NOTE: Applications are accepted on an ongoing basis and must be received at least 60 days before your gathering.

Our Mission

Group Health Foundation will shape and accelerate efforts to improve health equity and advance community aspirations for a vibrant, healthy future in Washington.

Sponsorship Requests

Events and gatherings are important opportunities for people to come together, and we aim for organizations and leaders working for equity and racial justice to do just that through sponsorships.

We are most likely to support organizations whose leadership reflects the communities they serve. Sponsorships are one way we get to know more about the work of organizations, how they are connected to their communities, and their efforts to bring people together for change.

Deciding Factors for Sponsorships

We are most likely to support organizations whose leadership reflects the communities they serve because we believe the people most affected by racial and social inequities should be at the center of solutions.

Throughout our work, we support organizations led by and serving Black, Indigenous, and other people of color; immigrants and refugees; the queer and disability communities; and people who identify with more than one of these groups.

For sponsorships, we consider the following:

Race/Ethnicity: We evaluate how your event reflects the communities you serve — including your organization’s leadership, the event design, and more—giving preference to culturally specific, multiracial, and cross-racial organizations and events.

Disability/Ability: We prioritize disability-led organizations and those organizing for disabled people to be fully included because we recognize that people with disabilities frequently experience inequities. We also ask applicants to share how a sponsored event will be accessible to all people.

Socioeconomics: We prioritize sponsorships for organizations based in communities experiencing poverty that are led by individuals living with low incomes.

Organization size: We encourage small and mid-size nonprofits to apply and prioritize support for events where sponsorships might have the biggest effect.

Geography: We prioritize areas where philanthropic funding is less common, and our support can go further, recognizing that the bulk of philanthropic funding is concentrated in Western Washington.

We also welcome applications from organizations serving communities along our state’s borders and from tribes for whom Washington is part of their traditional territory.

Sponsorships

Sponsorships are not limited to the examples here, and we welcome your ideas for the events you are hosting that will benefit your organization and community and advance equity and racial justice. We support in-person, virtual, and hybrid events. 

Celebrations and Similar Events

that bring people together based on culture, community, and/or personal identities to build connections and foster collective action.

Staff and Leadership Retreats

with agendas focused on learning and action planning related to systems change or equity efforts.

Professional Development

to equip your staff and/or volunteers with knowledge and skills that deepen their understanding of equity and justice work, further your mission, or serve your community.

Strategic Planning Sessions

that allow your organization to think big-picture and identify key strategies to move your work forward.

Open Houses

that welcome community members and other organizations to tour your space, learn about your work, and connect with your organization and one another.

Fundraisers

to support and strengthen your organization’s long-term agenda.

Guidelines

Grants from National Trust Preservation Funds (NTPF) are intended to encourage preservation at the local level by supporting on-going preservation work and by providing seed money for preservation projects. These grants help stimulate public discussion, enable local groups to gain the technical expertise needed for preservation projects, introduce the public to preservation concepts and techniques, and encourage financial participation by the private sector.

A small grant at the right time can go a long way and is often the catalyst that inspires a community to take action on a preservation project. Grants generally start at $2,500 and range up to $5,000. The selection process is very competitive.

Eligible Activities

National Trust Preservation Fund grants are awarded for planning activities and education efforts focused on preservation. Grant funds can be used to launch new initiatives or to provide additional support to on-going efforts.

Planning: Supporting existing staff (nonprofit applicants only) or obtaining professional expertise in areas such as architecture, archaeology, engineering, preservation planning, land-use planning, and law. Eligible planning activities include, but are not limited to:

• Hiring a preservation architect or landscape architect, or funding existing staff with expertise in these areas, to produce a historic structure report or historic landscape master plan.
• Hiring a preservation planner, or funding existing staff with expertise in this area, to produce design guidelines for a historic district.
• Hiring a real estate development consultant, or funding existing staff with expertise in this area, to produce an economic feasibility study for the reuse of a threatened structure.
• Sponsoring a community forum to develop a shared vision for the future of a historic neighborhood.
• Organizational capacity building activities such as hiring fundraising consultants, conducting board training, etc.

Education and Outreach: Support for preservation education activities aimed at the public. The National Trust is particularly interested in programs aimed at reaching new audiences. Funding will be provided to projects that employ innovative techniques and formats aimed at introducing new audiences to the preservation movement, whether that be through education programming or conference sessions.

What does this program do?

This program is designed to provide technical assistance and training for small rural businesses. Small means that the business has fewer than 50 new workers and less than $1 million in gross revenue.

What kind of funding is available?

There is no maximum grant amount; however, smaller requests are given higher priority. There is no cost sharing requirement. Opportunity grants are limited to up to 10 percent of the total Rural Business Development Grant annual funding.

How may funds be used?

Enterprise grants must be used on projects to benefit small and emerging businesses in rural areas as specified in the grant application. Uses may include:

• Training and technical assistance, such as project planning, business counseling and training, market research, feasibility studies, professional or/technical reports or producer service improvements.
• Acquisition or development of land, easements, or rights of way; construction, conversion, renovation of buildings; plants, machinery, equipment, access for streets and roads; parking areas and utilities.
• Pollution control and abatement.
• The capitalization of revolving loan funds, including funds that will make loans for start-ups and working capital.
• Distance adult learning for job training and advancement.
• Rural transportation improvement.
• Community economic development.
• Technology-based economic development.
• Feasibility studies and business plans.
• Leadership and entrepreneur training.
• Rural business incubators.
• Long-term business strategic planning.

Opportunity grants can be used for:

• Community economic development.
• Technology-based economic development.
• Feasibility studies and business plans.
• Leadership and entrepreneur training.
• Rural business incubators.
• Long-term business strategic planning.

NOTE: All applicants must be invited to apply for a grant from Bayer Fund. Invitation codes can be requested from the Bayer site in your community or through the Contact Us page.

We support high-quality educational programming by schools and nonprofit organizations that enable access to knowledge and information and empower students and teachers in communities around the nation, with a focus on furthering STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) education. Priority is given to programs that take place during the school day, but also includes after school and summer programs, technical training programs, and academic programs that enrich or supplement school programs.

The in-school educational programs we support target grades K-12 and under-served students (50%+ students qualify for free/reduced lunch) and take place during the school day. The after school and summer programs we support include those offered by youth development organizations that take place outside of the regular school day and provide students in grades K-12 with opportunities to enhance their skills and interests through exposure to STEM fields.

All funding requests and budgets must be for program activities and expenses that start after funding decisions are made. All programs must be completed within one year of the start date, except in limited situations where longer term programs have been agreed upon. Grant award amounts vary, depending on the size of the community, the type of programming, and the reach/impact of the organization.

NOTE: Here are the pages for the Research and Development Grant and the Planning Grant.

About Us

Cambia Health Foundation is the corporate foundation of Cambia Health Solutions, which is dedicated to making the health care experience simpler, better and more affordable for people and families. Founded in 2007, the foundation has funded over $110 million in grants to advance whole-person health models at every stage of life. We make purposeful philanthropic investments in solutions that reduce disparities, eliminate systemic barriers, and result in better health care experiences and outcomes for everyone. 

Health Care Workforce

Strengthening the health care workforce, particularly in behavioral health, is key to advancing whole-person care. The pandemic and other challenges continue to put excessive strain on both paid professionals and unpaid caregivers, which exacerbate gaps in care access. There is an urgent need to address and invest in the behavioral health workforce to close these gaps.

Since its launch in 2022, our Health Care Workforce program has focused on removing barriers that contribute to workforce shortages. We invest in solutions that address the root causes of workforce shortages as well as innovative solutions that expand access, such as training providers in integrated and collaborative care models.

Our Workforce Strategy

Health care studies show people generally have better outcomes and experiences when care is provided by more diverse teams. And yet, data hows that a severe lack of diversity exists in the health care workforce. We are committed to partnering with organizations that prioritize centering racial and other diversity strategies to:

 Expand

Create opportunities to expand workforce capacity through innovative strategies to recruit new providers into the behavioral health workforce.

Support

Implement activities that address the root causes of burnout, vicarious trauma and overall reduced longevity of current health care providers, including career enrichment and advancement opportunities.

Train

Advance whole-person integrated and collaborative care models to provide primary and preventive care through training and development for a wide range of clinical and nonclinical providers.

By expanding, supporting, training and diversifying the health care workforce, we seek long-term and sustainable impact in the following areas:

• Reducing behavioral health provider shortages in our region
• Increasing the number of providers trained and supported in whole-person integrated and collaborative models of care
• Increasing diversity of the health care workforce with a focus on behavioral health care
• Reducing rates of and disparities in health care workforce anxiety, depression, tobacco use, obesity and hypertension
• Reducing rates of and disparities in unpaid caregiver anxiety, depression, tobacco use, obesity and hypertension

Implementation Grant

A grant that seeks to address a documented workforce issue that is ready to scale, replicate proven strategies within the same community context or maintain current services

Collections Care

The preservation of our past is vital to our present and our future. Our Collections Care grant helps King County’s archivists, librarians, and historians protect the real, tangible objects that make up history so that the generations of today and tomorrow can continue to learn from them.

What Collections Care Funds

Our annual Collections Care grant program supports the work of King County non-profit heritage organizations by providing the funds necessary to assess, organize, catalog, clean, repair, photograph, scan, and, ultimately, save, the King County’s cultural material.

You can use this grant for:

• Care of historic and cultural materials, artifacts, and archival records including the purchase of materials and consumable supplies used for collections care purposes.
• Developing and/or implementing a collections management policy, improving emergency preparedness plans, instituting and improving security methods for collections.
• Performing collections needs assessment surveys and implementing recommendations, completing inventories, descriptive catalog, and/or condition surveys, bridging a funding gap to conduct assessments such as Museum Assessment Program, Collections Assessment for Preservation Program, or Standards and Excellence Program for History Organizations.
• Digitization of collections or archives to minimize handling.
• Training and professional development for staff and/or volunteers in preventive collections management.
• Fees for conservators, heritage specialists, interns for collections care projects; fees directed to staff, if their work on the project is outside their regular job duties and payment is above-and-beyond their regular compensation structure.

Criteria

We fund all of our grants through a competitive process, carefully evaluating each application.

For this particular grant, we’ll look to see how well your project shows the following:

• 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.
• Feasibility: your organization’s ability to develop and complete your project within 18 months of the award date. 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. Demonstration that your organization has completed the necessary planning and assessment to care for collections in the long-term.
• Project impact and public benefit: how your project develops and preserves the historical record in King County, its potential to raise the visibility of heritage collections care and preservation, its ability to preserve heritage resources held in the public trust, your project’s ability to generate broad and/or lasting public benefit.
• Heritage priorities: how your project preserves endangered heritage resources, addresses neglected aspects of King County heritage, and provides opportunities for youth, underserved communities, and multicultural audiences.

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.

Special Note for 2023: In 2023 the foundation has a more limited budget due to increased number and amounts of grants during these past three years of the pandemic; as a result there will only be three grant cycles (no fall quarter) and strategy will focus on leveraging the impact of small (less than 15,000) size grants with both new and existing grant partners.

The purpose of the Bamford Foundation is to improve the quality of life of individuals and to strengthen their communities, primarily in Tacoma, Washington and the South Puget Sound area of the Pacific Northwest.

History

The Bamford Foundation was established in 1990 by Calvin D. Bamford, Jr. and Joanne Bamford with the intent of supporting their home community of Tacoma, Washington. As long-time President of Globe Machine Manufacturing Company, founded in 1917 and located on Tacoma’s tide-flats, Calvin has demonstrated his commitment to give back to the Tacoma community through this foundation and through his membership on boards and in a variety of community organizations. Likewise, Joanne, having moved to the area in 1967 when she married Cal, has led a number of boards and has worked with many charitable organizations in the areas of education, human services and the arts, in order to improve the quality of life of families in Tacoma. The Bamford Foundation embodies the values that Joanne and Calvin instilled in their children and hope to instill in future generations. These values include the importance of family, life-long education, involvement in one's community, and generosity.

What We Support

Over the past few years, the Bamford Foundation has continued to make grants aligned with our four priority giving areas, primarily within greater Tacoma and Pierce County, in the spirit of our mission to improve the quality of life of individuals and families and to strengthen their communities. The foundation supports 501c(3) nonprofit organizations, programs, partnerships, and capital projects that are effective (research-based); innovative; that promote equity, respect and diversity; and that invite individuals and families to use their voices and resources to strengthen their communities. The foundation board has worked on refining our priority giving areas this year, which all reflect the board’s value of the transformative role of lifelong education for individuals, families and communities:

Basic Needs (access to food, physical and mental/behavioral health care, housing and shelter, clothing and other basic needs, financial stability)

We support organizations that promote self-sufficiency through enabling individuals to meet their basic needs.

Early Learning and Parent support

We promote the healthy development and learning of young children 0-8 though our support of organizations, programs and initiatives/partnerships which improve access to and quality of early learning experiences including child care, support parents and primary caregivers as their children's first teachers, and enhance professional development and support of those who work with and care for young children.

Expanded Learning Opportunities

We support access to expanded learning opportunities for all of our community members, but in particular for children and youth preschool- grade 12, which includes participation in education-related programs in arts, cultural understanding and civic engagement; in the areas of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math); social-emotional learning; environmental education; and learning support programs (supporting different pathways to learning).

Access to Higher Education and Job training opportunities

We support programs, initiatives, and organizations that improve access for people to opportunities in postsecondary education, job training, apprenticeships and career pathways, including programs that support students to complete their degrees, and to identify and reach their educational, career and life goals.

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.

Heritage Professional Development Stipend

Do you want to participate in a conference, workshop series, or skill-building sessions to gain information, skills, inspiration, practices, or approaches for your professional development and learning? These funds can help you participate, make connections, and learn new skills for your career path in the heritage field.

What Heritage Professional Development Stipend Funds

The Heritage Professional Development Stipend program provides stipends ranging from $100 to $1,000 to participate in a professional development opportunity. This stipend can be used by individuals seeking to build skills needed in the heritage field or King County-based heritage organizations to provide a training for the staffs, boards, and volunteers.

Criteria

We fund all of our grants through a competitive process, carefully evaluating each application.

For this grant, we’ll look to see how well your project shows the following:

• Research: evidence of research on the cost, the professional development or learning opportunity, and the presenting organization/trainer.
• Relevance: how well the applicant demonstrates the relevance and immediate usefulness of skills/knowledge learned, how the opportunity is relevant to their career path or the institutional needs or goals.
• Need/Goal: How clearly the applicant articulates their career goal or need to attend this opportunity, how well the applicant draws connections between the conference/training and Heritage Report or need due to COVID-19 pandemic.
• Funding: whether the affiliated institution funds professional development for staff. (Individual applicants only)

You can use this grant to:

Pay for the cost of registration and travel to participate in a professional development or learning opportunity related to career maintenance in the heritage field. These programs can take many forms, but might include conferences, workshops, technical assistance programs, training opportunities, demonstrations, and healing opportunities especially for heritage workers engaged with social justice work within the field.

Pay for professional consultants, heritage specialists, or staff time if work on the project is outside their regular work duties, materials and consumable supplies used for your project, transportation, and documentation.

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. In this program, the growth of heritage professionals is a public benefit, since the King County heritage field will benefit from the work done by informed heritage professionals. In your application, tell us exactly how you will use the information and skills learned so that your fellow King County residents will be able to enjoy and learn from your professional growth.

Here are some ways you can provide public benefit:

• Use the new approach learned from a workshop to documenting and preserving material culture in King County.
• Utilize the skills gained to address a challenge within the heritage field.

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.