Deadline: 26-Feb-21
The Miami Foundation has launched the 2021 Community Grant Program to address Greater Miami’s most pressing needs while honoring the intent of funds donated to the Foundation.
The Foundation is constantly growing and evolving to strengthen Greater Miami. For over 50 years, they have been building endowment funds with generous donors to be a permanent community resource.
Priorities
The priorities are what they will look for to evaluate a proposed program, project, or community work. These priorities will serve as criteria during the review process.
- Advance equity of marginalized people and communities: They will prioritize working with marginalized communities. This includes approaches that tackle disparities around race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, or other factors. They will focus attention on people of color and the organizations they lead, particularly to address Black racial equity and justice given their deep roots in historic racism.
- Focus on progress: They will support work guided by tangible indicators of growth and progress for people and communities that are best suited to the type of work – whether it is direct services or advocacy and organizing work to change institutions and systems. The results will have strong potential to create timely and impactful opportunities for individuals and communities to advance and thrive.
- Build solutions: They seek approaches that identify underlying barriers or challenges that hold people or communities back from their highest potential. Strong approaches will strive to address the barriers and challenges in ways that can improve peoples’ current situations and help equip them for the long-term.
- Collaborate with the community: Authentic relationships with the people affected by issues and disparities are vital to inform and shape the most effective work. They will prioritize organizations that intentionally gather and apply community guidance or leadership to add valuable insight into solutions.
- Sustainability: They seek to support nonprofits’ goals for high-quality, viable work while also investing in what each organization needs to be strong and healthy. They will look for proposals that reflect how each nonprofit envisions that funds can be best used to power its proposed goals while also supporting its capacity.
Funding Categories
The Foundation will invest a total of $1.25 million across the categories below. They represent the areas for which they have funds available to build community resources, opportunity, and progress.
- Access to Health and Wellness | $225,000 | Improve health outcomes by connecting people to quality health resources and education, reducing health disparities, or tackling contributing social determinants of health.
- Economic Stability | $225,000 | Improve residents’ ability to meet local affordability challenges by helping them secure affordable, stable housing, recover from the financial crisis, and/or increase earning potential.
- Inclusion of People with Diverse Abilities | $150,000 | Expand opportunities for people with disabilities to lead purposeful, productive lives and be increasingly integrated into all aspects of community life.
- Sustainable Environment | $150,000 | Develop a healthier, more livable community by preserving the unique environment, building resiliency amid climate change, and expanding local awareness and stewardship.
- Thriving Youth and Families | $500,000 | Expand opportunities for youth to excel from early childhood to career through high-quality education, enrichment experiences, and personal development that build resilience, or work that ensures their safety and stability. This can include support for adult caregivers so the whole family can thrive.
Funding Information
- The maximum grant award is $40,000. The average grant award is about $20,000.
Eligibility Criteria
- Eligible applicants are nonprofits with an active 501(c)(3) status as a public charity or projects with an established fiscal sponsor that has this status. The proposed work must primarily serve Miami-Dade County residents. While they will give preference to investing in nonprofits based in Greater Miami, they also encourage partnerships with groups outside the community to bring in their ideas and capacity. If you have a current grant through any Foundation program, you must be in compliance with that grant to apply.
- Each nonprofit may submit one proposal. They welcome collaboration – for collaborative efforts between two or more nonprofits, the partners should select one nonprofit to serve as lead applicant. Colleges and universities may submit up to three proposals, but each should be from different departments or colleges.
For more information, visit https://miamifoundation.org/grantprograms