschool programs for children, youth and families.

We make grants to:

• organizations helping to strengthen the capacity of 50 statewide afterschool networks through technical assistance that will improve program quality and data collection practices; and
• nonprofit groups supporting the sharing of best practices, research and communication strategies throughout the network.

Fostering Afterschool Policy

Our funding supports efforts to inform the development of effective policies and partnerships to increase quality afterschool programs for children, youth and families.

We make grants to:

• national nonprofit groups that work to inform state, federal and local policies to increase access to quality afterschool and summer learning programs; and
• organizations that support strategic communications aimed at improving access to quality afterschool and summer learning programs at the local, state and national levels

Improving Afterschool Quality & Innovation

Our grantmaking advances research and exemplary models that increase student engagement in learning and prepare students for college and career. We make grants to:

• organizations conducting research to identify the impact of quality afterschool programs on children, youth and families;
• national nonprofit groups with expertise in research-based practices that include: digital media and learning; science, technology, engineering and math (STEM); music and the arts; and service learning; and
• organizations supporting initiatives to test and expand research-based models/approaches in education and afterschool.

Entergy’s Open Grants Program focuses on improving communities as a whole. We look for giving opportunities in the areas of arts and culture, education and workforce development, poverty solutions and social services, healthy families, and community improvement.

Arts and Culture

The arts are expressions of ourselves – our heritage, feelings and ideas. To cultivate that, we support a diverse range of locally based visual arts, theater, dance and music institutions. Our long-term goal is to increase the access to contemporary art for a wider public, including children and the financially disadvantaged.

Community Improvement/EnrichmentEntergy supports community-based projects that focus community enrichment and improvement. A few examples include civic affairs, blighted housing improvements, and neighborhood safety. By giving to communities in this way, we actually help them become more self-sufficient.Healthy FamiliesChildren need a good start to grow into healthy, well-adjusted adults. With that in mind, we give to programs that have a direct impact on children educationally and emotionally. We’re also interested in family programs, like those that better prepare parents to balance the demands of work and home. The amount and nature of an organization’s request will determine which type of grant the organization would need to apply for.

NOTE: The Pop Culture Collaborative accepts proposals by invitation only. However, we have created a simple process for potential grantees to self-evaluate whether they are a match with the Collaborative’s goals and guidelines, and if so, to submit an idea for our consideration. It is important to note that an idea submission is not a proposal. The Collaborative will respond only to idea submissions that the staff team has reviewed and deem a potential match. 

Mission Statement

The Pop Culture Collaborative is a philanthropic resource and funder learning community working to transform the narrative landscape in America around people of color, immigrants, refugees, Muslims, and Indigenous peoples, especially those who are women, queer, transgender and/or disabled. The Collaborative achieves this through partnerships between the social justice sector and the entertainment, advertising, and media industries that help mass audiences understand the past, make sense of the present, and imagine the future of American society.

Since its public launch in Summer 2017, the Collaborative has worked with field and philanthropic partners to articulate a shared goal: to unleash the superpowers of pop culture to build widespread public yearning for a pluralist culture—that is, a nation in which most people are actively engaged in the hard and delicate work of belonging together in a just society.

With this in mind, the Collaborative seeks to accelerate the pop culture for social change field’s ability to design and implement sophisticated, long-term culture change strategies at the pop culture level and to be a catalyst for the activation of transformative narrative systems—​coordinated systems of mental models, narrative archetypes, and immersive story experiences—​designed to normalize pluralist behaviors and values in America. 

In the long term, the Collaborative is working to support the growth of a pop culture for social change field capable of building the yearning in most Americans (more than 150 million people) to actively co-create a just and pluralist society in which everyone is perceived to belong—inherently—and treated as such. 

Grantmaking

Pop Culture Collaborative grants are awarded to United States–based nonprofit organizations, for-profit companies, and individuals (with fiscal sponsorship) working to drive transformative experiences for mass audiences (i.e., more than 1 million people) through pop culture stories, media, and social networks. These include initiatives focused on the development and distribution of content, design of audience engagement strategies, and the creation of immersive narrative environments through cultural, narrative, and behavioral change approaches.

As described in our vision statement, the Collaborative is working over the long-term to support the growth of a pop culture for social change field capable of building the yearning in most Americans (more than 150 million people) to actively co-create a just and pluralist culture in which everyone is perceived to belong, inherently, and is treated as such.

The Collaborative defines “pluralist culture” as a culture in which the majority of people in a community or nation are actively engaged in the hard and delicate work of belonging together in a just society. Our grantmaking approach reflects our belief that pop culture stories and experiences have a critical role to play in helping people discover, experiment with, and embody pluralist behaviors and norms.

The Pop Culture Collaborative Vision and Purpose

hroughout America’s history, the most transformative cultural shifts—from slavery abolition to Reconstruction, “I Have A Dream” to “Yes We Can,” #BlackLivesMatter, the DREAM-ers, and Love Is Love—have been achieved by movements and leaders who have awakened people’s deep yearning to belong in a pluralist America. In each case, the tug-of-war between belonging and exclusion sparked a portal moment—a cracking open of the public imagination about what this nation is capable of becoming.

We believe our nation is on the precipice of another historic breakthrough: a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the American people to decisively choose to move in the direction of pluralism and justice. How will we respond to this call for transformation? Will we submit to authoritarian narratives that entice us to retreat back into the systems of exclusion and violence that stain our past, or will we step boldly through the portal and onto the path towards our pluralist future?

Americans have the opportunity to ask: What society do we yearn to create and who can we empower to lead the way? If, as civil rights scholar Vincent Harding once said, America is “a country that has yet to be born,” the pop culture for social change field can help prepare and guide millions of people through this process of becoming something new by clearing away the detritus of our nation’s past, replacing fetid, crumbling ideas and norms with ones rooted in justice, care, and connection.

Together, artists, organizers, strategists, and researchers can create the stories that help the American public understand and interpret the choices we face through the lens of our shared commitment to becoming a pluralist nation.

Over the long-term, the Collaborative is working to support the growth of a pop culture for social change field capable of building the yearning in most Americans (more than 150 million people) to actively co-create a just and pluralist society in which everyone is perceived to belong, inherently, and is treated as such. The Pop Culture Collaborative defines a pluralist society as a culture in which the majority of people in a community and nation are engaged in the hard and delicate work of belonging together in a just and equitable society.

Major Grants

Major Grants can support new and/or established initiatives, organizations, or companies that are working to advance long-term narrative change goals and/or to build the pop culture for social change field.  Major Grants are approved twice a year, in the late Spring/Early Summer and in the late Fall.

The Pop Culture Collaborative funds in five priority grantmaking areas. All approved grants will fit into at least one of the five priority areas, but often fit across multiple areas.

Program Area 1: Artists Advancing Culture Change -

The Pop Culture Collaborative provides grants to artists and organizations or companies that support artist cohorts, from various disciplines, locations, and industries to bring their artistic vision to mass audiences, while also contributing to field-wide efforts to build public yearning for a pluralist America.

We seek to create a large, networked community of artists who believe that their creative work and leadership have the power to inspire millions of Americans to actively co-create a pluralist society.

Areas of interest include:

• Supporting artists and cultural organizations to conceptualize, develop, and produce creative works that can help build public yearning for pluralist culture in America.
• Supporting artists to gather for shared learning, networking, community-knitting, and power-building, especially spaces that bring artists into direct and meaningful connection with frontline activists and culture change strategists.
• Helping artists and organizations develop the methodology, networks, infrastructure, pipelines, and leadership skills needed to redistribute access and power in their respective industries to historically excluded communities. 

Program Area 2: Building the Pop Culture for Social Change Field -

The Pop Culture Collaborative supports artists, activists, strategists, researchers, and other practitioners in the entertainment, social justice, and philanthropic fields to build a robust pop culture change field capable of achieving widespread narrative and cultural change at scale. Together, they can form narrative networks that have the knowledge, connections, skills, and infrastructure that can align and create transformative narrative environments in our society.

Areas of interest include: 

• Creating resources and/or infrastructure that support the design, testing, and/or activation of long-term pop culture strategies.
• Developing, testing, and strengthening partnerships among artists, the entertainment industry, and social justice movements via convenings, cohorts, campaigns, and/or programs.
• Designing, testing, and/or advancing narrative infrastructure (convenings, emergent technologies, community knitting spaces, and programs) that create access and long-term career sustainability for the next generation of pop culture–focused strategists, campaigners, and artists.

Program Area 3: Culture Change Research -

The Pop Culture Collaborative supports grantees to unearth new data, develop analysis, and share insights with and among entertainment, social justice, and philanthropic sectors in order to inform content development, advance cultural strategies, and activate collaborations in the pop culture for social change field.

Areas of interest include:

• Audience Research. Research that helps the field understand who the people in key audiences are, what motivates their beliefs, (e.g., media, culture, family, economics), and how their beliefs compel and shape their behaviors.
• Industry Research. Research that delves into the ecosystem of a specific field of cultural production (e.g., television industry, music industry, or sports broadcasting industry) to inform and/or activate short- and long-term culture change strategies.
• Impact and Evaluation Research. Research that examines and analyzes past and current pop culture change experiments, campaigns, and/or partnerships; utilizes formal evaluation and longitudinal impact methodologies to understand impact; and/or leverages trend tracking and analysis to make sense of current narrative environments and cultural norms, or anticipate future patterns in pop culture content creation, consumption, and engagement.

Program Area 4: Movement-Led Pop Culture Narrative Strategies -

The Pop Culture Collaborative supports social justice organizations and initiatives to design, coordinate, and activate long-term narrative change strategies at the pop culture (mass audience) level.

Areas of interest include:

• Design and implementation of multilayered culture change strategies, including content/story strategy design and audience experience design.
• Reimagining and testing new roles and relationships between the social justice and entertainment fields to advance the development of narratives, story creation, and audience activation opportunities.

Program Area 5: Innovations in Mass Audience Activation -

The Pop Culture Collaborative supports initiatives, bold experiments, and exploration of emerging activation models to ensure that just, authentic narratives about historically marginalized communities are deeply integrated into our nation’s narrative landscape and strategically leveraged to build widespread public yearning for a just and pluralist America.

Areas of interest include:

• Design and implementation of audience activation campaigns (with intended audiences of at least 1 million people) focused on pop culture content.
• Experimentation with mass audience engagement strategies.
• Organizing and/or partnerships with pop culture fandoms.

Criteria

The Collaborative seeks grantee partners working at the intersection of pop culture and social change who:

• Are artists, activists, organizations, strategists, researchers, and/or others who identify culture change as a clear outcome of their work and pop culture strategies as a critical aspect of their culture change efforts.
• Demonstrate emerging or pathbreaking leadership around long-term narrative and culture change strategies in the arts, entertainment, digital, mass media, and/or social justice sectors.
• Prioritize authentic and equitable leadership and/or partnership from the communities most directly affected by the work.
• Have the ability to clearly define how their work fits into a long-term narrative change strategy and theory of culture change.

Funding

Grants allocations are informed by the request of the potential grantees, but made with the final recommendations of Collaborative staff, ranging from: 

• $50,000 to $100,000 for one year
• $100,000 to $200,000 over two years 

NOTE: The Pop Culture Collaborative accepts proposals by invitation only. However, we have created a simple process for potential grantees to self-evaluate whether they are a match with the Collaborative’s goals and guidelines, and if so, to submit an idea for our consideration. It is important to note that an idea submission is not a proposal. The Collaborative will respond only to idea submissions that the staff team has reviewed and deem a potential match. 

Mission Statement

The Pop Culture Collaborative is a philanthropic resource and funder learning community working to transform the narrative landscape in America around people of color, immigrants, refugees, Muslims, and Indigenous peoples, especially those who are women, queer, transgender and/or disabled. The Collaborative achieves this through partnerships between the social justice sector and the entertainment, advertising, and media industries that help mass audiences understand the past, make sense of the present, and imagine the future of American society.

Since its public launch in Summer 2017, the Collaborative has worked with field and philanthropic partners to articulate a shared goal: to unleash the superpowers of pop culture to build widespread public yearning for a pluralist culture—that is, a nation in which most people are actively engaged in the hard and delicate work of belonging together in a just society.

With this in mind, the Collaborative seeks to accelerate the pop culture for social change field’s ability to design and implement sophisticated, long-term culture change strategies at the pop culture level and to be a catalyst for the activation of transformative narrative systems—​coordinated systems of mental models, narrative archetypes, and immersive story experiences—​designed to normalize pluralist behaviors and values in America. 

In the long term, the Collaborative is working to support the growth of a pop culture for social change field capable of building the yearning in most Americans (more than 150 million people) to actively co-create a just and pluralist society in which everyone is perceived to belong—inherently—and treated as such. 

Grantmaking

Pop Culture Collaborative grants are awarded to United States–based nonprofit organizations, for-profit companies, and individuals (with fiscal sponsorship) working to drive transformative experiences for mass audiences (i.e., more than 1 million people) through pop culture stories, media, and social networks. These include initiatives focused on the development and distribution of content, design of audience engagement strategies, and the creation of immersive narrative environments through cultural, narrative, and behavioral change approaches.

As described in our vision statement, the Collaborative is working over the long-term to support the growth of a pop culture for social change field capable of building the yearning in most Americans (more than 150 million people) to actively co-create a just and pluralist culture in which everyone is perceived to belong, inherently, and is treated as such.

The Collaborative defines “pluralist culture” as a culture in which the majority of people in a community or nation are actively engaged in the hard and delicate work of belonging together in a just society. Our grantmaking approach reflects our belief that pop culture stories and experiences have a critical role to play in helping people discover, experiment with, and embody pluralist behaviors and norms.

The Pop Culture Collaborative Vision and Purpose

Throughout America’s history, the most transformative cultural shifts—from slavery abolition to Reconstruction, “I Have A Dream” to “Yes We Can,” #BlackLivesMatter, the DREAM-ers, and Love Is Love—have been achieved by movements and leaders who have awakened people’s deep yearning to belong in a pluralist America. In each case, the tug-of-war between belonging and exclusion sparked a portal moment—a cracking open of the public imagination about what this nation is capable of becoming.

We believe our nation is on the precipice of another historic breakthrough: a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the American people to decisively choose to move in the direction of pluralism and justice. How will we respond to this call for transformation? Will we submit to authoritarian narratives that entice us to retreat back into the systems of exclusion and violence that stain our past, or will we step boldly through the portal and onto the path towards our pluralist future?

Americans have the opportunity to ask: What society do we yearn to create and who can we empower to lead the way? If, as civil rights scholar Vincent Harding once said, America is “a country that has yet to be born,” the pop culture for social change field can help prepare and guide millions of people through this process of becoming something new by clearing away the detritus of our nation’s past, replacing fetid, crumbling ideas and norms with ones rooted in justice, care, and connection.

Together, artists, organizers, strategists, and researchers can create the stories that help the American public understand and interpret the choices we face through the lens of our shared commitment to becoming a pluralist nation.

Over the long-term, the Collaborative is working to support the growth of a pop culture for social change field capable of building the yearning in most Americans (more than 150 million people) to actively co-create a just and pluralist society in which everyone is perceived to belong, inherently, and is treated as such. The Pop Culture Collaborative defines a pluralist society as a culture in which the majority of people in a community and nation are engaged in the hard and delicate work of belonging together in a just and equitable society.

Opportunity Grants

Opportunity Grants are for emergent initiatives, projects, and research; time-sensitive gatherings, retreats, or convenings; and/or critical experiments at the intersection of pop culture and social justice. Opportunity grants are not necessarily hooked to external timing, but based on the timing and needs of the artists, initiative, and/or organization.

Opportunity grants tend to be focused on project that are:

• New and/or in early stages of development.
  • Seed funding for early-stage projects include conducting research; implementing an experimental cultural strategy; developing field or narrative infrastructure or networks; and/or designing or testing a mass audience activation campaign. (For example, much of our artist-led pipeline projects such as new writers rooms models were seeded with Opportunity grants.)
• Convenings and gatherings.
  • One-time or a series of small group gatherings (in-person or virtual) that foster connections or strengthen relationships among stakeholders in specific sectors of the pop culture for social change field (e.g., cultural strategists, entertainment artists, social justice organizations, culture change researchers); or cross-sector convenings that bring stakeholders across sectors together to learn, forge bonds, and/or develop strategy.
  • Genius banks: in-person gatherings of experts in issues, sectors, communities, and/or genres that can help advance a big narrative idea, develop a specific cultural campaign, etc. For example, pop culture audience engagement campaigns often use genius banks for early partner gathering and brainstorming.

All approved Opportunity proposals will fall under at least one (and sometimes more) of the Pop Culture Collaborative five priority grantmaking program areas, including:

Program Area 1: Artists Advancing Culture Change -

The Pop Culture Collaborative provides grants to artists and organizations or companies that support artist cohorts, from various disciplines, locations, and industries to bring their artistic vision to mass audiences, while also contributing to field-wide efforts to build public yearning for a pluralist America.

We seek to create a large, networked community of artists who believe that their creative work and leadership have the power to inspire millions of Americans to actively co-create a pluralist society.

Areas of interest include:

• • Supporting artists and cultural organizations to conceptualize, develop, and produce creative works that can help build public yearning for pluralist culture in America.
  • Supporting artists to gather for shared learning, networking, community-knitting, and power-building, especially spaces that bring artists into direct and meaningful connection with frontline activists and culture change strategists.
  • Helping artists and organizations develop the methodology, networks, infrastructure, pipelines, and leadership skills needed to redistribute access and power in their respective industries to historically excluded communities.

Program Area 2: Building the Pop Culture for Social Change Field -

The Pop Culture Collaborative supports artists, activists, strategists, researchers, and other practitioners in the entertainment, social justice, and philanthropic fields to build a robust pop culture change field capable of achieving widespread narrative and cultural change at scale. Together, they can form narrative networks that have the knowledge, connections, skills, and infrastructure that can align and create transformative narrative environments in our society.

Areas of interest include:

• • Creating resources and/or infrastructure that support the design, testing, and/or activation of long-term pop culture strategies.
  • Developing, testing, and strengthening partnerships among artists, the entertainment industry, and social justice movements via convenings, cohorts, campaigns, and/or programs.
  • Designing, testing, and/or advancing narrative infrastructure (convenings, emergent technologies, community knitting spaces, and programs) that create access and long-term career sustainability for the next generation of pop culture–focused strategists, campaigners, and artists.

Program Area 3: Culture Change Research -

The Pop Culture Collaborative supports grantees to unearth new data, develop analysis, and share insights with and among entertainment, social justice, and philanthropic sectors in order to inform content development, advance cultural strategies, and activate collaborations in the pop culture for social change field.

Areas of interest include:

• Audience Research. Research that helps the field understand who the people in key audiences are, what motivates their beliefs, (e.g., media, culture, family, economics), and how their beliefs compel and shape their behaviors.
• Industry Research. Research that delves into the ecosystem of a specific field of cultural production (e.g., television industry, music industry, or sports broadcasting industry) to inform and/or activate short- and long-term culture change strategies.
• Impact and Evaluation Research. Research that examines and analyzes past and current pop culture change experiments, campaigns, and/or partnerships; utilizes formal evaluation and longitudinal impact methodologies to understand impact; and/or leverages trend tracking and analysis to make sense of current narrative environments and cultural norms, or anticipate future patterns in pop culture content creation, consumption, and engagement.

Program Area 4: Movement-Led Pop Culture Narrative Strategies -

The Pop Culture Collaborative supports social justice organizations and initiatives to design, coordinate, and activate long-term narrative change strategies at the pop culture (mass audience) level.

Areas of interest include:

• Design and implementation of multilayered culture change strategies, including content/story strategy design and audience experience design.
• Reimagining and testing new roles and relationships between the social justice and entertainment fields to advance the development of narratives, story creation, and audience activation opportunities.

Program Area 5: Innovations in Mass Audience Activation -

The Pop Culture Collaborative supports initiatives, bold experiments, and exploration of emerging activation models to ensure that just, authentic narratives about historically marginalized communities are deeply integrated into our nation’s narrative landscape and strategically leveraged to build widespread public yearning for a just and pluralist America.

Areas of interest include:

• Design and implementation of audience activation campaigns (with intended audiences of at least 1 million people) focused on pop culture content.
• Experimentation with mass audience audience engagement strategies.
• Organizing and/or partnerships with pop culture fandoms.

Criteria

The Collaborative seeks grantee partners working at the intersection of pop culture and social change who:

• Are artists, activists, organizations, strategists, researchers, and/or others who identify culture change as a clear outcome of their work and pop culture strategies as a critical aspect of their culture change efforts.
• Demonstrate emerging or pathbreaking leadership around long-term narrative and culture change strategies in the arts, entertainment, digital, mass media, and/or social justice sectors.
• Prioritize authentic and equitable leadership and/or partnership from the communities most directly affected by the work.
• Have the ability to clearly define how their work fits into a long-term narrative change strategy and theory of culture change.

Funding

Opportunity grants can be awarded for up to $50,000. Proposals (considered only upon request) are approved year-round on a rolling basis and should be completed within four to 12 months. Opportunity grants can cover the total cost of a gathering or be applied to the budget of gatherings that cost more than $50,000.

Note: Full proposals are by invitation only, and will not be considered if unsolicited. Those interested in funding should complete the Initial Inquiry Form, to provide organizational details and some brief narrative elements. No inquiries submitted via any other channel, including postal mail, will be considered.

Mockingbird Foundation Grants

The Mockingbird Foundation provides funding for music education for children, through competitive grants, emergency-related grants, and tour-related grants – more than a million dollars, and counting. Competitive grants are awarded through a two-tiered grant application process that is among the most competitive: We are currently able to fund fewer than 1% of inquiries received (e.g. $40K on $1.4M in inquiries). That’s in part because the need is so widespread, and in part because we are unique in what we fund, differing from other players in this funding area in important ways:

Music itself matters – Music is powerful not only culturally and emotionally, but for skills, health, and general well-being. However, we have never funded a grantee solely on the basis of such tangential benefits (such as for music therapy), and tend to favor applicants who recognize the importance of music education for its own sake. While a laudable enterprise, music therapy is just not what we do.

Direct experience is best – Each grantee works to bring the power of music into the lives of a particular group of children. Several grantees have also utilized funds to expose students to music, also a laudable effort. But the Mockingbird board has historically been more interested in programs that engage students directly with music, rather than in funding musical performances for students who would only observe others experiencing music.

Underserved niches are great – Like Save the Music and Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, we’ve given support to high school bands. But we’re especially proud of support we’ve given to economically, culturally, and musically distinct efforts. Many of our grantees serve children with special needs and/or underserved populations, and some have been internal efforts by dwindling indigenous peoples. Additionally, we are interested in supporting unconventional forms of instruction, and instruction in unconventional forms; and we are not focused on traditional performance skills, but are also interested in composition, vocalization, and musical improvisation.

Unconventional outlets are interesting – Our funding guidelines define music education for children broadly and somewhat unconventionally. For example, while we have funded many schools – rural and urban, public and private, kindergarten through university – we are especially interested in efforts outside of schools, including hospitals, shelters, foster homes, prisons, churches, camps, and community centers.

Outcomes may not be assessable – Nearly all relevant advocacy efforts have focused on putting instruments in public schools, promoting music education as a tool within broader education, and measuring outcomes in terms of assessable skills. Contrarily, the Mockingbird Foundation looks beyond public schools, and is interested in some areas for which skills may be less assessable (or even irrelevant).

Program Areas

The Mockingbird Foundation, Inc. (“Mockingbird”) offers competitive grants to schools and nonprofit organizations that effect improvements in areas of importance to the Phish fan community. Our programmatic focus is music education for children, defined as follows:

Music: We recognize broad and basic needs within conventional instruction, though are particularly interested in projects that foster creative expression (whether in instrumentation, vocalization, composition, or improvisation) and encourage applications associated with diverse or unusual musical styles, genres, forms, and philosophies.

Education: Education may include the provision of instruments, texts, office materials, or equipment; the support of learning, practice, and/or performance spaces; and the provision of instructors or instruction. We appreciate the fostering of self-esteem and free expression, but have never funded music therapy separate from education nor music appreciation which does not include participation.

Children: We primarily fund programs serving children eighteen years of age or younger, but will consider projects which benefit college students, teachers, instructors, or adult students. We are particularly (though not exclusively) interested in programs which benefit disenfranchised groups, including those with low skill levels, income, or education; with disabilities or terminal illnesses; and in foster homes, shelters, hospitals, prisons, or other remote or isolated situations.

OUR MISSION

Looking Out amplifies the impact of music by empowering those without a voice. From neighborhood to nation, we help fund causes and organizations that often go unnoticed. Founded in 2008 by multiple Grammy winning artists Brandi Carlile, Tim and Phil Hanseroth, we band together with fans, nonprofits, and corporations to translate voices of song to voices of action. We are nimble to the ever-changing needs of the human race, and adapt to support the diverse demographic we serve. Every campaign we launch is backed by our passionate donors and fans, and $1.50 from every concert ticket sold goes directly toward our efforts.

Since its inception, LOF has donated almost $6 million to support social justice and humanitarian causes across the US and globally, providing vital funding for disaster relief aid, protection for children and families in war torn countries, food insecurity programs, racial justice, incarceration prevention, and self-defense workshops for marginalized communities. With an average donation of $25 per campaign, our community of supporters exemplifies the global impact of grassroots level activism and fundraising.

Together, we’re making music mean more.

Grants to Charities:

Grants to organizations are made to tax-exempt public charities under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Program interests include, but are not limited to: disadvantaged youth, public health, women, the environment, the arts, the hungry and the homeless. The Looking Out Foundation generally does not support: endowment programs, fund raising events, annual appeals of well-established organizations, or grants to individuals except as provided for as part of the Looking Out Foundation's COVID-19 Relief Program.

Please note that the Looking Out Foundation receives far more requests each grant cycle than it can support. The average grant allocation is between $1,000 and $5,000. Organizations who have already previously received grants from the Looking Out Foundation, are strongly encouraged to diversify their funding base and develop alternative sources of support. The need is ever changing, therefore so is our focus. Grant decisions are normally made twice per year.

NOTE: Organizations that have previously applied for grant funding from the We Are All Music Foundation will receive an email with specific instructions directing them to update their prior application for submission.

The We Are All Music Foundation (WAAM) is pleased to announce we are now accepting applications for our 2022 Power Of Music grants.

Our intention is to award between 8-10 grants ranging in size from $5,000 – $50,000, for a total of no less than $200,000. Our ideal grantee is a music nonprofit where music is the primary focus of the organization. WAAM’s mission is to provide meaningful support to the most impactful nonprofit organizations that use the power of music to improve lives and benefit society in the areas of Health & Wellness, Education, and Underserved Communities.

WAAM asks that nonprofits submit an application for what will have the biggest impact. In general, for smaller organizations (operating budget less than $1M) an ask for general operating funds is very appropriate. For larger organizations applying for a specific project is encouraged, but not required.

Performance Program

Funds are available for General Operating Support for professional performing ensembles and presenting organizations with a history of substantial commitment to contemporary American music and with plans to continue that commitment. The program also provides Project Support for exceptionally important activities relating to contemporary American music proposed by professional performing ensembles and presenting organizations that do not normally feature such music in their programming.

• An eligible project is a clearly defined endeavor that includes one or more performances of contemporary American music and, often, other activities related to the performance(s) that improve the public’s knowledge of such music.

The Performance Program also supports the electronic dissemination of live performances, including both live streams or broadcasts and delayed streams or broadcasts. Expenses such as recording and electronic distribution costs can be considered as eligible costs in a request for general operating or project support when related to live performance. Stand-alone recording projects (e.g., a studio album) and projects involving the acquisition of equipment (e.g., microphones, cameras, etc.) are not eligible for support in this program.

Special note for dance applicants

The Fund’s primary focus for dance applicants is on the quality of the music and the performance, which must be by live musicians, not the choreography. However, the choreography must enhance the performance of contemporary American music.

Special note for festival applicants and other applications with professional training activities

If the primary focus of the organization or project is public professional performance of music, the applicant should apply to the Performance Program. If the primary focus of the organization or project is educational activities, workshops, professional training, or career development, the applicant should apply to the Supplemental Program.

Funding Provisions

In general, grants range from $1,000 to $20,000. Grant amounts for larger organizations with a demonstrated extraordinary commitment to contemporary American music may exceed these amounts at the discretion of the panel. Please note that the awarding of a grant for general operating support in one year does not imply continuation of that support in subsequent years. Project support grants are for that project only, and no more than one grant will be awarded for a single project.

Please refer to FAQ for additional guidelines.

Foundation Background

Clarence E. Heller established the foundation in 1982 to support nonprofit initiatives consistent with the broad philanthropic purposes he pursued during his lifetime. The original trustees of the foundation were Clarence Heller, his brother Alfred Heller, and his sister Elizabeth H. Mandell.

After Clarence Heller’s death in 1988, the founding trustees continued to incorporate his interests in the establishment of basic funding priorities for the foundation. With expanded board representation from the Heller and Mandell families, and the hiring of a staff, the foundation began full-time operation in November of 1990.

Since that time, the foundation has attempted to create a grantmaking program combining the focus necessary to have an impact, with the flexibility needed to address new issues as they arise.

Grantmaking

The foundation’s interests include programs making valuable contributions in the following fields:

• Environment and Health
• Music
• Education

Environment and Health Program Priorities

To promote the long-term good health and viability of communities and regions:

• by supporting programs to prevent harm to human health from toxic substances and other environmental hazards;
• by encouraging planning and development at the regional level, aimed at integrating economic and social goals with sound environmental policies; and
• by supporting initiatives for sustainability in agriculture and food systems.

Music Program Priorities

To encourage the playing, enjoyment and accessibility of symphonic and chamber music:

• by providing scholarship and program assistance at selected community music centers, schools and institutes; and
• by helping community-based ensembles of demonstrated quality implement artistic initiatives, diversify and increase audiences, and improve fund-raising capacity.

Education Program Priorities

To provide environmental and arts education opportunities to children and youth:

• by supporting programs for educators and artists to improve and apply their teaching skills in these subjects; and
• by supporting efforts to advance environmental and arts education programs.