Ben B. Cheney Foundation Grant

The Foundation is open to a wide variety of programs serving the communities where we give. If you have any questions about the eligibility of your community or the Foundation's level of giving in your community, please see our Where we give page.

Type of Grant

The Foundation is open to a wide variety of programs serving the communities where we give. We prefer to focus on project grants rather than ongoing operating support. However, we know the needs in the nonprofit sector are anything but typical right now. At this time, we will consider requests for both project and operational grants.

A project has three distinguishing features:

• A specific time period with a beginning and an end,
• Specific accomplishments for the project, and
• A specific budget that outlines both what resources the organization needs to achieve the stated accomplishments and where the organization plans to obtain those resources.

Project Grants

We prefer to fund projects that:

• Invest in equipment or facilities that will have a long-lasting impact on community needs.
• Demonstrate local community support with a base of local community funding.
• Develop new and innovative approaches to community problems.
• Expand existing programs to serve more people and/or areas.

Project grants are generally given on a one-time basis. The Foundation will evaluate an organization's plans for sustaining the impact of project grants, especially those for program expansion or starting new programs. That evaluation will include these questions:

• Are there identified sources of support capable of sustaining the program?
• Is the organization committed to a strategy to gain those sources of support?
• Does the project plan include activities towards gaining that sustainability?

While the Foundation understands that fund raising is a part of many organizations' budgets, we feel that this approach allows us to respond to needs that go above and beyond the annual operating budget. As a result, projects for one-time capital or equipment needs often gain priority.

Through this approach the Foundation is able to make grants to a number of first time grantees every year. Since 1975 the Foundation has supported 1,200 organizations.

Program Areas

The Foundation organizes its grant making into eight categories. They are displayed here for information purposes only. The Foundation does not budget to categories in advance and grant seekers are not required to apply by category.

• Charity - Programs providing for basic needs such as food, shelter, and clothing.
• Civic - Programs improving the quality of life in a community as a whole such as museums and recreation facilities.
• Culture - Programs encompassing the arts.
• Education - Programs supporting capital projects and scholarships, primarily for six pre-selected colleges and universities with a record of service to Pierce County.
• Elderly - Programs serving the social, health, recreational, and other needs of older people.
• Health - Programs related to providing health care.
• Social Services - Programs serving people with physical or mental disabilities or other special needs.
• Youth - Programs helping young people to gain the skills needed to become responsible and productive adults.

NOTE: UPDATE: WE HAVE RESUMED FUNDING IN-PERSON EVENTS THAT ADHERE TO CITY, STATE, AND FEDERAL PROTOCOLS FOR COVID-19 SAFETY. WE WILL ALSO CONTINUE FUNDING VIRTUAL EVENTS THROUGH JUNE 30, 2024. FOR MORE DETAIL ABOUT VIRTUAL EVENT FUNDING, SEE BELOW.

About Mini-Grants

Organizations that sponsor readings and workshops in New York State or California, or Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, New Orleans, Seattle, Tucson, or Washington, D.C., are welcome to apply for mini-grants to be used for writers' fees.

• In California, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, New Orleans, Seattle, Tucson, and Washington, D.C., mini-grants for readings or spoken word performances range from $50 to $350. Grants for workshops range from $100 to $200* per session. 
  • In California, we generally grant no more than $500 total for a workshop series.
• In New York, mini-grants for readings or spoken word performances range from $150 to $450. Grants for workshops range from $200 to $300 per session. 
  • Our program in New York offers larger grants thanks to generous support from our funders.

These caps fluctuate depending on the availability of funds in each jurisdiction and the number of applications we receive.

Organizations are encouraged to match P&W’s payment to the writer. However, if your organization is not able to match or add to the request, we will still consider the application.

Funding Priorities

As part of our belief that literature is vital to sustaining a vibrant culture and our mission to help create an environment in which literature can be appreciated by the widest possible public, priority is given to organizations that:

• serve a culturally diverse audience
• feature culturally diverse writers
• feature writers who have not previously presented at that venue
• present programs in rural or other underserved areas
• have not previously received R&W support (If an organization has received R&W funding in the past, we consider whether it has followed the grant guidelines and returned reports in a timely manner.)
• are able to match R&W's payment to the writer (not including in-kind contributions such as meals, lodging, and travel)
• have a publicity plan and/or strong publicity samples from past events.

Since its inception, the Foundation, which is still led by Lester T. Sunderland's descendants, has focused on supporting construction projects, awarding grants to nonprofits in the Kansas City region and other markets traditionally served by the Ash Grove Cement Company. 

 The Foundation prefers to make grants for construction and special interest projects rather than for annual operating expenses. 

Grants for planning, design, construction, renovation, repairs and restoration of facilities are considered. Areas of interest include higher education, youth serving agencies, health facilities, community buildings, museums, civic projects and energy efficient affordable housing projects sponsored by qualified tax-exempt organizations. 

Funding Areas

In recent grant cycles, the Board of Trustees has awarded the majority of grants in four broadly defined areas:

Health Care and Hospitals

A growing area of need in many of the communities the Foundation serves. In 2017, more than $2.9 million was awarded to hospitals and health-care groups to build and improve their facilities. 

Human Services

The Foundation awarded over $7 million to human service nonprofits in 2017, and the majority of grants in this area were awarded to groups that provide essential services to youth and families. Grantees included a range of youth-focused groups, including the Kansas 4-H Foundation, Kids TLC, Ronald McDonald House & Boys & Girls Clubs. 

Higher Education

In 2017, the Foundation awarded more than $10 million to over 45 educational organizations. Grantees included community colleges, private colleges, and public universities. 

Arts and Culture

Arts and culture projects received $7 million in 2017, including grants to the Eisenhower Foundation in Abilene, Kansas; the Kansas City Symphony, the Nelson Gallery Foundation and many more.

Note: Applications are accepted on a rolling basis and decisions are made during the quarterly board meetings. Applications are normally accepted 10 days before a board meeting so that the board of directors have time to review them. If your application is received after this, it will roll over to the next quarter.

Mission

The Norman Archibald Charitable Foundation is a private foundation created in 1976 by the Will of Norman S. Archibald to be perpetually operated exclusively for the benefit of qualified non-profit charitable organizations serving the needs of Northwest Washington.

Vision

The Foundation is governed by Directors active in the community and having experience in the law, accounting, banking and financial markets. The Directors manage the Foundation’s assets and the cost of operations to achieve superior long term financial results consistent with an acceptable level of risk. The objective is to provide an ongoing source of current grant funding and the maintenance of adequate reserves to cushion the impact on its resources of unforeseen changes in financial markets while maintaining the purchasing power of the Foundation’s assets.

What We Fund

The Archibald Foundation funds non-profit charitable organizations that provide tangible benefits and ongoing support to improve the quality of life for residents of Northwest Washington.

As a means of achieving effective use of the Foundation's funds, a portion of the annual distributions are directed to a Core group of organizations. These Core organizations represent education, museums, hunger relief agencies, the arts and United Way agencies.  Grants are confined to organizations operating within the Northwest Washington region comprising the area from the Cascades to the Pacific Ocean and from Whatcom and San Juan Counties on the north to Grey's Harbor, Thurston and Pierce Counties on the south or to projects significantly affecting residents of Northwest Washington. Our Foundation supports the ArtsFund with annual grants for such organizations. Youth (age 17 and under) performing arts organizations are continuing to be considered for grants by our Foundation.Funding CategoriesThe Foundation annually funds two categories of qualifying charitable organizations that together provide tangible support for urgent needs to improve the quality of life for residents of the region. The categories funded are: 

• A limited group of prequalified somewhat larger recurring CORE grants that are funded annually over an extended period of time. The Foundation has identified these organizations to be deserving of ongoing support. Changes to this group of organizations are infrequent. 
• A larger number of smaller REGULAR grants which in total are affordable to the Foundation while reaching significant numbers of agencies in need with limited available resources. These grants are individually smaller dollar awards (usually less than $10,000) but they fill an important need for meaningful numbers of organizations.

Scope

The Foundation contributions support programs providing community services to youth, the elderly and/or disabled, including medical services and research and to organizations supporting education, the environment, museums and the arts.

Heritage Projects

Through Heritage Projects we support the people and organizations making history relevant and provocative through exhibits, publications, oral histories, and more.

What Heritage Projects Funds

4Culture’s Heritage Projects funding program promotes the identification, documentation, exhibition, and interpretation of historic and cultural materials exploring the heritage and historical record in King County, Washington. Awards range from $1,000 to $10,000.

You can use this grant to:

• Create heritage resources including, but not limited to, books, guides, brochures, research projects, digital projects, oral, visual, or audio recordings, museum exhibits and programs, and education curriculum.
• Preservation of material cultural related to heritage in King County.
• Produce special events and programs that highlight our region’s heritage including, but not limited to: conferences, workshops, technical assistance programs, apprenticeship or training opportunities, historic walking, cycling, or driving tours, field schools, skill demonstrations, and programs that facilitate collaboration between heritage organizations.
• Provide opportunities for populations underrepresented in mainstream heritage organizations including people of color, LGBTQ communities, youth, people with disabilities, and gender variant communities to work firsthand with heritage resources.
• Pay for materials and consumable supplies used for your project, transportation, documentation, and compensation for professional consultants, heritage specialists, trainees, or staff time if work on the project is outside their regular work duties and payment is beyond their regular compensation structure.

Criteria

For this grant, panelists will use the below criteria to score each application:

Project impact and public benefit: how well your project helps develop the historical record in King County, particularly related to time-sensitive issues and narratives, its potential to raise the visibility of heritage work, and its ability to increase public access to heritage resources and programs. This might include free performances, exhibitions, workshops, screenings, or readings, as well as free, electronically accessible materials, including literary publications, audio, or video recordings.

Quality and qualifications: how well your project aligns with professional standards and best practices, the qualifications of you and your project team, and how your project meets the goals of your organization’s mission or needs in the community. Qualifications can be skill, experience, training, or knowledge-based.

Feasibility: clearly state why and how this project must start in 2021, the ability to complete your project within 18 months. This is demonstrated through the qualifications of you and your project team, your budget—including your ability to raise additional funding—and your ability to fund the project on a reimbursement basis.

Advancing Equity: how your project focuses on telling the story of marginalized communities and provides opportunities for underserved populations, including people of color, LGBTQ communities, youth, and people with disabilities, to tell their own stories and/or work firsthand with heritage resources. Is your project led by or does it center marginalized communities or audiences in its development and implementation.

Public Benefit: Why It Matters

Every time a visitor to Washington State stays in a hotel, they pay a Lodging Tax—this is where our funding comes from, and our mission is to put it back into the community. As you work through your application, tell us exactly how your fellow King County residents will be able to enjoy and learn from your work. Here are some ways you can provide public benefit:

• Free performances, exhibitions, workshops, screenings, or readings.
• Events in the often under-served areas of suburban or rural King County, to low-income, youth and senior groups, individuals with limited physical abilities, recent immigrants, or residents from minority races or ethnicities.
• Free, electronically accessible materials, including literary publications, audio, or video recordings.

Equity Investments

In order to combat inequities in our grantmaking, 4Culture is introducing Equity Investments. This practice will incorporate indicators of structural inequity into our panel process, including geographic location, income, operating budget, audiences served, and project focus. By prioritizing these factors, we intend to more equitably distribute funds to communities that have historically been excluded from cultural funding.

Each of our grant programs will implement an Equity Investment system tailored to the specific needs of its applicants; please read the After You Submit section of this page for details on how Equity Investments will function for this grant. This organization-wide change—and what we learn about its impact—is an important step towards more equitable funding at 4Culture and throughout the King County cultural sector.

Our Mission

The RPM Foundation supports restoration and preservation training programs for the next generation of automotive, motorcycle and marine craftsmen. As the educational arm of America’s Automotive Trust, the services, resources and grants provided by the RPM Foundation safeguard the future of the collector vehicle industry by sustaining hands-on training for young adults. The RPM Foundation is based in Chicago with an office in Tacoma, Washington, and Ambassadors in 11 states and abroad.

The RPM Foundation is dedicated to ensuring that critical skills necessary to preserve and restore collector vehicles are not lost by providing scholarships and educational grants to students and organizations committed to hands-on training of the trades.

We promote interest in collectible vehicles by developing the next generation of enthusiasts and restorers in the following ways:

• Support the post-secondary education and training of youth in the manual arts.
• Work to ensure no skill is lost, no master craftsman is without an apprentice and no student is without an opportunity.
• Fund individual career-focused training in the skills and trades especially important to the future of the collector vehicle community through educational scholarships, internships and apprenticeships.
• Provide grants to educational institutions and organizations engaged in training and developing skills related to promoting, protecting and preserving collectible vehicles.

Who We Are

The RPM Foundation provides the pathway to careers for the next generation of automotive, motorcycle and marine restoration and preservation craftsmen and artisans through formal training and mentorship.

What We Do

We promote interest in collectible cars, motorcycles and boats by developing the next generation of enthusiasts, restorers and craftsmen. By providing funding through scholarships and grants to organizations that have a proven history of being committed to the ‘hands-on’ training of young people, we are securing the future of the automotive and marine restoration and preservation industries.

What We’re Looking For

We are concerned about the future and the fact that fewer young people are learning the trades and skills that will help preserve our heritage. To that end, we help organizations who are dedicated to instructing and training young people, primarily 18-25 year olds, to restore and preserve vintage cars, motorcycles and boats, as well as providing them with a pathway to careers.

Typical Grant Awards 

An average first-time grant award is about $10,000. 

Pacific Power Foundation

The Pacific Power Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Pacific Power. Our mission, through our charitable investments, is to support the growth and vitality of our communities. In 2021, the Pacific Power Foundation awarded more than $1 million to local nonprofit organizations.

Apply for a Grant

Arts/Culture

Arts festivals, cultural heritage, museums, music, theater/drama and visual arts.

Lindberg Foundation Trust Grant

The Lindberg Foundation Trust was created in 1954 by W. H. Lindberg and Isabel P. Lindberg to support a variety of charitable causes. Mr. and Mrs. Lindberg were residents of Pierce County, Washington.

They were community philanthropists, supporting charitable organizations such as the Humane Society for Tacoma and Pierce County, the Tacoma Community Chest (now the United Way of Pierce County), and the Tacoma Art Museum. More than forty paintings and drawings from the estate of Mr. and Mrs. Lindberg were bequeathed to the Tacoma Art Museum in 1983. The Lindberg Collection is comprised primarily of French and German paintings from the second half of the nineteenth century, and includes works by such notable artists as Boudin, Degas, Fantin-Latour, Pissarro, Renoir, Schreyer, and Spitzweg.

Mr. Lindberg died in 1971, and Mrs. Lindberg died in 1982.

Mission

To support a variety of charitable causes in the state of Washington.

Program areas

• Arts, culture and humanities
• Education
• Environment/animals
• Health
• Human services
• Religion

NOTE: This opportunity runs on a biennial cycle. The next deadline will be in 2024.

Arts Sustained Support

Sustained Support assists with the day-to-day needs of arts organizations over two-year cycles—this reliable, consistent support lets creativity flourish in the places that make King County a cultural hub.

 What Sustained Support Funds

Arts organizations and Local Arts Agencies all over King County use Sustained Support funding as a modest but dependable building block in their annual budgets. Sustained Support provides operational funding that organizations and agencies receive for the robustness, creativity, and quality of the overall artistic services they provide to King County residents and visitors.

For arts organizations:

• Clarity and achievement of your organization’s mission and goals.
• Community impact and support, achieved through a consistent level of programming and accessibility for audiences.
• Active role of artists in your organization’s mission and activities, and the continuity of artistic, management, and board personnel.
• Financial accountability as demonstrated through board oversight, audience revenue, and contributed income.

For local arts agencies (LAAs):

• Quality, scope, diversity, and impact of your annual programming.
• Commitment of local government through dedicated staff, commission structure, and annual financial investment in cultural programming.
• Responsiveness to community needs—including diverse populations—through strategic planning, programming, funding, collaboration, technical assistance, convening, and communications.
• Growth and development of resources, scope, impact, and community participation.

Geographic Equity Enhancement

4Culture recognizes that where an organization is based or provides its services can affect access to funding and other resources. Many cultural organizations in greater King County have less access to public and private support than those located in Seattle. To take a step towards balancing these disparities, 4Culture will give a modest award increase to the 2021 Sustained Support awards for organizations located outside the City of Seattle, and for organizations located in Seattle in a 2010 US Census tract area with a Communities of Opportunity index percentile of 60% or greater.

Communities of Opportunity (COO) is a partnership and initiative of the Seattle Foundation and King County, whose purpose is to direct resources where they can have the greatest impact while overcome ongoing patterns of underfunding. Annual measures of life and health indicators by census tract are averaged over multiple years and combined to create a single index. 4Culture will use this index for the 2021 Sustained Support cycle to guide award increases toward applicants located in Communities of Opportunity.

Public Benefit: Why It Matters

Every time a visitor to Washington State stays in a hotel, they pay a Lodging Tax—this is where our funding comes from, and our mission is to put it back into the community. As you work through your application, tell us exactly how your fellow King County residents will be able to enjoy and learn from your work. Here are some ways you can provide public benefit:

• Free performances, exhibitions, workshops, screenings, or readings.
• Events in the often under-served areas of suburban or rural King County, to low-income, youth and senior groups, individuals with limited physical abilities, recent immigrants, or residents from minority races or ethnicities.
• Free, electronically accessible materials, including literary publications, audio, or video recordings.