Deadline: 30 April 2019
Nominations are open for 2019 J.M.K. Innovation Prize which seeks out innovators who are spearheading transformative early-stage projects in the fields of the environment, heritage conservation, and social justice.
The J.M.K. Innovation Prize is open to non-profit and mission-driven for-profit organizations that are tackling America’s most pressing challenges through social innovation.
In 2019, they will award up to ten Prizes, each including a cash award of $150,000 over three years, plus $25,000 for project expenses, for a total award of $175,000. Awardees also receive guidance through the Fund and its resource network, providing tools and training for ascendant change agents.
About the Prize
For more than three generations, The J.M. Kaplan Fund has provided catalytic funding for projects in their early stages of development. Whether a pilot project, a new organization, or a nascent initiative, work supported by the Fund has involved a certain measured risk that ultimately led to large-scale, transformative results. They launched the J.M.K. Innovation Prize in 2015 to leverage this legacy of catalytic grant-making in the field of social innovation. Currently on a biennial schedule, the Prize has to date funded twenty wildly creative solutions to social and environmental challenges, ranging from high-tech efforts to restore imperiled coral reefs, to the nation’s first farm labor trust.
Program Areas
Each awardee takes a visionary approach to a societal need, working within one or more of the Fund’s three program areas:
- The Environment: Protecting natural resources and reducing the impacts of climate change.
- Heritage Conservation: Conserving the places that communities care about most.
- Social Justice: Supporting just alternatives and reforms to the criminal justice and immigration systems.
Criteria for Selection
- Individuals or teams representing non-profit or for-profit organizations are eligible to apply for the 2019 J.M.K. Innovation Prize. The Prize will be awarded to projects or ideas that:
- represent a game-changing answer to a clearly identified need;
- are innovative within one or more of the Fund’s three program areas;
- demonstrate the potential to develop an actionable pilot or prototype with Prize funding; and
- hold out the promise to benefit multiple individuals, communities, or sectors through a clearly articulated theory of change.
- Some cutting-edge social innovation can be more impactful using market solutions, but may require philanthropic seed capital. They thus welcome mission-driven for-profit organizations to apply for the 2019 Prize, with funding provided in the form of philanthropic grants rather than an equity stake in the company.
The 2019 Timeline
Application for the 2019 J.M.K. Innovation Prize is a two-step process. A first-round application will be available on January 29 and will be open until April 30. Select applicants will be invited to submit a more detailed second-round application in late spring. Finalists will be invited to New York City in the fall to present their ideas to the trustees of The J.M. Kaplan Fund. Awardees will be formally announced in November 2019.
How to Apply
Applicants can apply online via given website.
For more information, please visit https://www.jmkfund.org/innovation-prize-2019/