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.

The Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation funds direct service non-profit organizations that help improve the quality of people’s lives by providing them with the tools they need to succeed. Since its inception in 1988, it has funded programs for those with special needs, summer camps for cancer-stricken or troubled children and ensured access to theater, arts and music programs by economically disadvantaged youth and their families. It has granted wishes for terminally ill children, awards for science and math fair winners, and funded programs to purchase clothing, school supplies and toys for needy children. The Foundation also has supported rescue missions, food banks, shelters for victims of domestic violence, free mammogram exams for low-income women, and dental screenings and preventive care for underprivileged youth.

When making a grant decision, we examine each organization’s financial stability, staffing and facility capacity, and relevant partnerships. Additionally, we assess the capability of an organization to sustain a program into the future and their ability to show measurable impact on the population they serve. Finally, funding is guided toward organizations that support low income, rural, and underserved populations through one of our four main focus areas:

Our Four Main Focus:

The Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation funds organizations that have accurately identified needs consistent with our mission and scope and who have successfully worked to provide programs and services that give youth and economically and socially disadvantaged individuals, families and those with special needs the tools they need to succeed in life.

Education

Education taps the immeasurable potential of the mind. Reaching children through early childhood education, after-school learning programs, post-secondary and graduate scholarships help our young people get the start they deserve. Providing higher education scholarships and funding educational programs helps build a strong educational foundation for future leaders.

Health and Human Services

Health and Human Services ensures the vitality of the human body and spirit. We target programs that ensure access to basic health care services to the most vulnerable members of our communities, as well as programs that educate our youth about wellness, nutrition, exercise and healthy lifestyles. We also support experiential programs that offer disabled or disadvantaged people opportunities they may not have otherwise.

Arts and Culture

Arts and Culture represents the innovation and creativity of a society. Through cultural endeavors we help bring people together to share their creative talents, intellects, passions, customs and bold initiatives to explore new ways of doing things. In the areas of theatre, art, and music the Foundation grants have helped organizations reach a broader audience, infused new life into programs and created long-lasting cultural traditions within our communities.

Community Service

Community Service touches the lives of everyone where they work, play and live. Despite our individual differences, we are linked by common interests to do more for the places we call home. The Foundation invests in organizations that fortify this connection. When everyone is involved one way or another in the improvement of their community, the community progresses in a positive direction.

Safeco Insurance Fund

​Established in 2006, the Safeco Insurance Fund, a fund of the Liberty Mutual Foundation, supports the communities in which we live and work. In partnership with our grantees, our common purpose is: to invest the expertise, leadership and the financial strength of Liberty Mutual Insurance and its employees to improve the lives of our most vulnerable neighbors. 

Our grants help nonprofits that work to empower families and individuals who are struggling to thrive despite challenging situations. To that end, our grant-making priorities focus on organizations and programs in Seattle/King County that provide accessibility for individuals of all abilities; security for men, women and children experiencing homelessness; and educational opportunities for children and youth living in poverty.

We strive to give nonprofit organizations the flexibility they need. Therefore, the Safeco Insurance Fund makes single and multi-year program grants, supplemented by occasional capital and operating support. Discretionary proposals are accepted on a rolling basis and our Request for Proposals in specific funding areas have stated deadlines and are widely posted. Our review process is continuous.

Goals

Our goal is to invest in leadership that is responsible. To that end, we give preference to nonprofit organizations with these attributes:

• solid financials
• clearly articulated systems for measuring impact
• a strong board and staff
• thoughtful strategic plans and budgets 

Places

​Safeco Insurance Fund contributes the majority of its funding to organizations and programs that serve Washington and Oregon.

Liberty Mutual Group also supports organizations in other communities where we have employees and customers. Through our employee giving program, Give with Liberty, Liberty Mutual Group's Foundations support approximately 7,000 charitable organizations nationwide by providing a 50 percent match on employee donations made through payroll deductions.

Programs

​Education

Safeco Insurance Fund gives priority to educational programs that encourage disadvantaged youth to excel academically and that create opportunities for lifelong success through learning.

Health and Safety

Safeco Insurance Fund favors organizations and programs that are committed to improving the quality of life and safety in our communities.

Populations

​Youth

Safeco invests much of its funding in youth. Priority is given to programs serving disadvantaged children and teenagers.

Low-Income Families and Individuals

The Fund favors humanitarian organizations and programs that deliver basic human services and that create opportunities for self-sufficiency for low-income individuals and families.

People with Disabilities

Safeco Insurance Fund supports organizations and projects that promote the participation of people with disabilities in all aspects of our communities.

Types of Support

General Operating Support

General operating funds are considered for agencies whose missions closely align with those of Safeco Insurance Fund.

Program Support

Organizations whose missions are outside the scope of education or health and safety are encouraged to request specific project funding relevant to the thrust and priorities of our philanthropy program.

Capital Funding

Occasionally, the Fund provides funding to the capital campaigns of organizations whose missions closely align to that of the Safeco Insurance Fund.

OUR GRANTMAKING

Since our founding, the collective membership of Washington Women’s Foundation (WaWF) has granted millions of dollars to nonprofit organizations across Washington State. Despite these investments, inequity and disparate access to justice, housing, food, art, community culture, healthcare, environmental safety, fair labor, and education persist throughout our state.

At the same time, we know there is no shortage of impactful, hopeful work being done to disrupt systems of oppression and the inequities they perpetuate. We fund change and changemakers in Washington State: the people and organizations driving equitable solutions to the greatest challenges facing our communities.

COLLECTIVE GRANTS

We're delighted to announce that Washington Women's Foundation's 2024 Funding & Learning Priorities are:

• Theme: Arts & Community Culture
  • Priority: Expanding Access to Arts in Schools
• Theme: Housing & Hunger
  • Priority: Mental Health & Housing
• Theme: Law, Justice, and Incarceration
  • Priority: Re-Entry Support

Mission

The mission of the Black United Fund of Oregon is to assist in the social and economic development of Oregon's underserved communities and to contribute to a broader understanding of ethnic and culturally diverse groups. 

Opportunities for Support

BUF offers unrestricted general operating grants to organizations whose work aligns with BUF’s mission and giving priorities. BUF’s annual grantmaking cycle opens each year in the late fall with applications generally due in January for a spring decision.

Two Grant Funding Tracks

Standalone Grants

Similar to previous grant cycles, BUF will be offering one-time monetary awards to several selected nonprofit organizations.

For the upcoming fiscal year (FY22), BUF will award approximately 6 to 9 nonprofits with grants ranging from $500 to $2,500, with the average gift being $1,500.

Organizations with 501(c)3 status are eligible to apply and selections will be made based on an organization’s alignment with BUF’s mission, impact on BIPOC communities, and more.

Nonprofit Leadership Program

Three selected organizations will be awarded a $8,000 grant along with enrollment in our Nonprofit Leadership Program. The program is an approximate one year commitment. Participating organizations are required to meet on a monthly basis with independent learning conducted between meetings. This program is designed to accelerate the growth, stability and success of Oregon’s BIPOC- and women-led grassroots nonprofits.

• Months 1-3: Organizational Basics: Governance, board development, operating and program budgets, financial management, policies and procedures, etc.
• Months 4-6: Programs and Services: Outreach, program planning, evaluation, partnerships, etc.
• Months 7-9: Fund Development: Identifying and vetting funders and donors, grant readiness, sources of support by type, etc.

The program’s core curriculum will be supplemented with one-on-one support from a variety of local subject matter experts (HR, strategic planning, fund development, etc.). Participants will also receive access to BUF’s conference room and resource library as well as reduced cost access to additional supports. This program prioritizes support for BIPOC- and/or women-led organizations. All participating organizations must already have established 501(c)(3) status. Only three qualifying nonprofit organizations will be selected for the upcoming cohort. It is requested that an organization's Executive Director, a board member, and a volunteer all participate (or a second board member if no paid staff).  Learn more

Grant Priorities

Priority for both tracks of grant support will be given to organizations whose mission and values align with BUF’s. The Black United Fund of Oregon’s mission is to assist in the social and economic development of BIPOC communities.

Funding Focus

Funding focus areas include prioritizing organizations that: 

• Offer services to BIPOC business owners and community members.
• Support BIPOC youth in achieving their career, college, and postsecondary aspirations.
• Celebrate and showcase Oregon’s diversity.
• Proactively address systems change to counter Oregon’s history of exclusionary and discriminatory policies towards ethnic and culturally diverse group.  

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: 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: Funding will be available through the 3 proposed deadlines or until the money is used. 

Community Care Fund

Community care keeps us alive and plants seeds for queer and trans futures.  

Community care is the antidote for isolation, exploitation, and oppression. We create the joy, rest, pleasure, and healing we need to sustain and transform ourselves. For queer and trans people, there are infinite possibilities for how we protect and care for each other—and this fund supports our collective efforts to practice that care.  

For us, community care is any effort to respond to community threats, harms, needs, hopes, and healing. Whether it’s mutual aid, safety planning, opportunities for healing, or any number of practices—we want to help support whatever “community care” means to you.  

Guidelines

For this grant, the definition of ‘community care’ is broad; ‘community care’ is any collective efforts to protect and care for queer and trans communities.

This funding will be unrestricted (unless you want it to be restricted) .

We define “community care” as any effort to respond to community threats, harms, needs, hopes, and healing. We welcome your own definitions and practices of community care. Examples of community care include, but are not limited to:    

• Mutual aid and financial relief 
• Community organizing, policy advocacy, political education and mobilization
• Gifts cards & stipends for community members  
• Access to housing, transportation & health care i.e. rent support, mental health, gender affirming care & abortion access 
• Opportunities for rest, grieving, healing, play, pleasure, and joy  
• Bringing community together though virtual and in person events  
• Protecting people from violence, criminalization, incarceration, detention, and deportation e.g. bail and legal fees    
• Leadership and professional development, for topics ranging from herbalism to accounting  
• Language access and justice i.e. captioning, interpretation and translation  
• Food access and justice 
• Land access and justice 
• Conflict resolution, accountability and efforts to address trauma and harm 
• Safety planning 
• Disaster and crisis preparation and response  
• Administrative and technological support for events, programs, and organizations (e.g. hardware, software & licensing) 

Grant Priorities

We prioritize funding queer, trans, and gender diverse organizations for and by Black, Brown, Indigenous and other Racialized Peoples (BBIRP).

We prioritize funding BBIRP-led LGBTQIA2S+ organizations that practice the following social justice values. We don’t expect organizations to practice all of these values, and we hope to learn more about what’s important to you:

• Racial justice
• Anti-colorism
• Gender Justice
• Feminism
• Disability Justice
• Reproductive Justice
• Fat Liberation
• Prison Abolition
• Transformative Justice
• Economic Justice and anti-capitalism
• Healing Justice
• Climate & Environmental Justice
• Housing Justice
• Immigration Justice
• Anti-imperialism and anti-militarism
• Decolonization
• Anti-ageism

We prioritize BBIRP-led LGBTQIA2S+ organizations for and by the following people. We don’t expect organizations to have every identity present, we are excited to learn more about your communities:

• People living with HIV/AIDS
• People discriminated by colorism
• Queer people
• Trans people
• Non-binary, Two-Spirit, and Gender Expansive People
• Women and people discriminated by misogyny and patriarchy
• People with disabilities
• People targeted by sizeism and fatphobia
• People who are targeted by law enforcement, incarcerated, and criminalized
• People whose livelihoods are criminalized e.g. sex work
• People exploited and harmed by capitalism
• People harmed by climate change and disasters
• People harmed by pollution, resource extraction, and land appropriation
• People experiencing houselessness and housing instability
• Immigrants
• Refugees
• People exploited and harmed by militarism, imperialism, and nationalism
• People exploited and harmed by colonization
• Youth
• Elders