Mission

It is our mission to support our customers, colleagues and communities by helping them achieve their aspirations and helping their communities thrive. This shapes our work as a responsible corporate citizen. We deliver high-impact funding and initiatives that support people, businesses and non-profit partners so that together, we can make a meaningful difference in the world.

Note: We do not accept unsolicited letters of inquiry and do not have an open application process. 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 email our staff with a brief description of your work. 

Laird Norton Family Foundation

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

Programs

Arts in Education

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.

The Arts in Education program will consider funding programs that:

• Encourage the adoption and/or growth of arts integration within a public school or school district. We will prioritize programs that integrate the arts as a tool within greater, diverse curriculum content areas over arts enrichment or direct arts instruction programs.
• Advocate systemic change within schools, districts, or at the state level to encourage arts in education, and
• Utilize the arts as a tool to reduce the educational achievement gap.

Climate Change

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.

 We are focused on investing in regenerative biological systems that influence the carbon cycle (“biocarbon”) and reducing dependency on fossil fuels. We have chosen to focus our grantmaking on efforts to hasten the demise of coal and other fossil fuels and on work that increases the abilities of the forests, agricultural lands, and estuaries of the Pacific Northwest to sequester carbon.

Human Services

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.

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:

• Prevention and early intervention work to keep young people from sleeping in unsafe situations — or at a minimum make that a very brief and one-time occurrence, and
• Support for long-term stability support services.

Watershed Stewardship

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. Currently, we prioritize work in Minnesota and Wisconsin as well as a few key watersheds in the Western United States, consistent with the Laird Norton family's priorities.

About

The Medina Foundation is a private family foundation working to improve lives by funding human service organizations that provide direct support to Puget Sound residents.

We support organizations across our 14 county funding region that are addressing a wide range of human services, including homelessness, youth development, education and economic opportunity.   

Since our founding in 1947, we have granted over $93 million in grant dollars resulting in countless services and programs that help make lives better.

Funding Areas

The Medina Foundation funds in the following focus areas:

Positive Pathways for Youth: Helping youth achieve positive outcomes.

We support organizations that:

• Ensure that young people’s basic needs such as safe, stable housing are met
• Mentor, tutor, and support youth as they find their own voice, achieve their own goals, and build new skills
• Support transition points through school, from early education through postsecondary, including job training

Stabilization for Families and Individuals: Ensuring basic needs are met. 

We support organizations that:

• Alleviate hunger, primarily through larger food distribution networks or rural food banks that are also a hub of additional services
• Prevent homelessness or quickly stabilize people who are experiencing homelessness
• Offer programs that prevent or reduce the effects of domestic violence, sexual assault, trauma, and abuse

Economic Opportunities: Helping people secure employment, increase income, and build assets.

We support organizations that:

• Offer job training and entrepreneurship opportunities
• Teach skills and assist with obtaining credentials needed for career advancement
• Provide financial education

What Makes a Strong Proposal

The Medina Foundation considers many qualities of an organization when reviewing proposals.

We look for organizations that are addressing critical community needs, engaging in strategic planning to meet well-mapped programmatic and financial goals, and seeing positive results through their programs. We believe organizations that are driven by strong leadership, through a diverse and engaged board and a dedicated executive director and staff, have a high likelihood of success.

Grant amounts awarded reflect both the needs of the nonprofit and the Foundation's desire to see the presence of other support. Generally, this means no more than 10% of an operating or capital budget. We do consider making exceptions for innovative start-ups. Since grant sizes vary widely, please review the grants list to see the size and types of grants that we have recently awarded. The Foundation’s median grant size is around $25,000.

The Gathering Collaborative

$25 Million Total in Grants to Address Racism Is A Public Health Crisis

King County declared racism as a public health crisis in 2020, recognizing that governments need to acknowledge and respond by undoing the centuries of harms of systemic racism in our society and equitably invest in dismantling racism and protecting the health and well-being of Black, Indigenous and People of Color so that all communities thrive.

Envisioned jointly by community members and King County in August 2021 and launched in March 2022, The Gathering Collaborative is a group of trusted community members who are involved to uplift Black and Indigenous people and their communities – those who are most directly harmed by racism. The members largely reflect these communities and have lived experience in these communities that they serve, with Executive Dow Constantine, Abigail Echo-Hawk and Dr. Ben Danielson, serving as co-chairs. 

The Gathering Collaborative is an iterative co-creation effort between King County government and the community. The Gathering Collaborative community members will collaborate with King County to equitably distribute $25 million that starts to undo the harms of racism compounded by the pandemic, influence the County’s budget cycle and process, and establish a longer-term, multi-generational vision for King County to become an anti-racist government. 

Focus Populations

The focus of this effort and the related investments is to start to undo the harms on the following populations who, based on extensive research and data nationally and in King County, most negatively experience the generational, current, and longstanding impacts of racism, making it a public health crisis:

• Black Americans who are the descendants of enslaved Africans and continue to experience the ongoing and deep impacts of systemic racism in all of its facets. 
• Indigenous Peoples directly impacted by settler colonialism within the US borders which have created the systems of institutional and structural racism perpetuated by the United States government and ongoing settler colonialism of the United States. It includes American Indians/Alaska Natives/Native Americans, Native Hawaiians, American Samoa, and Pacific Islander communities. 

Grant Priorities

Together, The Gathering Collaborative and King County aim to invest in a wide range of services, programs, operations, community advocacy efforts, and physical infrastructure designed and delivered through community-based service providers and businesses that move the needle on the established grantmaking priorities. 

• Health and Wellness
  • Increase investments in and improve wraparound services to provide family and community-based approach to mental and physical health focused on the whole community, and the whole person
  • Invest in and increase culturally rooted, community-rooted mental health providers, services, and/or entities
  • Invest in and improve Black and Indigenous healthcare and wellness overall
  • Increase resources / funds for Healthy Aging support by increasing and creating multigenerational spaces, activities, use of arts toward social justice, health literacy services, and education around medical language (an umbrella of services)
  • Increase investments in efforts that center and advance Black and Indigenous joy, play, wellness, mental health, and resilience
  • Increase and improve access to culturally appropriate, reflective, and rooted services for reproductive, women's rights
  • Improve support for family caregivers that strengthen networks of care
  • Improve and increase youth safety
  • Invest in environmental justice and recognize that it is interconnected to climate change based on where Black and Indigenous communities live, work, play, and pray
  • Invest in resources that improve health of Black and Indigenous birthing people and after birth for the birther and baby
  • Acknowledge and repair harm done to Black and Indigenous women
  • Acknowledge and address various types of system violence that disproportionally affect Black and Indigenous women, LGBTQ2S people as victims of sexual assault  
• Economic Stability and Strengthening
  • Increase support and utilization of banks, businesses, educational entities, philanthropy whose work are led by and that serve Black and Indigenous communities
  • Increase investments in entrepreneurship opportunities for Black and Indigenous women
  • Help youth get better education and allow them to build leadership and cognitive skills
  • Support new and developing entrepreneurship in Black and Indigenous communities
  • Provide a social safety net to be able to support people in meeting their material needs 
• Housing
  • Ensure housing resources are equitably distributed particularly to Black and Indigenous homeless community members
  • Create conditions and places to prioritize housing stability of Black and Indigenous families and individuals and prevent them from going into homelessness in the first place
  • Relieve financial burden of elders in Black and Indigenous communities who are experiencing gentrification pressures and help keep our elders in the homes that they are in
  • Acknowledge and repair harm done to Black and Indigenous women 
• Education
  • Increase Black and Indigenous representation and leadership in decision-making roles across various healthcare professions and systems through workforce development
  • Help youth get better education and allow them to build leadership and cognitive skills
  • Increase access to Black and Indigenous-rooted education opportunities for STEM for Black and Indigenous families and their children
  • Acknowledge and address various impacts of racism in schools on Black and Indigenous young people
  • Invest in and/or increase access to mentors, field trips, afterschool snacks and activities, etc.
  • Support new and developing entrepreneurship in Black and Indigenous communities
  • Improve, increase access to and investment in arts and culture for our Black and Indigenous youth 
• Power and Capacity  Building
  • Increase Black and Indigenous representation and leadership in decision-making roles across various healthcare professions and systems through workforce development
  • Reduce the burden on community of receiving funding, including reporting requirements
  • Help youth get better education and allow them to build leadership and cognitive skills
  • Increase tracking and transparency of how funding is being directed (revisit if done toward our health and wellness)
  • Invest in and increase community defined, built, and owned culturally rooted data gathering and research
  • Grow regional advocacy and power to continue this work
  • Improve, increase access to and investment in arts and culture for our Black and Indigenous youth 

Funding

• Total Available Funding for this grant category: $3,312,500
• Minimum award:$25,000 
• Maximum award: $125,000    

The Gathering Collaborative

$25 Million Total in Grants to Address Racism Is A Public Health Crisis

King County declared racism as a public health crisis in 2020, recognizing that governments need to acknowledge and respond by undoing the centuries of harms of systemic racism in our society and equitably invest in dismantling racism and protecting the health and well-being of Black, Indigenous and People of Color so that all communities thrive.

Envisioned jointly by community members and King County in August 2021 and launched in March 2022, The Gathering Collaborative is a group of trusted community members who are involved to uplift Black and Indigenous people and their communities – those who are most directly harmed by racism. The members largely reflect these communities and have lived experience in these communities that they serve, with Executive Dow Constantine, Abigail Echo-Hawk and Dr. Ben Danielson, serving as co-chairs. 

The Gathering Collaborative is an iterative co-creation effort between King County government and the community. The Gathering Collaborative community members will collaborate with King County to equitably distribute $25 million that starts to undo the harms of racism compounded by the pandemic, influence the County’s budget cycle and process, and establish a longer-term, multi-generational vision for King County to become an anti-racist government. 

Focus Populations

The focus of this effort and the related investments is to start to undo the harms on the following populations who, based on extensive research and data nationally and in King County, most negatively experience the generational, current, and longstanding impacts of racism, making it a public health crisis:

• Black Americans who are the descendants of enslaved Africans and continue to experience the ongoing and deep impacts of systemic racism in all of its facets. 
• Indigenous Peoples directly impacted by settler colonialism within the US borders which have created the systems of institutional and structural racism perpetuated by the United States government and ongoing settler colonialism of the United States. It includes American Indians/Alaska Natives/Native Americans, Native Hawaiians, American Samoa, and Pacific Islander communities. 

Grant Priorities

Together, The Gathering Collaborative and King County aim to invest in a wide range of services, programs, operations, community advocacy efforts, and physical infrastructure designed and delivered through community-based service providers and businesses that move the needle on the established grantmaking priorities. 

• Health and Wellness
  • Increase investments in and improve wraparound services to provide family and community-based approach to mental and physical health focused on the whole community, and the whole person
  • Invest in and increase culturally rooted, community-rooted mental health providers, services, and/or entities
  • Invest in and improve Black and Indigenous healthcare and wellness overall
  • Increase resources / funds for Healthy Aging support by increasing and creating multigenerational spaces, activities, use of arts toward social justice, health literacy services, and education around medical language (an umbrella of services)
  • Increase investments in efforts that center and advance Black and Indigenous joy, play, wellness, mental health, and resilience
  • Increase and improve access to culturally appropriate, reflective, and rooted services for reproductive, women's rights
  • Improve support for family caregivers that strengthen networks of care
  • Improve and increase youth safety
  • Invest in environmental justice and recognize that it is interconnected to climate change based on where Black and Indigenous communities live, work, play, and pray
  • Invest in resources that improve health of Black and Indigenous birthing people and after birth for the birther and baby
  • Acknowledge and repair harm done to Black and Indigenous women
  • Acknowledge and address various types of system violence that disproportionally affect Black and Indigenous women, LGBTQ2S people as victims of sexual assault  
• Economic Stability and Strengthening
  • Increase support and utilization of banks, businesses, educational entities, philanthropy whose work are led by and that serve Black and Indigenous communities
  • Increase investments in entrepreneurship opportunities for Black and Indigenous women
  • Help youth get better education and allow them to build leadership and cognitive skills
  • Support new and developing entrepreneurship in Black and Indigenous communities
  • Provide a social safety net to be able to support people in meeting their material needs 
• Housing
  • Ensure housing resources are equitably distributed particularly to Black and Indigenous homeless community members
  • Create conditions and places to prioritize housing stability of Black and Indigenous families and individuals and prevent them from going into homelessness in the first place
  • Relieve financial burden of elders in Black and Indigenous communities who are experiencing gentrification pressures and help keep our elders in the homes that they are in
  • Acknowledge and repair harm done to Black and Indigenous women 
• Education
  • Increase Black and Indigenous representation and leadership in decision-making roles across various healthcare professions and systems through workforce development
  • Help youth get better education and allow them to build leadership and cognitive skills
  • Increase access to Black and Indigenous-rooted education opportunities for STEM for Black and Indigenous families and their children
  • Acknowledge and address various impacts of racism in schools on Black and Indigenous young people
  • Invest in and/or increase access to mentors, field trips, afterschool snacks and activities, etc.
  • Support new and developing entrepreneurship in Black and Indigenous communities
  • Improve, increase access to and investment in arts and culture for our Black and Indigenous youth 
• Power and Capacity  Building
  • Increase Black and Indigenous representation and leadership in decision-making roles across various healthcare professions and systems through workforce development
  • Reduce the burden on community of receiving funding, including reporting requirements
  • Help youth get better education and allow them to build leadership and cognitive skills
  • Increase tracking and transparency of how funding is being directed (revisit if done toward our health and wellness)
  • Invest in and increase community defined, built, and owned culturally rooted data gathering and research
  • Grow regional advocacy and power to continue this work
  • Improve, increase access to and investment in arts and culture for our Black and Indigenous youth 

Funding

• Total available funding for this category: $9,563,000
• Minimum award: $100,000 
• Maximum award: up to 50% of the highest total annual revenue during 2019-2022 OR $550,000 -- whichever amount is lower. 

NOTE: The Silver Family Foundation does not accept unsolicited grant proposals. However, an organization that falls within our areas of giving may submit a Letter of Inquiry at any time during the year.

About

The Silver Family Foundation provides financial support to non-profits that focus on Transformative Youth Development. The foundation supports organizations in Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

Transformative Youth Development Grant Program

The Silver Family Foundation focuses on transformative youth development programs that offer in-depth, long-term investments and opportunities for motivated, low-income youth.

We prioritize programs that have measurable results:

• Mentoring school-age youth;
• Providing academic intervention and support to help students achieve benchmark reading, successfully transition to, and complete, high school;
• preparing students for college and career through college preparatory programs, and college retention efforts.

Grants

The Silver Family Foundation strives to support positive youth development by making grants to non-profits that work with at-risk youth. Our grantmaking priorities include programs that work in the areas of youth mentorship; academic intervention and enrichment; high school completion, college and post secondary preparation and retention. 

NOTE: BECU member nominations are accepted through the Letter of Inquiry deadline, above. Nonprofit supplemental applications are due by the full proposal deadline.

Nominate a Nonprofit

Not all heroes wear capes. Some work to end hunger, others push for social equity and justice, and others transform lives through mentorship, education or the arts. Heroism takes many forms, and we're counting on you to help us identify the heroes among us.

The People Helping People Awards is an annual, member-driven program that recognizes members and nonprofits that help others. Each winner receives up to $50K in grant funds. This year, through our Black Community Development Project (BCDP), a five-year, $5 million commitment to Black communities and racial equity, we're giving up to $150K in additional funding to Black-led nonprofits nominated by BECU members.

So look around you for heroes who deserve recognition, and nominate a nonprofit for a BECU People Helping People Award today.

Giving Areas and Subcategories

Advancing Education (Pre K Through College) 

Access to education, mentoring, educational materials and programming, classroom/school and PTSA funding for educational programs/materials/experiences

Arts And Culture 

Equitable access to art experiences, underrepresented art and cultural organizations, cultural programs

Creating Economic Opportunity 

Living-wage jobs, small and startup businesses, job quality for low-wage workers

Preserving Health And Promoting Wellness 

Access to healthcare, illness prevention/cure, mental health, patient support, disabilities, veteran advocacy

Preserving Or Restoring The Environment 

Conservation, stewardship, sustainability

Providing For Basic Human Needs 

Affordable housing, homelessness, senior advocacy, infant and child advocacy, food/diaper/clothing banks

Strengthening Local Communities 

Neighborhoods, public safety, search and rescue, outdoor spaces, rotary/chambers of commerce.

NOTE: We encourage organizations who are approaching us for the first time to follow the For Grant Seekers steps outlined above. By submitting the Organization Information Form, you allow us to review your goals and missions to determine if you qualify for partner status and an invitation to submit a proposal. We will accept and review Organization Form data from January 1 - August 31. 

What We Fund

To maximize the impact of our financial support, the Foster Foundation cultivates long-term partnerships with organizations whose work aligns with our priority funding issues. By identifying well run nonprofit programs with the vision and capacity to get things done, we continue to make sound investments in the people, communities and future of the Pacific Northwest.

Priority Areas

Building strong communities benefits all of us. Improving community life encompasses not only meeting critical needs such as food, housing, healthcare, education and employment, but also enriching community spirt and well-being through the support of artistic expression, cultural programs and sports/recreational opportunities.

We seek to identify and fund under-resourced opportunities to make a difference in these four areas:

Social Services/ Human Welfare

We fund emergency and critical human services that support people and families in need. This includes food, emergency/transitional housing, job/life's skills training, counseling and other resources and opportunities that build economic self-reliance.

Education

We support innovative programs that improve literacy, learning and academic success for all ages. Training, tutoring, mentoring and enrichment programs are examples of our outreach in this area.

Medical Research, Treatment & Care

We provide funding for promising medical research to aid in the understanding, treatment and prevention of diseases. The Foundation also supports hospice care as well as HIV/AIDs research and education.

Community Engagement

We nurture the spirt and well-being of Northwest communities by supporting cultural, artistic and recreational activities that engage all ages and populations. Foundation grants help sustain arts organizations and programs that express and grow the creative imagination. We also support community sports/recreational programs, centers and activities that promote health, well-being and teamwork.

Geographic Reach

With both family and business roots in the Pacific Northwest, The Foster Foundation takes a regional approach to giving. We target our funding to assist nonprofits engaged in our priority funding concerns within Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Alaska.

In addressing the founders' original intent, the Foundation will expand our philanthropy into smaller, more diverse communities within this five state area over the coming years. We will continue to support existing grantees. But, we desire to learn about and fund other pioneering initiatives and nonprofit programs that address the underserved and disadvantaged segments of this population―especially children, women and seniors.

NOTE: Pre-application Due: Applicants must start an application in PRISM by June 15, 2023 - see pre-proposal deadline above. Applications are due July 13, 2023.

Outdoor Learning Grants

All children deserve equitable access to outdoor spaces where they can learn, play, and grow, but access to outdoor educational opportunities is inequitable. In 2022, the Washington State Legislature funded the Outdoor Learning Grants program, with a goal to develop and support outdoor educational experiences for students in Washington public schools.

Grants are available for federally recognized tribes and outdoor education providers to support existing capacity and to increase future capacity for outdoor learning experiences. Grant applicants must partner with at least one Washington public school or district (this includes public preschools, tribal schools, public charters schools, and Open Doors Youth Reengagement programs).

The grant program is managed by the Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), which teamed up with the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office (RCO) to administer the grant program.

Typical Projects

• Hands-on, environmental education, nature-based learning experiences
• Science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM) education activities
• Learning about habitat restoration and environmental stewardship activities
• Integration of professional environmental and land management mentors in learning
• Immersive field studies, journaling, and group discussions